I happened across two related items on the Atlantic Wire, a blog of the Atlantic Monthly. One reports that liberal filmmaker Michael Moore has a very nice vacation home on the shores of Torch Lake, near Traverse City, MI. The other wonders whether George Will should disclose his political consultant wife's clients.
The Moore item carries the water of ubertroll Andrew Breitbart, who alleges that Moore is a hypocrite for being rich and criticizing the rich:
No one begrudges Moore his wealth, but it is deceitful for him to claim poverty while encouraging class warfare among other Americans. It is also purely narcissistic and selfish for Moore to back radical and destructive socialist policies that would deny other Americans the opportunity to become as rich as he is.
Torch Lake is a nice lake, Michael Moore is a rich guy. How rich? It does not matter. Has he made his money on Wall Street. No. Boo to the Atlantic for running this kind of intellectual garbage.
The other item on George Will is almost as dumb.
But it does seem that in all his words written about the Republican field so far, and particularly in the broadside against Romney, there might have been room for Will to note that he's related to someone who is actively working with some of the very campaigns he covers. Then, this is an improvement over earlier election cycles, when Will played both sides of the journalistic line, all by himself.
George Will is not a journalist. He is a pundit, a professional arguer guy, he's paid to have opinions about stuff. You can look through the archives here for what we think of his opinions (not much).
I know that this is expecting quite a bit from Breitbart, but did he happen to mention when and where did Moore "claim[ed] poverty"? I missed that one.
Perhaps Breitbart means that, in his eyes, anybody who denies being in the 1% is claiming poverty? Class warfare, indeed.
I don't know where he got that. Moore has claimed (at the link above) not to be a part of the 1%. Not sure if that's true, but I don't see its relevance. Denying that he is in the 1% however doesn't amount to crying poor.
I expect that it is literally true, that at the time Moore was asked the question he was projecting an annual income of less than @$1.5 million, such that he was not "in the 1%". I don't think it would be possible for him to deny that there have been past years, and will almost certainly be future years, when he's in the 1% by earnings. I suspect that he's presently in the 1% by assets.
The interview was looking for a "gotcha", and the interviewer didn't seem to know how to do an effective follow-up past the first question beyond, in effect, "C'mon."
Wait! Gearge Will is a pundit not a reporter?