Boffo Box Office for ‘Sicko’ Coming Soon Thanks to George Bush

The Bush administration is set to give Michael Moore’s new film “Sicko” millions of dollars in free publicity, potentially boosting it into the stratospheric range of Moore’s previous hit, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which grossed $222 million worldwide in 2004.

On Thursday, Moore announced that he had received a subpoena from the Justice Dept. He says the Bush administration is accusing him of failing to file some documents that are required to film in Cuba and that he thereby violated the Cuban embargo. Moore says journalists are not required to submit the documents in question.

This smacks of a classic Bushie vendetta, a petty swipe at a critic based on the silly hope that a subpoena and perhaps an indictment will silence him. As if. It is also the latest example of the White House political shop using the Justice Dept. to attack an opponent. Note the timing — the subpoena to Moore came within hours after Karl Rove received a subpoena from Democrats in Congress.

Subpoenaing Moore, like so many Bushevik tactics, is also a strategy designed to fail. If silencing Moore was the objective, his legal battles with the government will only give him a bigger soapbox. If tying him up in an expensive legal battle was the goal, the additional publicity will make him much richer than he would have been if the government had stayed out of it and more than offset the legal fees.

Not that “Sicko” isn’t doing quite well without Bush’s help. Despite rightwingers’ dire predictions that ticket sales would be anemic, in the three and a half weeks since “Sicko” went into wide release it has already grossed $20.3 million, and will soon surpass the $21.5 million in total domestic receipts made by “Bowling for Columbine,” for which Moore won the Best Documentary Oscar for 2002. “Sicko” hasn’t yet opened overseas.

With the free high-profile publicity from the government, especially if Moore is indicted, ticket sales for “Sicko” could surge into $200 million range of “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

And at this early stage, “Sicko” appears to be the strongest contender for the Best Documentary Oscar this year. If Hollywood types come to believe Michael Moore is being persecuted by George Bush, “Sicko” will be a shoe-in.

Other than Bush’s native aristocratic impulse to suppress dissent, why would he risk rewarding Moore and its distributors the brothers Weinstein, who are huge Dem donors, with tens of millions in extra profits?

In “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Moore excoriated George Bush for misleading the country into the war in Iraq. At the time of the movie’s release, corporate media was in the throes of hyper-nationalism brought on by the 2001 attacks. With the exception of Phil Donahue on MSBNC, who was fired for his anti-war views (and replaced with Keith Olbermann), every television host, anchor and reporter was co-opted into spouting the government line about the invasion.

Anyone who dared question the line, as Moore did in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” was called unpatriotic and labeled extreme. As controversy brewed around the the film, the GOP had an easy time changing the subject from the president’s lies to Michael Moore’s credibility. In just three short years, however, events have proved that Moore’s assertions in “Fahrenheit 9/11” were correct. And now the fact that he was right about the war is making it harder for the Bushies to attack Moore’s credibility in “Sicko.”

In the authoritarian mindset, the only option left is to arrest him.

In subpoenaing Michael Moore, the Bush administration may have made fighting reform harder for their allies in the healthcare industry, who are major donors to the GOP. As a result of the free publicity, the Bushies could inadvertently send tens of thousands of Americans to the cineplex to see “Sicko,” where they’ll be exposed to Moore’s convincing case that what is truly driving the healthcare crisis is greed.

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4 thoughts on “Boffo Box Office for ‘Sicko’ Coming Soon Thanks to George Bush”

  1. Pingback: www.buzzflash.net
  2. The Bush/Cheney Junta is nothing more than a collection of loud mouth bullies, more than willing to use force to get their way.

    Moore should reply that he’s exercising his “executive privilege” and is refusing the subpoena.

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