Politics: In the States, the question "have you read Michael Moore?" is code for: "so do you support the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq, or not?"
People look at you expectantly as you consider your answer. Do you think Michael Moore is mad, paranoid, side-splittingly funny? Your response will instantly cast you into one of two categories: free-thinking liberal or conservative warmonger.
Are you an East Coast/West Coast left-wing pacifist who thinks that America should never have gone into the Gulf? Or are you one of those conservative, Double Whopper-eating, freedom fries-munchinging pick-up truck owners who put a picture of Saddam Hussein on the target at the gun range?
Confess to being a fan of Michael Moore, and as an American you brand yourself as an anti-Bush liberal. It's a bit like being seen, in the 1960s, with a copy of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book. Or ordering the green salad in McDonald's instead of the Quarter Pounder.
Michael Moore is the safety valve for the liberal American majority who don't like to see themselves as party to Bush's war. Since his book, Stupid White Men, became a best-seller, he has given a focus to an audience of middle class university-educated Americans who simultaneously protest the war while also flying the flag in their front gardens. He's the idol of the smug, hypocritical US middle classes who say they object to Bush's foreign policy, but do little to stop it.
These are the Americans who want to be British, or at least European. Who cannot figure out why the sensible Tony Blair supported the war. They actually don't understand how George Bush got control of the country. They blame the balloting system in Florida.
US liberals need Michael Moore like the Energiser bunny needs batteries. He is both clown and prophet. Laugh at his jokes, if you must. Then ignore the prophetic part because if it were true, you'd leave the country. Such as Moore's argument that the Bin Laden family and the Bush family were tied together through oil deals going back 20 years, which is why George Bush Jr ignored all warnings that the Bin Laden dark sheep would attack the US. Now who is going to believe that, even if it's true?
Sometimes Michael Moore engages in no more than wishful thinking. He wants Oprah to be the next US President, for example. Like that's going to happen. On second thoughts, maybe it could.
Oprah could beat Bush hands down, Moore reckons. I reckon she'd beat Arnold any day.
Moore reasons: "Oprah can't be bought! She's already a billionaire! Imagine a president who owes no favours to lobbyists or oil companies or Ken Lay. She only answers to Steadman! And us!"
With a salary of only $400,000 dollars a year in the White House, being president would certainly be a step down for Oprah but it's okay with Michael Moore if she is president and keeps her show on the air. This may smack of liberal media fascism to some, but then again the fascists are always the people on the other side.
The core of Moore's argument is that the vast majority of Americans are liberals: 57 per cent believe that abortion should be legal; 86 per cent agree with the civil rights movement; 83 per cent are environmentalists; 94 per cent want tighter regulations on the manufacture and use of handguns; 80 per cent want socialised medicine and 85 per cent support equal opportunity in the workplace for gays and lesbians.
In Moore's ironic words: "Americans are a bunch of limp-wristed pansy-lovers!"
He argues that the conservative minority protest louder than anyone else because they control the media. He quotes conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh: "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to mainstream society", and Ann Coulter: "God says, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours'".
It's the opposite of the Irish Republic, where the conservatives are in the majority and the liberals control the media - or so some say.
If liberals are the real American majority, then why are conservatives in control? Because the liberal majority is too complacent to do anything about it, Moore argues. The only liberal voice we hear coming from America is Michael Moore. Think like me, and we'll change America, he urges. It's all a bit too Al Jolson.
He ends his book with one whole, sappy chapter in which he gives liberals a DIY guide to campaigning in town, State and national elections. He turns himself into the Martha Stewart of liberalism, with his "let's make this a great country" recipes such as his advice on ways to get people to vote. Nobody expected Michael Moore to become the political equivalent of Ask About Gardening, but that's what he's become. It is embarrassingly naïve of him, really it is.
Which is why the majority of naïve Americans, who are now doubting US involvement in the Gulf, need Michael Moore. He tells them that they had good sense all along - they only supported the war in the beginning, because their country was attacked and they didn't know what else to do. Then they were brain-washed by the Bush regime into going along with whatever the US government said. But if they join Mike now - just €22.99 in the bookstore - they can help him bring about regime change!
"Start acting like the victors you are and get out there to claim the country that is truly ours", he exhorts his readers.
By the way, there is a subversive campaign in the US to have Michael Moore run for president. This hasn't gone to his head, has it?
To believe that the Mom and Apple Pie go-and-vote for democracy ethos will save America, you have also to believe that Michael Moore is 99 per cent more intelligent than the rest of us. Or that he's just 99 per cent funnier. He's neither, he just has a bigger neck. But we need him.
-Kathryn Holmquist
Dude: Where's My Country? By Michael Moore Penguin/Allen Lane, 272pp. €22.99
Kathryn Holmquist is Irish Times Education Correspondent and an author