No grace, no civility, just anger

There he is on the cover of Time magazine, looking like some kind of avenging angel, and there he is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, like a star-spangled Limbaugh of the left, in both cases staring defiantly out at America, the Man of the Moment. His name (cue the drums and bugles) is Michael Moore.

His voice and visage come at us from every corner, a hero at last for those whose timid hearts would not allow them to be so brazen, so bully-boy tough. “Fahrenheit 9/11” has become to the devoted liberal what “The Passion of the Christ” is to the devoted Christian, a spiritual experience, an event, a soul-filling drink of satisfaction.

I have a little trouble with that.

Moore’s in-your-face, out-to-get-’em cinema verite lacks grace and subtlety, elements of civility that the left had until now been quick to encourage, in contrast to the bludgeons they often faced. I admit there is a kind of evil joy in watching the Republicans squirm, and I’m certain that somewhere Dick Cheney is saying to Moore in absentia what he said to Democratic Sen. Patrick J. Leahy in person, lacking the capacity to otherwise articulate his sense of impending doom. The middle finger is, in effect, the administration’s intellectual response to criticism from the “unpatriotic.”

But still ...

I’m bothered by the idea of the satirist emerging as anyone’s hero, since by the very nature of satire, he ought to be no one’s hero. The satirist should dine alone, as much mistrusted by the left as by the right. He is, if true to the art, no one’s baby. Michael Moore, alas, camera in one hand, flag in the other, lacks the ironic sensitivities of a cynic and emerges as just another Hollywood gimmick.

By saying that, I don’t mean to minimize his almost messianic influence on those who believe without question that George W. Bush has emerged out of history’s slime to bedevil the left. I was sitting around with a bunch of poets and artists the other day when the subject of “Fahrenheit

9/11” came up. A hush fell over the group at its very mention.

The moment occurred at exactly 6:20 p.m., just before the poetry readings and after most of the wine had been drunk. I remember the time because a religious acquaintance used to say that any sudden silence at either 20 minutes before or 20 minutes after the hour meant that angels were singing and we were all, either consciously or unconsciously, listening.

I don’t know if the poets and artists I was among that day heard angels, but in discussing Moore and his movie they seemed to be in the grip of something sacred, as though his reappearance on the screen was vaguely equivalent to a Second Coming. I felt oddly uncomfortable then as I did later, hearing liberals verbally genuflecting to a guy making money by shouting and pounding his chest.

The kind of liberals I’ve always palled around with are more cynical in their approach to heroes and are not so easily mesmerized by the latest cultural icons. They suspect intentions, question motives and generally distrust true believers, adhering to the old notion that while faith is comfort, doubt is education.

Expressing my doubts to an acquaintance who, like Arianna Huffington, is a born-again liberal, I was told that I might be out of step with today’s methods of political combat. He suggested that Moore was defining a new form of civic warfare, taking the fight to the “enemy” with tactics that the enemy had introduced in the first place. The ultimate weapon, he added, was the camera and the willingness to use it without a lot of qualms of conscience.

I do more listening than talking in a crowd and decided in this case not to confront the man’s belief that civility and subtlety no longer have a place in the rough and tumble of stratospheric politics, where presidential armies gather to fight. The ‘50s theory of massive retaliation prevails once more, nudging into the political sensibilities of the 21st century.

While Michael Moore is no Howard Stern, they both have emerged as spokesmen for national issues, Stern wrapping himself in the 1st Amendment to protect vulgarity as his means of communication, and Moore plunging ahead with a fullback’s gracelessness to save us from the gracelessness of the right.

In the sense that I find Moore more gimmick than hero, I am a little old-fashioned, embracing more enduring principles in an age that creates and discards cultural icon in the cosmic equivalent of a moth’s life. As a poster boy for the new liberalism, Moore lacks the style necessary to achieve any kind of moral stature in my hallway of heroes.

But, like the kick of a horse, he sure doesn’t go unnoticed.

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.