OK, let me see if I can understand Michael Moore's twisted personal ethics.

Let's assume for argument's sake that Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush and all the others knew of the prisoner abuse in Iraq and never did anything about it. I guess the main reason for their inaction would be that they were "covering their ass" so that they could continue in power. Now that they have been "found out", people such as Michael Moore have called for their resignation, impeachment etc. The cover up of what some have called "war crimes" is a crime in and of itself.

Now let's say a civilian somehow got a hold of videotape prisoner abuse in Iraq months before it became publicly known and held onto it without showing anyone. What would be their motives? Fear of reprisal, perhaps. If they backed the war, maybe shame or embarrassment might be the reason. Regardless of the reason, wouldn't this be some sort of ethical violation not to make the video known to the public?

Apparently not if you're Michael Moore, who had video footage of prisoner abuse by American soldiers months before it was known to the general public. In fact he's "still not sure" if he did the right thing by withholding the video. Even though according to him, "the stuff with the detainees in my movie is even more shocking than what we saw in that prison".

His reason? "I thought I'd be accused of just putting this out for publicity for my movie." A man who was willing to produce an anti-war tirade in front of millions at last year's Oscar ceremony was afraid of a little negative publicity?

Since his movie is being distributed several months after the first 60 Minutes reports, and he couldn't have known about that report in advance, we have to assume that he decided that it was OK for people to be abused for three or four months (at least)in order to save him from feeling bad about what others thought about him.

I guess now that the stories of abuse were made public before the release of his movie, he'll feel more comfortable now that 60 minutes, those that followed them, and the media attending the Cannes Film Festival relieved him of the moral dilemma of having to publicize his movie personally.

"It's the largest opening I've had, four times the number of screens that 'Columbine,' was on."