Alexandra Pelosi's "Right America: Feeling Wronged"

Alexandra Pelosi, the daughter of democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, worked on creating a documentary about John McCain's supporters while McCain was still running for president. She and her crew went to the rallies and interviewed these people, using the footage as a way to open up a conversation between the left and right, hoping that liberals would take away some sort of understanding by listening to what the conservatives had to say.

Or so, that's what she says. Actually, from the clips I've seen of the film, I can pretty easily agree with critics that the film is extremely biased and, instead of opening up conversation, it does nothing more than put these people up for us to laugh at.

Here's an excerpt of what Michael Leahy, a Washington Post writer, had to say in "'Right America:' Filmmaker uses a distorting lense"

It's drive-by journalism, to put it charitably, a string of stupefyingly brief hit-and-run interviews with a bunch of unidentified people who we know are going to say nothing that will surprise us. By then, we've already figured out they're going to be fried by Pelosi's camera. We know they're going to sound like yahoos, often goaded, always reduced to sound bites and caricatures.

All the conventions of the smirking, winking, belittling political documentary are abided by in this film. An inordinate number of the yahoos wear T-shirts and weird caps. There is the obligatory NASCAR tailgating scene with the requisite Confederate flags and some white guys saying they'll never vote for any black man. There are a couple of campaign events sporting all-American schoolgirl choruses who sound like they're right off the "Up With People" tour bus. There is a young guy whose T-shirt, meant to deride Obama, declares "Say No to Socilism," and when Alexandra Pelosi tells him he's misspelled socialism and asks him to define it, we know he's not going to be able to, that he's going to say something way wrong and stupid -- which he does, offering that socialism is "basically, it's like the views of Hitler. It's between like communism and -- I don't know what the other word is."

Now believe me, I was definitely one of those people who was both horrified and amused at seeing the typical "racist republican hick" on YouTube and reading about them at liberal blogs and web sites. As a pretty liberal person, it was cheap amusement for me, but I never once thought they made up the majority. We all know that extremists are a crazy minority, and as an unfortunate result, they get the most media coverage.

There's a big difference between putting these people out there and saying, "Look! They're crazy! Let's point and laugh!" and "Here are your typical Republicans, let's try to pretend like we want to understand them, because it will make us look good and make them look like assholes."

I live in Nebraska, obviously, which is a red state. It's not the reddest of all red states, but it's still much more red than blue, especially in the panhandle, where I grew up. Almost everyone I know from back home is republican, and not a single one of them is anything like the stereotypical "racist republican hick" that gets brought up time and time again. By pushing that stereotype onto them, it's extremely insulting to their intelligence. Believe it or not, there really are some viable opinions and beliefs on the republican side, and even though I don't agree with a lot of those stances, that doesn't mean they're wrong. It's just a different way of looking at things, and I sincerely respect that.

Even people who didn't vote for Obama still consider him a good candidate for president. Most people agree that his election is a sign that America is stepping up with its promises of equal opportunity, and that it's a good thing. Democrats and Republicans alike respect him and are willing to work together with him.

Now, do I know people who truly believed Obama was the anti-christ? That Obama was going to tax them so much they'd end up on welfare? Etc. etc. etc.? Yes, and the simple truth about all of those people was that they were not informed. They stuck with only taking in the information they wanted to hear, no matter how logically flawed.

Alexandra Pelosi said she was "putting up a mirror." Well, maybe she should turn that mirror on herself, as she obviously fell victim to the same disease: MISINFORMATION. Had she maybe tried to find decent and open-minded Republicans, she would have learned a thing a two ... but she didn't, probably because she really didn't want to hear what they had to say, as her motive was to simply make them look stupid and reinforce her own opinions about McCain supporters.

As for the documentary, yes, I will probably watch it. But to try to coat it in "understanding the other side" is both biased and ugly. When I watch it, I'm going to watch it for laughs, plain and simple. Though to be honest, I'm probably going to feel sorry for those people. I'm also going to relive my relief of the entire presidential campaign finally coming to a conclusion.