The success of Michael Moore both internationally and at home is, shall we say, a dismaying phenomenon. To respond to this challenge, it’s not enough just to point to the inaccuracies that litter Moore’s work. Something else is needed. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Matthew D’Ancona has some ideas:

“Indeed, the problem with the American “neocons” – Cheney, Rumsfeld et al – is that they are not “neo” enough. They use old Cold War language to describe an utterly modern conflict. This war may well, for a start, be longer than the great struggle of the second half of the last century. It is certainly more complex: the triple, interlocked threat of weapons of mass destruction, global terrorist groups and rogue states is much more difficult to explain than the monolithic danger which was represented by the Soviet bloc and its ideology. And, to be prosecuted successfully, the war on terror will require durable public faith in politicians and the intelligence services that inform them: the very trust which has taken such a terrible beating before, during and after the Iraqi conflict. The anti-war lobby has the slick movies of Michael Moore. And what do we hawks have? The sickening images of Abu Ghraib, that’s what.

“This is why it isn’t enough to say that Moore manipulates the facts, or that he is a charlatan, or that his arguments are glib. The reality is that his methods are working, and working for a reason. He is the grizzled face of a culture in denial, the contrarian voice of the millions who would rather hate Dubya than confront the awesome threat that stalks our age. His success is an urgent warning to those who support the war, who grasp its importance, to raise their game, and fast. Nitpicking is not the answer. It’s the big issues that count. And it’s there that Michael Moore has no answers. If he is so visionary, why is his objective – to run Bush out of the White House – so parochial? What would he do about the new horrors of our time? Dude, where’s your sense of history?”

Read the whole thing.