It doesn't matter what you're selling.

Via Andrew Sullivan, this excellent post at Done With Mirrors sums up exactly how I feel about propaganda, no matter the cause and no matter who is slinging it, Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11 or Ben Stein in Expelled.

If it's wrong in case A, it's wrong in case B. Perhaps, you will say, my accidental convergence of opposition to both Moore's self-serving America-skeptic pseudo-pacifist showmanship and "Expelled's" shabby special pleading for anti-scientific Trojan horses allows me to appear to take a higher ground than the "Times." I have spent the day trying to think of a single cause I advocate, however earnestly, that I would wish to see promoted by such tactics as these filmmakers use. One undeniable good that I think would be advanced by propaganda and deception and lies.

I cannot think of one. If I were framed for murder and on death row, I would not want Michael Moore to try to win sympathy for me.

Exactly. He specifically looks at two reviews from the NY Times, one that goes for the throat against Expelled for its shameless propagandizing, but gives Moore a pass with a wink and a nudge. "Aw, that's just his shtick," they seem to say about Moore.

Which is crap.