House of Burgess

This book may have been somewhat more entertaining to me if I had gotten my hands on it at any point before Nov. 4. In reality, I requested my copy from the local library several weeks in advance of Election Day, but didn't find it waiting for me at the Ukiah branch until a full three weeks after Barack Obama was already declared the winner. (Hooray?)
Having said that, even if I had cracked the cover in the month of October, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed the project any more than I already do right now. Having already read two of Moore's other books ("Stupid White Men" and "Dude, Where's My Country?") I found the "Election Guide" to be a notably lazy effort. The font size used in the book was of particular note as I haven't seen text that large in a paperback book since I was in Junior High (I'm thinking of the "Goosebumps" series by R.L. Stine in particular.)
The book is 260 pages long, but I only got through about 170 of that since the last third of it is taken up by "Mike's Handy Candidate Guide" (a rundown of all the Democratic candidates he supports, which is pretty unreadable once you already know the outcome of most of these races), "Fox News/Talk Radio/McCain Campaign Easy Guide for Lifting Lines Out of Context from This Book" (which was funny, but also sort of hard to see schlepping through) and a collection of notes, sources and acknowledgments. (Maybe I've been setting too high of a goal for myself when thinking about writing a book. I mean, this got published and I could probably have tossed this off in a few weekends.)
The one thing I think gets left out of the praise/criticism of Moore is that he can be really funny. My favorite stunt of his was performed on his short-live television show "The Awful Truth." In the segment, Moore drives The Sodomobile, a pink van loaded with gay men and women, traveling across the country to U.S. states that have on-the-books sodomy laws, to fight for gay rights. At one point they encounter Pastor Fred Phelps, infamous for protesting at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, picketing during the funerals of other young gay men. Later in the show they travel to Four Corners National Monument and, um, break sodomy laws in four states (Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado) at the same time.
The same inspired flash of humor is present in several places throughout the book, mostly when he gets a rant going like this one in the section titled "How to Elect John McCain...or, How Many Democrats Does It Take to Lose the Most Winnable Presidential Election in American History?":

"After the debacles of Iraq, Katrina, gas prices, home foreclosures, our standing in the world, the failure to capture bin Laden, and revealing the identity of a CIA agent in an act of revenge, it would seem that Barack Obama should be on a cakewalk to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The man should be able to sleep his way through the rest of the campaign season. Ha! Think again."

The rest of the book is filled with a mix of "Man on the street" questions that "real" people lob over the plate for Moore to get a crack at and fantasy lists including "Ten Presidential Decrees for His First Ten Days," "Six Modest Proposals to Fix Our Broken Elections" and "One Last Job to Do When the Election is Over." (In which he outlines his not unreasonable dream of seeing the Bush team led out of the White House in handcuffs.)
It took me probably a total of two-and-a-half hours to read this thing and if I had paid the $13.99 list price I'd probably feel a bit cheated. (Heck, I only got this thing from the library and still feel vaugely ripped off.) I felt a similar despair when I viewed his latest film, "Slacker Uprising", an initially internet-only release that chronicled his unsuccessful 2004 college tour to unseat President Bush by, among other things, offering free Ramen noodles and underwear to those in the audience who registered to vote. "Slacker Uprising" had the same odds and sods quality about it that didn't appear to show the level of effort or craftsmanship I've seen from him before.
Although, given the amount of energy and furvor went into "Fahrenheit 9/11" and the subsequent tour that "Slacker Uprising" chronicles, I can almost understand the impulse.

Grade: C-