How do you explain the tenacity of Michael Moore? He’s never gotten much love from the right, and since Obama’s election, he’s been a convenient guy for those on the left to cast off to show that they’re not That Kind of Liberal.

Without debating the merits of his controversial documentaries, one thing is clear: Moore is a master of publicity. He’s been on a tear promoting his latest film, Capitalism: A Modern Love Story, chewing up some interviewers and even turning his purported cancellations into PR coups.

Last night, a guy Moore “love[s]” and said was right, Sean Hannity, interviewed Moore on his show. When he confronts his critics, Moore knows how to outflank from the right: he cited Jesus and the FBI, putting Hannity in a box. And he as much as accused Hannity, a Catholic, of lying about going to church every Sunday. The highlights below:

0:45-1:30: They start off really chummily! Fond memories of Moore being on Sean Hannity’s radio show in 2002 when Matt Drudge texted Hannity to say Moore’s book went to #1 on the bestseller list and Hannity congratulated Moore on his show. Yes, there is a media conspiracy.

2:00: Moore lost a bet with Hannity that Bush would be impeached, so he had to stand in front of the White House holding a sign saying “Sean Hannity was right!” Well, he had to stand in front of a green screen on Sean Hannity’s set holding that sign.

3:30: Moore’s best zing, and the exchange this interview will be most remembered for:

Moore: Did you go to Mass on Sunday?
Hannity: Every Sunday.
…Moore: You went to Mass this past Sunday?
Hannity: I did.
Moore: What was the sermon about? Do you remember the gospel?
Hannity: It was about Michael Moore and…
Moore: No, no. Come on. You didn’t go!
Hannity: I go every Sunday.
Moore: So do you remember the gospel this past Sunday?
Hannity: I don’t remember the gospel this past Sunday.
Moore: It was just two days ago!
Hannity: I don’t remember. I went Saturday night…

4:00-6:30: Good comeback by Hannity: just give to charity, don’t take the system apart. Sadly, he doesn’t really follow up with it, going down the same old “but Michael Moore, you’re rich” line, which Moore has a dozen prepackaged comebacks for (i.e. I don’t charter a private jet, but those wild cards at the studio make me fly around in one sometimes)

8:45: Great putdown by Moore. Moore: “You know that there weren’t weapons of mass destruction?”
Hannity: “None that we saw, none that we found.”
Moore: “Sean, now come on. You’re not into conspiracy theories, are you?”

10:20: Soundbite from Moore: “We’re the United States of America, man! Come on! You’re afraid of a few hundred guys on monkey bars?”

end of Part I: Moore: “Do you love your enemy?”
Hannity: “Yes, I do.”
Moore: “So you love Al-Qaeda, then.”
Hannity: “I don’t love them, I love them in the sense that I want to destroy them.”

Part II, 2:15: Moore, on charges that he worships Obama: “That would be against the Second Commandment… “What altar do you have at your house? To the dollar bill? To Jesus?”

Part III, start: After Hannity agrees that the FBI are “good guys,” Moore cites the FBI: “80% of the mortgage fraud has been caused by the banks and the lending institutions.”
Hannity: “Everybody got greedy.”

2:00: Breaking: Sean Hannity hasn’t read his health care contract with Fox.

The rest: mostly a retread. They disagree about who caused the subprime mortgage crisis; they disagree about whether capitalism is good or bad; Moore cites the FBI; Hannity says “goods and services” a lot.

>>>Next Page: Video of the full interview, and a poll

Michael Moore on Twitter: “Backlash Begins: CBS has cancelled (sic) me on its Mon. morning show. After I criticized ABC/Disney on GMA, they didn’t want me to do same to CBS.”

CBS, however, says he was never booked on the show.

Background: Moore was on ABC’s Good Morning America last week and called out ABC’s practice of hiring “permalancers” — permanent freelancers who are essentially full-time workers but are on contract rather than salary, which means they don’t get any of the benefits normally extended to employees. Here’s what Moore said, on the air:

“People backstage here — they don’t get to be real employees here because they don’t get the benefits, so they’re freelancers…and I said ‘Guy, I was here two years ago, you were a freelancer, what are you doing here?’ — right backstage here at ABC — he said, ‘We call ourselves permalancers now.’ They don’t get to share in just the basic benefits that an employee used to have who worked here. What’s wrong with that? What is wrong with just giving people basic things for their hard work?”

ABC’s Chris Cuomo handled it smoothly, responding “You demonstrate the question very well in the new movie and you do it in lots of ways. People will get where you’re coming from.” No biggie, right?

Maybe. Here’s the statement from a CBS spokesperson: “Michael Moore was never booked on The Early Show.” Full stop. So why did Moore tweet that then?

We reached out to a publicist from Overture Films, the distributor for Capitalism and here’s what we were told: Moore was not “confirmed” on the Early Show per se, but the Overture publicists had been in ongoing talks with the CBS Early Show bookers to have him on, as schedules evolved and dates moved around. On Wedensday, Moore did GMA; on Friday, the Overture pubicists contacted the CBS bookers to confirm for Monday, a date which had been previously settled upon. It was then that CBS said they no longer wanted to have Moore on.

“I can accurately say that the bookers who book the show have definitely been in discussion with us to have him on the show,” said the Overture rep. “When we attempted to confirm the booking they said they didn’t want to follow GMA.”

The Overture rep declined to give me the name of the bookers involved, but said that there had never been any mention about not wanting to follow GMA, nor had there been any discussion of morning show exclusivity.

So: Was Moore “canceled” from a booking that was never “confirmed?” And was the reason “not wanting to follow GMA” or not wanting to get grilled on-air about CBS permalancers? “I think CBS Early show is great, I wish them well but I think theyr’e missing the bigger picture here, which is Michael’s a great guest,” said the Overture rep. “Whether you agree with Michael Moore’s politics or not, he’s great TV.” It does seem strange to ix-nay a newsmaker while he’s in the midst of making news, and after a successful opening weekend; then again, Moore had his week of making the rounds, and CBS could legitimately think he’s played out. Whom you believe on this will probably come down to if you like Michael Moore or not.

But for the record, my take on the answer to the question in the headline is: Yes.

This post has been edited and changed numerous times today, as various pieces of the story trickled in. We’re sticking with this one.

p.s. This is the line which got applause in the theater: “For unless there is security here at home, there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”

FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights

Excerpt from President Roosevelt’s January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• And finally, the right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being. America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home, there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

(Source: Wikipedia & Jan 11,1944 FDR Fireside Chat)

The movie’s title is ironic meant as it is to show how the pursuit of filthy lucre has elevated the greed above all else in this country, and installed the richest 1% of the population comfortably at the top of life’s pyramid atop a sad, screwed, disenfranchised 99% of have-nots.

Moore is a damned good showman, and he knows how to shock (with the right amount of schlock). The message sits uncomfortably at first, with idyllic 50s-era footage used to show the consumptive, materialistic underbelly of the American dream (it doesn’t seem quite right to blame it on the Beav, as it were). And Moore is a skilled filmmaker, good with the gimmick, like his montage trying to show how Ronald Reagan ushered in a new and corrupt era (one of the most shocking moments in the film is the part where Reagan hauls off and smacks a woman across the face, calm as you please — yes it’s a movie, and yes I know it’s meant to manipulate, but — wow).

But there’s Moore driving an armored truck to Goldman Sachs and politely requesting America’s money back, and then’s there’s the Hacker family getting evicted form their home in Peoria, Illinois, lugging out their furniture to a bonfire in the back so they can at least get a $1,000 check for clearing out thoroughly. There’s Moore wrapping Wall Street in crime scene tape, and then there’s scenes shot from a sit-in inside a Chicago factory where the workers said, no, you can’t give us three days notice and cut off our pay and benefits. There’s Moore trying to make a citizen’s arrest at AIG and then there’s the woman whose dead husband was insured by Wal-Mart for $1.5 million dollars — as a business investment! — and she and her family got none of it. Say what you like about Michael Moore’s methods, but when he turns the camera on these poor, bewildered, totally screwed-over people, it’s just them and their stories making you gasp in shock.

I gasped in shock all the way through the movie. At one point I had tears in my eyes. At many points I was angry. Some of the stories of corruption Moore told were unbelievable (like the private for-profit juvenile facility that bribed judges to send kids there for extended stays, paid for by the state, or the “dead peasants” corporate insurance policies referred to above. Unbelievable).

But I have to say I gasped in shock at the afterparty, too. Look, I’ve been in New York for ten years, I’ve been to extravagant events. But after a movie like that, decrying the hedonistic, excessive luxury that is available to only the very wealthy and, by the film’s logic, the wholly uncaring — well, it felt pretty weird to walk into that afterparty. Held at the fabulous, sprawling, lushly-appointed Esquire Apartment in Soho, it was packed with good-looking, well-dressed people, had multiple bars across two suites and two balconies, featured a Steak Bar, and even had a hot tub, complete with young lovelies lounging steamily therein. Meanwhile, the Hackers were there — the Hackers from Peoria, Illinois, whom an hour ago I had watched get evicted from their home, bewildered and tearful, burning their worldly possessions. I wondered what they must think. (Actually, I asked Mr. Hacker, who said that everyone in New York seemed to be beautiful, that it was their first trip and that they were having fun. I said I was glad to see that they were doing okay; he said, “Well, we’re not in that movie for nothing.”)

So — if the Hackers can be gracious about the after-party, where I enjoyed a few appetizers and a Diet Coke — why can’t I? Well, it’s not quite that; I asked, and apparently this was not a party for Moore or funded by him or the movie, but a New York Film Festival event planned anyway. Still, after seeing that movie it felt…off-message.

And worse, it will be taken as a sign of limousine-liberal hypocrisy, used to undercut the very real, very critical message of the movie, along with its all too real examples. Exhibit A: This post from Business Insider, using my tweet from the party as proof What I wrote: “Mind a little blown. Post “Capitalism” party at a sick, sick Esquire loft in Soho. SO over-the-top capitalistic. Michael Moore just got here.” What they wrote: “So, yes, basically Moore (and his supporters and his backers) plays up the stereotype of a limousine liberal. It doesn’t discredit the film directly, but it does make him easy to ridicule and marginalize.”

What didn’t get linked by Business Insider: My 12 previous tweets about the movie, and its message. They didn’t make it into the report by The Wrap, either (“Moore Celebrates ‘Capitalism’ Premiere … at Capitalism-Fueled Penthouse “) though my amazement at the party sure did. Anti-Capitalistic movie. Ultra-capitalistic party. How can that not be the headline?

Will it quell the effect of Moore’s movie, or lessen it’s impact, or make the stories in it any less shockingly true? Of course not. But Moore made a message movie here, so its up to him to stay on it.

All that said: This is an important movie to see, one that is going to stir up a LOT of discussion (I was shocked at how much my Tweets from the post-movie Q&A were getting picked up and batted about). And it should. Amongst the media, part of that discussion will be about his methods, and his facts, and whether he’s been “fair and balanced” in their presentation. But part of that discussion will be, again, about how any of this could be allowed to happen, and why it falls to Michael Moore to pull it all together.

Hopefully some of those people will at least see the movie first.

Trailer below.