Michael Moore

While your wonderful paper mentioned the date as March 30, I was sure you meant the article about Michael Moore was intended for April Fools’ Day.

I met Michael Moore on a sidewalk in Telluride during its film festival last year. He asked me if I had seen his film “Bowling for Columbine.” I told him I felt uncomfortable to do so because my youngest sister was aunt to a fatal Columbine victim. I was impressed that he allowed me to relate my story that I had been to my sister’s niece’s grave in what had initially become a highly publicized though now-quiet cemetery and that nothing the overblown media could do could bring this victim back next week, next month, next year, next forever. He walked away and hugged his wife in sincerity. I thought, “My God, I may not agree with his politics, but maybe he gets it.” Like him or not, he inspires people to debate.

But then he appeared at a question-and-answer session and played to the crowd about his conspiracy theory that war with Iraq was going to happen just before the 2002 elections in order to bolster the post-9/11 Republican agenda. He even defended his position that Charlton Heston was only experiencing initial Alzheimer’s-related symptoms, but not full-blown Alzheimer’s itself; that Heston was in command over his controversial interview -- an interview that frankly made a notoriously gutsy, political “extremist” who stood behind Martin Luther King Jr. during the “I have a dream” speech look like an overly edited buffoon.

This isn’t about a filmmaker exerting his right to free speech. This is about an admitted conscientious objector emperor with no clothes milking the right of the 1st Amendment.

Mike Roush

Woodland Hills

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“Michael Moore, the new diplomat”?! Are you kidding?

Who wants to be represented by that guy? He’s the fat, geeky kid from high school whose only way of making friends was by making fun of himself. As an adult he makes truckloads of money by his simple-minded attacks on America. He should move to France so he can feel at home with a nation of America-haters, just like himself.

Daisy Chang

Los Angeles

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I was fortunate to spend a year studying at a French university. Being an American and believer in democracy and especially in free speech, I am very happy to see Michael Moore representing me! I know for a fact that he represents many (if not the majority) of the citizens in the U.S.

Unfortunately, now that the invasion of Iraq has begun, the media are off and running and rarely present opposition except in snippets of demonstrations (which are nationwide and worldwide).

I wish the election were sooner, but let us hope that Dubya will become part of something he does not appear to understand, namely history!

Roxane Winkler

Sherman Oaks