The grandiose propagandist.

Filmmaker Michael Moore gloats (via Drudge):

My pollster friend told me that he believes if Kerry wins, "Fahrenheit 9/11" will be one of the top three reasons for his election.

Yes, why don't you just go ahead and take credit in advance? One thing about Moore, which is kind of a safeguard against Moore: his ego is bigger than his desire to help the candidate he supports. Moore wants his movie "Fahrenheit 911" to air on television before the election, but the mean old DVD distributor says it would violate the contract. But the greater problem, he asserts, is sacrificing Oscar eligibility:

Academy rules forbid the airing of a documentary on television within nine months of its theatrical release (fiction films do not have the same restriction).

Although I have no assurance from our home video distributor that they would allow a one-time television broadcast -- and the chances are they probably won't -- I have decided it is more important to take that risk and hope against hope that I can persuade someone to put it on TV, even if it's the night before the election.

Therefore, I have decided not to submit "Fahrenheit 9/11" for consideration for the Best Documentary Oscar. If there is even the remotest of chances that I can get this film seen by a few million more Americans before election day, then that is more important to me than winning another documentary Oscar.

I love the way he flaunts his willingness to forgo an Oscar, when the home video contract also prevents him from intruding himself into the last days of the presidential campaign. It's obviously not going to be on TV, so the gesture of stepping out of the Documentary Oscar category obviously has other motives. Isn't it hugely big of him to forgo the Documentary Oscar for the sake of the greater good, when it doesn't make him ineligible for the Best Picture Oscar? Read for yourself how Moore asserts that he was a sure bet to win the Documentary Oscar, so that his withdrawing will give some of the lesser documentarians--whose success he made possible!--a chance.

How is Moore disadvantaged in any way in all of this? He gets to parade as some sort of political saint, promote his DVD, and put pressure on the Academy to nominate him for Best Picture! Does this grandiose character even help Kerry? But I'm not going to feel sorry for Kerry until he distances himself from this propangandist!