Michael Moore? Omitting the truth? Naw...

This article was brought to light by a local reporter, Erick Flack, who has discovered the TRUTH about Michael Moore. Apparently, according to high school friends, he has been classified as a 'powder keg'. Now, he is exploding. After going after the NRA, Automobile Manufacturers, and even the President himself, the TRUTH about this so called 'journalist' is coming to light. Finally.

By Eric Flack

(FLINT, Mich., February 11th, 2005) -- Controversial film maker Michael Moore has targeted a major auto manufacturer, the NRA, and the President of the United States with his highly acclaimed and highly criticized documentaries. Now he's is setting his sights on the pharmaceutical industry, including Indiana drug maker Eli Lily. As WAVE 3 Investigator Eric Flack reports, Moore's a patriot to some and a politician to others.

"He was on the school board," high school classmate Kevin Leffler said, "and they attempted a recall on him. He used to sit in the board meetings cross legged, accuse them of having secret board meetings."

To some people, Michael Moore is a powder keg.

"No decent documentarian or journalist or any other decent person intentionally lies to people," said David Kopel with the Independence Institute Think Tank in Colorado.

But there's one thing just about everyone sees in the Academy Award Winning director: controversy.

"He's telling the truth from his point of view," actor Richard Gere told a reporter last year at the premier of Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. "I don't agree with everything he says or how he does it sometimes."

Fahrenheit opened last summer, in what was called the widest release ever for a documentary. But Kopel says it's not a documentary. "It's a pack of lies, it's a collection of malicious falsehoods, distortions, half truths exaggerations and caricatures."

Kopel's Independence Institute claims to be a non-partisan, public policy think tank. His latest work is titled: "59 Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11."

"Some of them are very obvious that would get someone kicked out of college even if they were a freshman in their first class," Kopel said.

A newspaper headline in the opening scene isn't a newspaper headline at all. It's a letter to the editor Moore changed, in both font size and print style, to make it look like a headline. The paper asked Moore for an apology, but didn't get one.

Then, there's Moore's assertion the U.S. invaded Afghanistan not to combat terrorism, but to build on oil pipeline.

"The proposal for a pipeline in Afghanistan was something the Clinton Administration supported in 1998," Kopel said. "But it was abandoned long before George Bush ever became President. Enron never had anything to do with it, Halliburton never had anything to do with it, George Bush never had anything to do with it."

As for the war in Iraq, Moore bolsters his claim it was unjustified with the statement: "Saddam Hussein never killed one American."

Kopel says that's also not true. He says Hussein funded terrorist bombings against Israel, which killed a number of Americans.

And as for Moore's depiction of Iraq as a peaceful, kite flying, coffee drinking, nation before the U.S. invasion, Kopel says don't believe it.

"He doesn't show you the children's prisons, he doesn't show you the torture chambers, he doesn't show you the mass graves, where literally hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were murdered by the Saddam regime."

And remember the scene with Congressman Mark Kennedy from Minnesota? Moore includes footage of him approaching Kennedy, saying the following: "Congressman, I'm trying to get their kids to enlist in the Army and go over to Iraq."

Moore cuts away as Kennedy gives a perplexed look. But here's what we found out was the rest of the conversation, the part Moore cut out of the movie.

Moore: Is there any way you could help me with that?

Kennedy: How would I help you?

Moore: Pass it out to other members of congress.

Kennedy: I'd be happy to, especially those who voted for the war. I have a nephew on his way to Afghanistan.

We found deception by omission in more than one of Moore's movies.

In "Bowling for Columbine," Moore takes aim at the NRA for showing up in Denver days after the Columbine school shooting.

But the "Cold, Dead Hands" speech Moore cuts to, actually wasn't given in Denver. The footage came from a speech given a year later, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The NRA did hold the annual members voting meeting in Denver, because there were NRA bylaws which prohibited canceling it.

The NRA did cancel several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners and rallies, it says, out of respect for the community.

But Moore doesn't tell you about any of that.

"That's what Mike does," said Leffler. "And I have no problem with that if you say the film is fiction, if you say I'm just having a good time. But if you say this movie is factually based, then I have a real problem with that."

Leffler, a lifelong democrat, is making his own documentary aimed at exposing the truth behind the man. It's called: "Shooting Michael Moore."

"People kept talking around here that knew Mike," said Leffler. "And they said I can't believe people are buying this. And finally, I said 'you know what? I'm going to tell the story from someone who actually knew Mike.'"

In "Bowling," Moore also asks the question if the violence at Columbine could be linked to weapons of mass destruction being made at Lockheed Martin's Littleton plant.

But we found out the Littleton plant doesn't make weapons of any kind. It makes launch vehicles for TV satellites. And Evan McCollum, the Lockheed spokesman Moore interviewed, told us he made that perfectly clear to Michael Moore.

Even the title of the movie is based in a lie. Moore quips, "Why isn't anyone blaming bowling, after all, it was apparently the last thing (the shooters) were doing before the shootings."

But that's not so, according to Colorado Sheriffs deputies who investigated the case. They said the shooters were gassing up and preparing for the attack the morning of the attack.

Probably the first time you ever heard of Michael Moore was when he released his 1989 documentary, "Roger and Me." It is a scathing look at the layoff of 30,000 workers by General Motors at its truck producing plant, in Flint.

In "Roger and Me," Moore claimed the layoffs crippled the town economically. As proof, he showed local sheriffs deputy Fred Ross, evicting a number of residents.

But Ross told us "Those people I was evicting didn't have anything to do with General Motors. That was a lie. A flat out lie."

We wanted to know what Michael Moore had to say about all the criticism. But the man famous for asking questions wouldn't answer ours.

We sent numerous e-mail interview requests to Michael Moore, for a month, with no answer.

And when we tracked down's Moore's Michigan address, a $2 million lake house up north, we were frozen out, once again.

A Moore employee who wouldn't identify himself said Moore wasn't home. But he did assure us he would pass our card along to Moore or one of his reps.

No one ever got back to us. Which begs the question: where does the real deception lie?

"I think somebody needs to say to the world, this is what Michael Moore is really like," said Leffler.

We contacted the distributors for all three of Michael Moore's movies: Warner Brothers, Alliance Atlantis, and Miramax films, seeking comment on our story. None would provide spokesman to address the inaccuracies.

We also contacted Moore's media consultant, but got no response.

As for that movie on the pharmaceutical industry Moore is currently working on, it's titled: "Sicko." Stories are already circulating that the director has hired actors to pose as pharmaceutical salesman, who try to buy off doctors.

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