Filmmaker Michael Moore continued to defend WikiLeak's founder Julian Assange last night, saying the creator of the secret-leaking site is doing an "important job."
“I think he has done such an important job, to get the truth out,” said Moore, a guest on "The Rachel Maddow Show" filmed live at the 92nd Street Y Tuesday night. “There are things that should be kept secret, but we've been very bad the past few years.”
He added, "We gotta turn the lights on here."
Moore, who recently helped post bail for jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, was a guest on the second of three shows the MSNBC host shot live at the Jewish cultural center in Manhattan.
Maddow also interviewed NBC News foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell and George W. Bush communications chief Nicolle Wallace in front of an audience that roared at her entrance.
"The Rachel Maddow Show" is typically taped “in front of nobody, and it's a lonely, lonely enterprise,” as one Maddow show staffer warming up the audience put it. The left-leaning talk show host confessed to the crowd, “I am nervous because you are here!”
But one advantage of being filmed in front of a live audience is the ability of guests and show-goers to witness the moments off camera.
As Michael Moore -- whose work includes "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Sicko" -- departed the stage, he randomly began singing “Do Re Mi” from "The Sound of Music" and got the audience to sing along with him.
“I've been on this show before during commercial break,” Moore said before as Maddow kept furiously busy at her desk before the show went live again, “and she's actually writing an rewriting the show.”
Maddow, who wore bright blue sneakers (also something you don't see on TV), and Moore didn't meet eye to eye completely on the WikiLeaks issue.
“This is one of the thorny, complicate, doesn't-fit-on-a-bumper-sticker points: it's a great way to send disinformation,” she said.
Maddow was referring a recent leaked cable that said Michael Moore's film “Sicko” was banned from Cuba. The film had played in Cuba, but newspapers assumed it was true. She admitted while this example wasn't completely severe, it showed how leaked information is too often easily believed.
