The XFL just never got the credit it deserved.

June 30th, 2004 | by Scott Jennings |

You’ve surely read much “I’m horrified by the lack of journalistic integrity” reaction to Fahrenheit 9/11 in several hoity-toity expensive liberal magazines, which has vaguely annoyed me. Matt Taibbi manages to sum up why:

…I’m enraged by the numerous attempts at verbose, pseudoliterary, “nuanced” criticism of Moore this week by the learned priests of our business… Michael Moore may be an ass, and impossible to like as a public figure, and a little loose with the facts, and greedy, and a shameless panderer. But he wouldn’t be necessary if even one percent of the rest of us had any balls at all.

If even one reporter had stood up during a pre-Iraq Bush press conference last year and shouted, “Bullshit!” it might have made a difference.

If even one network, instead of cheerily re-broadcasting Pentagon-generated aerial bomb footage, had risked its access to the government by saying to the Bush administration, “We’re not covering the war unless we can shoot anything we want, without restrictions,” that might have made a difference. It might have made this war look like what it is—pointless death and carnage that would have scared away every advertiser in the country—rather than a big fucking football game that you can sell Coke and Pepsi and Scott’s Fertilizer to.

And that’s why I’m a Michael Moore fan (this week). I worked across the street from the World Trade Center, my brother was sent off to fight in this war (and may be on his way back over there), and it’s made every nerve in my body raw. And I’ve been screaming “bullshit!” at my television for going-on-three years now, and finally, finally, someone is screaming “bullshit!” loud enough to be heard.

One of my biggest complaints about the movie was that Moore basically gave the mainstream media a free pass on all of this. He blamed the government for the FUD, but didn’t really stop to ask why the media was quiet and complicit. I’d have taken a facile “bin Laden connection” style montage here, anything to keep people questioning what they hear on the news.

The ex post facto questioning of the intelligence failures and the fabricated evidence for war is fine, but it hardly makes up for the fact that no one bothered to ask about funding cuts to counterterrorism or questioned the reliability of the WMD bullshit while it was still going on. The media are lazy and complicit and under the thumb of the White House, and it’s so predictable. Imbedded media with the troops was the greatest television innovation since Vince McMahon put cameras in the huddle in the XFL. We all watched our side of the game, got riled up, and loved every minute of it. And now we’re going to kick and scream and slowly realize we’ve been had.

The media has deluded themselves and failed us, and if it takes a fatty fat fat-pants fatso to be fat enough get that message across, then fine. I’m all for it.

Also: Homestar Runner certainly doesn’t me advertising for them, but when I buy a house, I’m calling Senor Cardgage. No probalo!

And: This is the Internet word game to which I’ve become addicted, despite a lack of any skill.

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