This Friday, Michael Moore’s new film “Fahrenheit 9/11” will open in theaters nationwide. It will be his first release since “Bowling for Columbine,” which received an enormous amount of discussion both for its insight and Moore’s shady style of delivery. Every indication points to “Fahrenheit 9/11” creating even more hotly contested exchange than did “Bowling for Columbine,” and no doubt, media conservatives will attempt to minimize any damaging evidence presented in the film by claiming we have a “liberal media bias.”

It is quite easily the most hilarious claim in politics today. Conservatives who make the “liberal media” claim unwittingly discredit themselves every time they bring it up. One way or another, making the claim is akin to unknowingly asserting one’s self as “out of the loop.” Why?

It all comes down to capitalist theory, whose educated proponents take great pride in the market’s almost conscious ability to respond to consumer demand. This response can be seen in all areas of the economy, from the explosion of “reality television” and low-carbohydrate food options to toilet paper fortified with vitamin E and aloe vera — guaranteeing consumers a most enjoyable porcelain experience.

Capitalists explain market responsiveness with the theory of self-interest, which according to them is the driving force behind the creation of products and services fulfilling consumer demand. Out of financial self-interest, capitalists argue, entrepreneurs sell these products and services to demanding consumers. It is a fundamental concept of capitalism — without which the system would just be a “neat idea” lacking relevance to application.

Since according to capitalists consumer demand invariably drives market orientation, claims of a liberal media bias are thus highly suspect. Are these seemingly informed conservatives implying a decisive liberalism in the United States? Our nearly perfect political divide, split straight up the middle, quickly rejects this notion.

Could it be that the propagators of the liberal media myth are relatively uninterested in informing themselves, thereby removing consumer demand for conservative-minded media and thus, genuinely creating a liberal media? Such a case would support the idea that the Republican Party is merely a social group and not a political party, because what genuine political party would be so uninterested in political issues?

Or perhaps conservatives have decided to reject capitalism — because rejecting its fundamental principle of market self-correction amounts to exactly that. Only the most laissez faire capitalist would argue that the market never requires government involvement to correct errors. However, for a capitalist to say that the market lacks the ability to self-correct its most pliable venue (the free media) in full knowledge of a glaring and easily correctable deficit of conservative voices, is to say that capitalism itself just plain doesn’t work.

No political systems on Earth adhere completely to principle, although core principles cannot be rejected without losing the systems themselves. The United States is undeniably a capitalist nation. Have Republicans rejected capitalism?

The most likely explanation behind the liberal media myth is that out of self-interest, unscrupulous conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter pushed the notion as a way of securing an audience conveniently unversed in its own political theory. This unwitting audience then propagated the myth through proud rejection of self-education, backed by conservative politicians such as President Bush, who brags about not even reading the newspaper so he can get “objective” news from his own employees.

Conservatives have really done it — what a bunch they are. But let’s be honest for a moment. Let the conservatives speak up and explain their paradoxical claims. They can’t have it both ways.

In the mean time, go see “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Take in its points and check them against known facts. Moore has an agenda and has been proven in the past to use dishonesty in his work. Hopefully he has learned his lesson since last time, but be on the lookout. It is the educated person who can put such work in its place using facts and logic. Beware of those who disregard the film over a crazy myth. They are, as we say, “out of the loop.”