On September 11, 2001, HarperCollins had printed 50,000 copies of a
100,000-copy first printing of Michael Moore's STUPID WHITE MEN.
Then the planes hit the World Trade Center. And the
presses...stopped.

The next day, HarperCollins told Moore they were putting their fall
list "on hold." Moore thought that was shrewd. But "hold" seemed to
go on and on; finally, the publisher admitted there were "problems"
with Moore's book. 

Let the author take it from here: "I was told that, unless I
re-wrote large sections of my book, plus change the title and the
cover --- and then reimburse the publisher of up to $100,000 out of
my pocket so this new version could be reprinted --- the
powers-that-be might actually destroy the ENTIRE run of 50,000
copies that had already been printed! I would then have to wait for
up to a year before I could take it to another publisher. In other
words, the book would be toast."

Moore refused. And then an amazing thing happened --- across the
country, librarians demanded that HarperCollins publish the book,
just as Moore wrote it. The publisher caved in. STUPID WHITE MEN
made its debut on the Amazon nonfiction bestseller list at #1, on
the New York Times list at #3.

So, you ask, what is so wild about this book that it came close to
being banned in America?

Lots of laughs. Lots of common sense. And lots of ideas that the
powers-that-be find very inconvenient.

Moore's premise is a comic conceit: White Men are dangerous.
Consider: Have you ever been evicted by a black person? Ever been
beaten by a black cop? Ever been denied a loan by a black banker?
Ever heard a black person say, "We're going to eliminate 10,000
jobs today"? Nope. Only whites do this. So be very, very afraid of
them.

But of course not every White Man spooks him --- he's most afraid
of Republicans and Democrats.

Although Moore peppers his argument with shots at both parties, he
is --- as you'd expect --- a whole lot funnier on Republicans. The
President, for him, is the "Thief-in-Chief" who has been "a drunk,
a felon, an unconvicted deserter, and a crybaby." Think that's
cruel? Moore calls it "tough love."

Moore is best when he grabs hold of an issue and just...wails. Like
the way certain Republicans changed their position on stem-cell
research when they realized it could help their ailing kin. So
Moore wrote a prayer that asks God to strike all powerful
people with the worst possible afflictions. Sample: "We beseech you
to make the children of every senator in the Mountain Time Zone gay
--- really gay."

And you do not want to miss his encounter with Gov. Jeb Bush at
6:30 AM just two weeks before the Presidential election. Let's just
say: They didn't go out for bagels and coffee afterward.

The cliche about guys like Michael Moore is that they make you
laugh until it hurts. I find that exactly backwards. It already
hurts --- plenty. Michael Moore finds the humor in the hurt and
shows us why it's better to laugh than mourn. And then he gives us
a sharp kick in the butt and tells us to Do Something about
it.

"You deserve better," he argues. Apparently, a great many otherwise
red-blooded Americans agree.