At a time when even the number one selling Country group in this country had to use damage control after exercising their right to freedom of speech, Michael Moore is not afraid of being controversial in his new book “Dude, Where’s My Country”.
Moore’s follow up to his number one bestseller of 2002 “Stupid White Men” is a full of political satire sure to get under the skin of conservatives. Even the cover, on which Moore has President Bush tied around a chain with his legs amputated and a picture of the white house with a sign that reads “Leave No Billionaire Behind,” shows his strong distaste for the current administration.
Michael Moore is everything the conservative right is not: articulate, funny, honest, and appealing.
Moore has a penchant for presenting information ironically. In one chapter he treats the lies being presented to the American public to support
war against Iraq as Whoppers, Whoppers with Cheese, and Whoppers with Bacon among others. An example is the statement that Iraq’s effort to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger was presented as a notion for backing the war, but the administration later backtracked, after senior diplomat Joseph Wilson went public that the claim had no credibility.
In “The United States of BOO,” he shines a light on the new feeling of vulnerability in Americans, following 9/11, and how it has granted the administration leverage to pass sweeping legislation such as the Patriot Act. It is in fact a lot more likely to die of the flu than as a victim of a terrorist act in the United States. He explores the Patriot Act with its complex language referring one to laws already on the books so frequently, that one would need to have all the other laws written in the past century to decipher it in layman terms.
His creative mind keeps one guessing, with chapters from “Jesus W. Christ” to “Woo Hoo! I Got Me a Tax Cut”. Granted, Moore is using this book to push his own agenda that includes getting “Bush and Co” out of office: he even has an aptly named chapter, “Bush Removal and Other Spring Cleaning Chores.” The fact that he incessantly spews unnecessary verbiage skews his journalistic credibility and makes the book more entertaining than informing.
Moore writes, “What we need is a Bushwacker! Someone who is already so beloved by the American people that, come Inauguration Day 2005, we’ll be liberated from The Smirk.” By sprinkling humor. Moore makes it easier to read, thereby appealing to the masses.
