Peace, Love, and Trivial Prizes

Like Nick, I thought Michael Moore's anti-Bush speech at the Oscars—and it really was more anti-Bush than anti-war—was great theater, and of course I liked the line about the Pope and the Dixie Chicks. On the other hand, if it were Bush instead of Moore who repeatedly said "fictition" when he meant "fiction," I'm sure Moore would've taken the lead in making witless jokes about it.

Most anti-war presenters chose to make their feelings known by wearing small pins or by putting extra stress on quasi-appropriate words they read from the teleprompter. (Was it Susan Sarandon or Dustin Hoffman who lingered so long on "dialogue"?) Adrien Brodie's nonpartisan plea for a swift end to the fighting was as classy as Moore's was not, but I was glad to see both. And hey—big congratulations to the night's two absent winners: Eminem, and the man whose life resembles an Eminem lyric, Roman Polanski.