Jim Kenefick is the founder of Moorewatch.com, a Web site highly critical of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. But when he disclosed that he needed help paying his wife’s medical bills, he got a $12,000 cheque from an unexpected source — Moore himself.
The unlikely story began to unfold when Kenefick, 36, wrote on his site that he needed money to keep Moorewatch.com alive because his wife has a neurological disorder and her medical bills had left him nearly bankrupt.
On May 1, he received an anonymous e-mail saying that an unnamed donor was willing to help pay at least some of his bills.
“A month or so later a cheque-like document for $12,000 arrives from one of those anonymous third-party check companies,” Kenefick said in an interview with Tony Dokoupil of Newsweek. “The check cleared, and I felt this immense wave of relief.”
The money allowed Kenefick to pay health insurance premiums for a year and keep his Web site afloat.
Around this time, Moore was preparing for the premiere of his latest film, “Sicko,” a documentary critical of America’s healthcare industry.
A few weeks after the cheque arrived, Moore called Kenefick from the Cannes Film Festival saying he wanted the blogger to know that Kenefick and his blog appear anonymously in the film — and that Moore was the “guardian angel” who sent the $12,000.
Asked if Moore’s gift had changed Kenefick’s opinion of the filmmaker, the blogger told Newsweek: “I don’t oppose Moore as a human being, or even on all of his positions . . . My issue with Moore is with how he goes about doing things. He gives people quick peeks, juxtaposing images that stir people but don’t give them enough information to make judgments for themselves. He’s harming the big picture with his chicanery — with his ridiculous, malicious, dishonest, and deceitful way of doing things.
“I haven’t seen ‘Sicko,’ but it sounds like more of the same.”
Kenefick added that while he’s very grateful to Moore for his financial aid, he believes the filmmaker has reasons of his own for helping out: “It’s in his interest for the site to stay running. Moore’s publicity depends on us and others like us.”
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