cover image Forgive Us Our Spins: Michael Moore and the Future of the Left

Forgive Us Our Spins: Michael Moore and the Future of the Left

Jesse Larner, . . Wiley, $24.95 (277pp) ISBN 978-0-471-79306-9

After the left's electoral defeat of 2004, filmmaker and all-around provocateur Michael Moore has been an easy target. In his second book, Larner deftly argues why Moore is also a just target. For liberals who never liked Moore but couldn't figure out why, the book provides essential and definitive muckraking, and the reasons why Moore has attained such prominence within America's conflicted self-image. Larner, a staunch liberal whose rage at much of the current administration's policy is palpable, also despises "political work that emphasizes emotional appeal over factual content" from either side. Moore, he argues, is similar to Anne Coulter in producing journalism of false pretext and sleight-of-montage, sabotaging his own credibility and, by proxy, that of the causes he espouses. Hence, the book is foremost an assiduously researched and impassioned exposé of the foibles that have rendered the left so vulnerable to attack. Some will undoubtedly read it as the revolution's devouring its own children. But Larner's undertaking is admirably unflinching: a call for nuance and evenhandedness from liberals who would revile that same reductionism in the right. (Sept.)