New Yorker: Michael Moore Is a Silly Worry Wart

I haven't yet seen "Sicko," but according to David Denby in the New Yorker, I don't have to. Denby cites the many vital topics Michael Moore shamefully neglects to discuss in the movie (such as how Cuban health care has been affected by the US embargo) and then adds:

And since he [Michael Moore] doesn't interview any of the countless Americans who have been mulling over ways to reform our system, we're supposed to come away from "Sicko" believing that sane thinking on these issues is unknown here. In the actual political world, the major Democratic Presidential candidates have already offered, or will soon offer, plans for reform. A shift to the left, or, at least, to the center, has overtaken Michael Moore, yielding an irony more striking than any he turns up: the changes in political consciousness that Moore himself has helped produce have rendered his latest film almost superfluous [emphasis added].

Wow, it's nice to know that, now that the Democratic reform plans are on the table, America's health care problems are all but solved!

Of course, there are a few intervening steps needed to usher in the new world of sanity and reform that Denby foretells: the election of one of those Democratic presidential candidates along with solid majorities of liberal Democrats in the House and Senate; the writing of a bill that actually provides meaningful health care reform; the shepherding of that bill through the gauntlet of Congressional committees that will try to eviscerate it or weigh it down with pork, earmarks, and favors to corporate supporters; and the passage and implementation of the effective new health care program in the teeth of a massive propaganda campaign against it by the insurance companies, the AMA, the anti-tax lobby, and many other interest groups.

But I guess those trivial formalities are scarcely worth worrying about. Thanks for setting my mind at ease, David Denby!