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Moore rolls up his sleeves for US premiere

Director Michael Moore pauses during an interview in Toronto, Friday. PHOTO: AP

Feisty Michael Moore said Sunday he was poised to retaliate for any attacks on his anti-Bush film, Fahrenheit 911, whose US premiere is days away.

"We are not going to tolerate anyone trying to smear this film or the things that we're trying to say," the US filmmaker told ABC's This Week.

Fahrenheit 911 stirred controversy in the US, where the documentary had trouble finding a distributor. The top-winning film at the Cannes International Film Festival will finally be released Friday on nearly a thousand screens.

Moore, an iconoclast and pamphleteer, makes no bones about his motive for making the film, which takes US President George W. Bush to task in the run-up to the Nov. 2 general election.

"I would like to see Mr. Bush removed from the White House," he told the television network.

Moore senses a conservative backlash and threatened to haul into court anyone who libels him.

"Listen, the right wing -- you got to give them credit -- they are incredible at organizing and attacking.

"And our side of the political fence, for way too many years, has just kind of rolled over and played dead. I'm someone on the liberal, left side of the fence who doesn't do that, and I'm not going to do that," he said. He plans to set up a "war room" of politicos on the ready to answer any attack.

Moore said his film is an op-ed piece.

"It's my opinion about the last four years of the Bush administration. And that's what I call it. I'm not trying to pretend that this is some sort of, you know, fair-and-balanced work of journalism," he said, while maintaining that the film is accurate.

The attacks have already begun against the film, which rails against the Iraq war and exposes the links between Bush's family and the royal family of Saudi Arabia.

One conservative group, Move America Forward, has launched a campaign to convince theater owners to pull the film, which the groups said is anti-American.

That is a charge that makes Moore boil.

"That is so outrageous to say something like that," he told ABC.

"Everything I do, and this film in particular, says that I love this country. And I am trying to save this country from what the Bush administration has done to it."

Although Moore has lately kept a low profile, he has been making up for lost time. His interview on a major network such as ABC is a shining example.

The New York Times gave Moore plenty of ink on page one of Sunday's "Arts and Leisure" section and CNN dedicated a segment to the film.

ABC's interview with Moore was notable, since the network is owned by Disney, which refused to distribute the film. A Canadian distributor, Lions Gate Films, will handle the US debut.

As for future projects, Moore was coy.

"I think I'm just going to do a romantic comedy ... maybe an action film next time, something with, you know, car chases and tender love scenes."
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