We have learned a great many things during this election year, but chief among them is that Republicans hate Hollywood (though not really). In fact, their vendetta against Tinseltown is so strong that they have now seized the means of production, which would at least explain the trailer for the upcoming right-wing comedy An American Carol — that is, if anything could explain An American Carol. A spoof of The Christmas Carol from Republican director David Zucker, it's the story of a Michael Moore-resembling filmmaker who is shown the error of his ways by a cast made up of Hollywood's biggest Republicans. If that description sounds a little dry, try these details on for size: the Moore stand-in comes to his senses when he is taught to kill members of the ACLU, and George Washington is played by Jon Voight. A closer look at the insanity, after the jump:As egregious and anti-funny as nearly every beat in the trailer is (we were especially partial to Gary Coleman's slave-talkin'), they all pale in comparison to this scene, teased by Reason:

Answering machine at the Upper West Side apartment of Michael Moore and his wife Kathleen.

When it comes to the Oscars, who you bring is just as important as who you wear. And sure, it used to be cool to take your significant other or your mom, but now, thanks to one little off-the-cuff remark from Michael Moore, you're nobody unless you bring a dictator. On Tuesday, while walking the red carpet at the Semi-Pro premiere, the rotund documentarian joked about wanting to take the newly retired president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, as his date to the Academy Awards. As he says:

Did you know that documentarian Michael Moore's recent film SiCKO is nominated for an Oscar? As part of his effort to publicize this fact while still acting like he is attempted to do good crusade-y liberal things, he is holding a conference call this afternoon. It is about how unfair it is that his film might win an Oscar but the subjects profiled in it are still sick. Would you like to dial into this conference call and maybe ask Michael if he regrets making his film available for free on the internet, resulting in no one going to see it in theaters? Or just say something snide about Castro? Here is your opportunity! We'll leave it to you to debate the relative dickishness of crashing a phone press conference featuring an ill 9/11 rescue worker. Press release, with call-in info, after the jump.

Moore is the generously-proportioned, baseball-capped documentarian who's a thorn in the side of big business, the Bush White House, and liberals who don't agree with him. Love him or hate him, you probably know his name, which is all he's really after in the end.

Roly-poly propagandist Michael Moore wrote to his email listserve acolytes that, sadly, he would not be brainwashing them into supporting the candidate of his capricious choice in Iowa tomorrow. Because he's not endorsing any of them! That's the short answer. The long answer is that he's not endorsing any of them but super especially not endorsing Hillary Clinton. Because of Iraq, sure, and also maybe kinda because she was the only one who refused to sit down with him for a Rolling Stone interview two months ago, thus killing his piece. So: anyone but Hillary! Do it for Uncle Mike! [Drudge, letter posted below the jump because his link will last another hour or so]

The new editor at TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld, has gotten a little IPO-crazy in these heady days of Bubble 2.0. The best guess we've seen on a Huffington Post valuation is $60 million which, for a media company, is a drop in the bucket. We can't remember a tech or media company going public with a valuation anything like that. Huffington Post is the most unlikely IPO candidate since Wired in 1996 — and Wired had substantially more revenues and a real magazine business. Maybe we were onto something with the whole cheese thing. More likely? An acquisition.

Remember the controversial Google Health blog post that suggested the best
defense against Michael Moore's one-sided Sicko documentary was a targeted ad offensive? Well, it looks like oil giant BP was listening. Faced with strong criticism over a recently won permit that will allow it to dump 54% more ammonia and 35% more solid waste into Lake Michigan, BP is using Google Ads to fight back, targeting Slashdot readers and others with ads that link to the Facts about BP's Whiting Refinery. Unable to participate in the "very democratic and effective public advertising dialogue" envisioned by Google, local leaders settle for an old-school Letter to the Editor.

Those of you who hate portly polemicist Michael Moore will enjoy this clip of the filmmaker from last night's "Larry King Live," where he is briefly rendered speechless by CNN's medical person Sanjay Gupta. We're not huge fans of the blustery Bolshevik, but we're going to have to agree with chesty media-watcher Rachel Sklar on this one: "Dr. Sanjay Gupta is a dick."

Usually we think of blustery big man Michael Moore as the Republican party's best weapon, but there's something about him going off on "The Situation Room'"s Wolf Blitzer that puts a happy feeling in our hearts.

What, you may or may not find yourselves wondering, could agitprop documentary director Michael Moore possibly have in common with guerrilla-comedy king Sacha Baron Cohen? Quite a bit, it just so happens, as a chance encounter at last year's Toronto International Film Festival led to a mutual gush-a-thon between the two mischief-making filmmakers:

· Aaron Sorkin returns to Broadway with The Farnsworth Invention, a play about the birth of television, the deliciously flawed storytelling medium he recently sought to redeem with a little-seen primetime serial about the life-or-death stakes involved in producing a weekly sketch comedy show. [Variety]
· Thomas Haden Church is in negotiations to join Sandra Bullock in All About Steve, a romantic comedy that should reinvigorate the moribund genre by focusing on the previously unseen pairing (we think?) of a lady who writes crosswords and a CNN cameraman. [THR]
· Michael Moore's Sicko sells out the single NY screen on which it debuted, bringing in $70,000 over the weekend. [Variety]
· The Agent Dance, Abbreviated Mid-Level Actresses We Can't Get Excited About Edition: Heroes' Hayden Panettiere signs with WMA, while Julia Stiles hooks up with ICM. [Variety, THR]
· Cartoon Network and Hasbro are co-producing a new Transformers animated series, which will reimagine the property as a "superheroes story" with robots featuring "a lot more human qualities, allowing kids to identify with the characters" they will soon mindlessly consume in an all-new toy line. [THR]

Michael Moore rips off Spy. To be fair, Spy invented every joke ever, so it's hard sometimes. [Radosh]

· Watch out, Hollywood, because here comes Mitch Albom: Adam Sandler has acquired the rights to feature-writing debut (an untitled baseball comedy, if you must know) of the Five People You Meet On One More Tuesday With Morrie author, whose treacly bestsellers have been previously adapted into housewife-narcotizing TV movies. [Variety]
· In today's strangest casting pairing, Jude Law and Forest Whitaker will star in Universal's "futuristic adventure thriller" Repossession Mambo. [Variety]
· In other buddy-casting news, Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson and Nick "The Unkillable Aging Thoroughbred" Nolte have signed on to star in the Ben Stiller-directed comedy Tropic Thunder, which should create an amusing "before and after" Hollywood tableau the first time the actors share a two-shot. [Variety]
· Pirated copies of Michael Moore's Sicko proliferated on the YouTubes over the weekend, two weeks before the docimentary's opening. [THR]
· Today in writers' strike saber-rattling: The WGA West has warned its members to ignore the same old bullshit that studios are likely to spew as negotiations for a new labor agreement begin next month, such as claims that they are losing money in this terribly unprofitable entertainment business." Charges of counterbullshit by the studios include the accusation that the union is "out of touch with fast-changing showbiz realities." [Variety]

"Michael Moore's new documentary "Sicko" has been pirated and is now widely available for download on peer-to-peer content sites like www.thepiratebay.org. ...If the breach is as wide as it appears — and this reporter downloaded a copy and watched it late Thursday night with ease — Moore, and his distributor, The Weinstein Company, have a every film maker's worst marketing nightmare on their hands — how to persuade people to go to the theater to see a show that's available free on the Internet." [AdAge]

Tubby peacenik Michael Moore took to the airwaves this morning to decry the media's coverage of Iraq in the run-up to the war. Lighting into "Good Morning America" anchor Chris Cuomo, the ample activist blamed ABC and the other networks for failing to ask the tough questions. A visibly annoyed Cuomo pulled the "my anchor got blowed up" card in defense. It's a nice bit of television: Whether you come down on the side of Moore or the side of the media, it allows you to dislike both of them equally.

· Universal is partnering with environmentally conscious marketers to promote Evan Almighty, culminating in a spectacular stunt in which the studio will flood its Universal City theme park, washing away thousands of tourists to emphasize the film's uplifting, "green" message that God will kill us all if we don't take better care of our planet. [Variety]
· Michael Moore seeks out, receives free publicity for upcoming film about the American health care system. [THR]
· The details of the project are unimportant to us, but let it be known that Jennifer Connelly, whom we would pay to watch folding laundry or waiting in line at the DMV, has taken on a new movie project. Unfortunately, the husband is also involved. [Variety]
· CBS Corp despot Les Moonves calls Dan Rather's critical remarks about successor Katie Couric's "dumbing down" and "tarting up" of his beloved evening news broadcast "sexist." Expect the mouthy ex-anchor to be found dead of an apparent heart attack by the end of the day. [THR]
· The ratings for Sunday night's Sopranos finale are in, and its average of 11.9 million viewers easily surpassed the mark set by HBO sibling Sex and the City's controversial last episode, in which the sassy, shoe-loving ladies were unexpectedly whacked by a vengeance-obsessed Mario Cantone. [Variety]

· Say what you will about yesterday's ottoman-humping clip, but at least no one got hurt.
· Fred Thompson is ducking Michael Moore's debate challenge, but at least he's doing it in style.
· Tinky-Winky victorious.
· The supposedly yanked Kim Kardashian sex tape is still for sale? Get yours now before she's no longer marginally famous.
· And finally: dumb cop brownies. [via Queerty]

· The Weinstein Co. (with help from their besties at Lionsgate) will release Michael Moore's documentary Sicko on July 29th, which should do for America's health care system what Bowling for Columbine did for a senile-seeming, rifle-loving Charlton Heston. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Even In The Prehistoric Past And Distant Future Edition: Robert Rodriguez is in talks to direct a live-action feature adaptation of The Jetsons, and has also met with Universal about Will Ferrell's adaptation of Land of the Lost. [THR]
· Universal lands its second Serious Actor for its The Incredible Hulk project, as Tim Roth is in negotiations to play Hulk antagonist Abomination and spend long hours discussing how best to portray the emotional torment of gamma-wave-poisoning sufferers in the context of a superhero film. [Variety]
· FX may pay up to $40 million for the TV rights to Spider-Man 3 for five years, but only once it completes it pay-cable run on Starz. [THR]
· Var TV critic and Entourage nemesis Brian Lowry is amused that his HBO stand-in, who'll be harassed by an aggrieved Johnny Drama in an upcomnig episode shot in the paper's offices, has an assistant. [Variety]

Michael Moore, the poster boy for anti-establishment doc makers with woeful personal grooming habits, must be feeling extremely relieved today, as the amputee war veteran who was suing over some interview footage of him shot for an NBC Nightly News segment, but which turned up in Fahrenheit 9/11, has had his case thrown out of court: