Conservative bloggers try to link Michael Moore to UK terror attempts

Michael Roston
Raw Story
Jul. 04, 2007

In reaction to the terrorist attack on the Glasgow airport in Scotland and seemingly related attempts in London, several conservative bloggers attempted to draw a connection between filmmaker Michael Moore and his film Sicko with the bombers, two of whom appeared to be doctors.

British news outlets revealed Sunday that two of the people detained by United Kingdom authorities were doctors.

"Two of the five terror suspects being held in the wake of the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow are hospital doctors working in the UK," reported Sky News.

A number of right wing bloggers seized on the information and connected it to Moore's new film Sicko. The film criticizes the for profit health insurance system in the United States, and praises the United Kingdom's state-run health care system.

One writer, Mark Steyn, who contributes to the National Review Online's Corner blog, posted an e-mail he received in order to identify the connection between Moore's Sicko and the British terrorists.

"'Would these be Doctors who work for the U.K. health care system so lavishly praised by Michael Moore? ...Perhaps they are not Jihadists at all but simply men driven insane by their employer? Maybe Michael Moore has spawned an entirely new breed of suicide bomber — the alienated UK health care worker'" Steyn quotes from one e-mail, after noting "I've been getting more than a few letters along these lines."

He also posted a second e-mail, and observed, "Now that Dr Mohammed Asha has been arrested in the Glasgow/London terrorist investigation, several readers have noticed that this artfully combines Michael Moore's two most recent enthusiasms, 'insurgents' and socialized health care." Steyn, however adds, "Mr Moore has yet to call these medico-jihadists 'Minutemen.'"

The National Review's The Corner was not the only leading conservative website to try to link Moore with the British attacks.

"It seems like terrorists who really wanted to frighten Brits would have a field day by killing patients with just enough plausibility towards seeming like natural deaths. It certainly will give patients a new reason to feel uncomfortable about going to hospital," wrote Ed Morrisey at the blog Captain's Quarters. "I wonder what Michael Moore would make of this?"

The message was echoed at a less trafficked blog.

"Is this the same British medical system praised by Michael Moore in his latest agitprop movie?" asked Rick Moore of HolyCoast. "I guess the Hippocratic Oath doesn't apply to Muslims."