Iraq Vet To Smack Michael Moore With Lawsuit
by Aaron Margolis, June 1st, 2006 at 08:21am
Sgt. Peter Damon of Middleborough is seeking damages from liberal activist filmmaker Michael Moore for his manipulation of a television interview used to falsely portray the wounded National Guardsman (without permission) as anti-war in the controversal film “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
A veteran who lost both arms in the war in Iraq is suing filmmaker Michael Moore for $85 million, alleging that Moore used snippets of a television interview without his permission to falsely portray him as anti-war in “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Sgt. Peter Damon, a National Guardsman from Middleborough, is asking for damages because of “loss of reputation, emotional distress, embarrassment, and personal humiliation,” according to the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court last week.
Damon, 33, claims that Moore never asked for his consent to use a clip from an interview Damon did with NBC’s “Nightly News.”
He lost his arms when a tire on a Black Hawk helicopter exploded while he and another reservist were servicing the aircraft on the ground. Another reservist was killed in the explosion.
In his interview with NBC, Damon was asked about a new painkiller the military was using on wounded veterans. He claims in his lawsuit that the way Moore used the film clip in “Fahrenheit 9/11″ - Moore’s scathing 2004 documentary criticizing the Bush administration and the war in Iraq - makes him appear to “voice a complaint about the war effort” when he was actually complaining about “the excruciating type of pain” that comes with the injury he suffered.
In the movie, Damon is shown lying on a gurney, with his wounds bandaged. He says he feels likes he’s “being crushed in a vise.”
“But they (the painkillers) do a lot to help it,” he says. “And they take a lot of the edge off of it.”
Damon is shown shortly after U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., is speaking about the Bush administration and says, “You know, they say they’re not leaving any veterans behind, but they’re leaving all kinds of veterans behind.”
Damon contends that Moore’s positioning of the clip just after the congressman’s comments makes him appear as if he feels like he was “left behind” by the Bush administration and the military.
In his lawsuit, Damon says he “agrees with and supports the President and the United States’ war effort, and he was not left behind.”
“It’s upsetting to him because he’s lived his life supportive of his government, he’s been a patriot, he’s been a soldier, and he’s now being portrayed in a movie that is the antithesis of all of that,” Damon’s lawyer, Dennis Lynch, said.
Damon is seeking $75 million in damages for emotional distress and loss of reputation. His wife is suing for an additional $10 million in damages because of the mental distress caused to her husband, Lynch said.
I never saw the movie, don’t plan to; who needed the news of this lawsuit to know that Michael Moore is a con artist? Let’s hope that this lawsuit continues to move forward and expose Michael Moore for the hack job that he is.
Entry Filed under: News
6 Comments
1. Charley on the MTA | June 1st, 2006 at 8:57 am
Respectfully: how can you judge him as a con artist and a hack job if you haven’t seen the movie, and seen the context in which the soldier appears? (I saw the movie, and don’t remember that particular part.)
Moore gets taken to task for a lot of things, sometimes with justification (the pseudo-South Park bit in Bowling for Columbine); but his work also gets intentionally distorted by people with an ideological axe to grind. For instance, he was said to have portrayed Iraq as some kind of paradise before we started bombing; I saw the movie, and that wasn’t my impression at all. He merely showed the truth, which is that life had a semblance of normalcy before (yes, even under a vicious dictatorship), which was literally blown apart by war.
And he is more right now about Iraq than he was two years ago, and the American public has certainly come around more to his way of thinking. It really doesn’t do conservatives any favors to attack Moore, while ignoring the reality of what’s happening in Iraq. Like Laura Ingraham, apologists for this administration’s bungling seem siller and sillier.
In other words, who cares about Moore?
2. Helen | June 1st, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Charley,
Beyond “liberal” and beyond “conservative” and beyond Bush or Moore what I do care about is the abstract “patriot”. Please, please, please consider the concept that this just might be about Sgt. Peter’s honor. In my opinion all else is dwarfed.
Helen
3. Peter Porcupine | June 1st, 2006 at 3:44 pm
I DID see the film (Know Thy Enemy!), and remember wondering at the time about some of the footage with soldiers; if they were REALLY angry about Iraq, the criticism was awfully muted compared to somebody who would, oh I don’t know, throw his medals at the Pentagon?
The amazing thing, to me, is that Moore felt he didn’t need a written release to use a person’s image. THAT is what will sink him, and it’s arrogance, not con artistry. A con would do a beter job.
4. Knightbrigade | June 1st, 2006 at 4:53 pm
“an ideological axe to grind” You bet!! And Mikey Moore is one leftwing moonbat with “an ideological axe to grind”
One does not have to attend a KKK meeting to objectively have a good idea of what that organization stands for, nor do I need to suffer through any of Mikey Moores films, to know what HE stands for.
5. Salvatore Coglione | June 2nd, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Wingnutz Reduced to Attacking Filmmakers
Charley, don’t miss the forest for the trees.
The Bushies just cut anti-terror funding from NYC, Boston and DC to send it to Omaha and Ft. Lauderdale; gasoline prices are out of control; Tom DeLay resigns in disgrace in less than a week; Bill Frist was found guilty in the first of two FEC investigations; Tom Noe pled guilty to the first of many charges surrounding Coingate; Duke Cunningscam & Jack Ripemoff are decorating their respective prison cells; Karl Rove is sweating he won’t join Scooter Libby as a defendant in Traitorgate; the indicted Republican Governor of KY is facing a rebellion from his own Lt. Governor; David Safavian is telling all in court about Abramoff; Iraq has turned into a Viet Nam-style quagmire as both Iran and N. Korea advance their nuke capabilities; our top Generals want Rumsfeld to resign…
With the list of Republican Right scandals and acts of unprecedented incompetence growing by the day the barking moonbats of The Right have nothing left but to froth about… a filmmaker. Truly Pathetic.
6. Peter | June 3rd, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Sal sure does love his cool-aid!