US Treasury Probe of Michael Moore: Some Kind of Payback?

Maybe I'm putting too fine of point on this, but it's hard not to see the US Treasury Department's investigation of Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore--for taking ailing Sept. 11th rescue workers to Cuba for treatment, part of his new documentary about the heath-care system called Sicko--as some sort of retribution for Moore's ongoing, outspoken criticism of the Bush administration.

Remember his finger wagging from the stage of 2003 Academy Awards, when, after Bowling for Columbine won best doc, when he said: "We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much."

Then, of course, came his polemic Farenheit 9/11.

Sicko, which will be released by the Weinstein Company and Lionsgate on June 29th, premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19th.

The Weinstein Company recently hired political strategist Chris Lehane (former White House spokeman and lawyer for Clinton) and PR maven Ken Sunshine to consult on the film's release, anticipating flack from the HMOs.

Lehane also worked onFarenheit 9/11, which took home Cannes' top prize in 2004 before going on to make more than a $100 million at the box office.