Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore sat down with Conan O’Brien on Thursday night and a large part of their discussion focused on the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Moore reiterated his support for the movement and claimed that there are, in effect, ten million leaders of the movement spread across the country and that he was glad that there wasn’t a singular leader to the movement because Fox News would have tried to choke that person around the neck.
O’Brien: What you’re saying is the anger is coming from a good place. What if a charismatic leader did emerge for this movement? Would that be something you’re opposed to?
Moore: Yes, because what I think is great about this is that by having ten million leaders and ten million spokespeople in every PTA, in every church, in every neighborhood, that’s how this movement’s grown so fast. It’s only twelve weeks old. It already has the support of the majority of Americans who say they agree with the principles of the Occupy Wall Street movement. That we need to put regulation back on Wall Street, we need to end the Bush tax cuts for the rich and make the rich pay what everybody else pays, right? Real basic things that the majority of Americans agree with. Plus if you have one leader that makes it too easy for Fox News to wrap their hands around the neck of that leader and choke the thing.
The movement wishes it had ten million leaders. But the lack of a singular leader and a set of unified goals has plagued the movement from the start, resulting in nothing more than a series of crime- and violence-ridden encampments that have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars to protect and clean up.
Once again it looks like Moore is making figures up out of thin air. Recent polls have shown that the percentage of Americans who view the Occupy movement favorably is stuck in the low 30% range. That’s not exactly a majority.
Just like his movies, his “facts” about the Occupy movement are pure fiction. But I wouldn’t expect anything different from him.
The fun starts at the 6:30 mark.
(h/t FishbowlLA)
Don Irvine is the chairman of Accuracy in Media and its sister organization Accuracy in Academia. As the son of Reed Irvine, who launched AIM in 1969, he developed an understanding of media bias at an early age, and has been actively involved with AIM for over 30 years.
