Thursday, July 15, 2004

"It's a Trap!"

More Moore in the AP:

Theater owner invites Republicans to anti-Bush movie

LEWISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Theater operator Eric Faden has had a hard time persuading Republicans to see "Fahrenheit 9/11." So he's inviting them to a special showing. What's more, he'll even buy tickets for any card-carrying Republicans who come to see Michael Moore's assault on President Bush's actions regarding the Sept. 11 attacks.

The owner of the nonprofit Campus Theatre, who is doing this, is an assistant professor of film studies at Bucknell University. He says he's sincere, and he sounds sincere.

Faden noticed that only liberals were going to see the movie. When he asked "his conservative friends" (one wonders how many a Bucknell professor has), he found most of them hadn't seen it. In fact, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found 63 percent of Republicans had no plans to see "Fahrenheit 9/11" (compared with 38 percent of independents and 27 percent of Democrats).

They told him that was because they (like me) didn't want to put money in Moore's pockets. But Faden's offer doesn't remove that objection. Apparently, he's going to be footing the bill, so the money goes to Moore no matter if it comes out of my pocket (as a Republican patron) or his. The article is vague on the economics of this, but Faden's quote, "We'll see what happens on Saturday. I think it's going to be one of two things — it's either going to be packed and I'm going to be really poor, or no one's going to show up," suggests that the money's flowing no matter who pays it.

So if I don't want to give money to a man who advocates more killing of Americans in Iraq, and who has business deals with Hizbullah, how is this better?