The boo spin
: Roger Ebert gives an interview to Progressive Radio and the first question is about Michael Moore’s performance at the Oscars:
EBERT:… I agree with what he said. I don’t think Bush was legitimately elected President. But I was very offended as a reporter when Michael came directly back to the pressroom where I was, along with 300 or 400 other reporters, and lectured us, “Now do your job. Don’t report it was a divided house. Only five loud people were booing.”
Q: It didn’t sound like only five people were booing.
EBERT: No, it wasn’t five. I was just talking with Sean Welsh at the Wisconsin Film Festival, who directed “Spellbound.” He was one of the directors Michael had invited up on stage, and I asked him very carefully about that, and he said, “No, it sounded about 50-50.” But Michael immediately went into this spin-control mode. In one interview, he said it sounded like the stagehands were yelling at him, and that the boos started before he had really gotten into his speech, and that they were amplified. And then he said a lot of the boos were people booing the booers. This is like we’re in grassy knoll territory now. I think he would have been better off saying, “Well, you know, the Academy wasn’t ready for my opinion, and it was pretty divided: About half of the people booed me.” Which is what it sounded like to me.
Michael Moore is a fictional character.
: Meanwhile, Moore keeps milking this. He spoke about it again in Austin.
