Moore claims victory over 'Passion of Christ'

ASHLAND, Ore. – Whooping and hollering greeted Michael Moore's statement that his virulently anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" beat out Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ."

"I think Jesus had something to do with that," said Moore during Monday's meeting at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore., part of a national event sponsored by MoveOn.org.

Comparing the initial attendance stats for the two films – and accentuating the one or two measures by which, says Moore, "Fahrenheit" edged out "Passion" – Moore boasted: "I've been feeling for a month He's been very upset at the [selling of] that movie. So I think it was His own little payback this weekend."

A self-described "practicing Catholic," Moore said his film barely nosed out "The Passion," but what surprised WND columnist and talk show host Bob Just, who attended Monday's meeting and recorded it, was the wild cheering at the news.

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"You definitely felt the hostility in the room toward traditional Christians," said Just, a former liberal, now-conservative Democrat – and also a Christian. "At one point, Moore boasted that his film so infuriated one man that he threw his shoe at the image of George W. Bush on the screen."

"Hot Enough For You?" screamed the headline of one campus flyer inviting students to the live Web conference. "Then Organize." Moveon.org's flyer was even more blunt: "Michael Moore wants to know: Are you ready to turn up the heat on George W. Bush?"

The Oregon campus meeting Just attended was billed as a "House Party." Local attendance was estimated at several hundred people, but according to Moveon.org, nationwide there were enough people connected online that night to fill a football stadium.

"In living rooms and meeting halls across America," proclaimed the flyer, "we'll be joining Michael for a live, interactive, on-line discussion of his film. You'll also be given an opportunity to make a real difference in this election, by joining in an intensive voter registration and education drive."

Most of Moore's conversation was geared toward taking not only the presidency this fall, but perhaps even Congress as well.

A large screen displayed the computer hook-up as the audience looked on. At several points the transmission went down or became garbled.

Students and others who came for the promised "open discussion in film rhetoric" were first heavily pressured to join the Moveon effort. Each audience participating was asked to collect its group leader statistics and upload them in the computer, which flashed the results by locality. Likewise, each group was called on to recruit more people and expand its numbers by election day.

"Take that day off on November second," Moore exhorted. "And take, you know, take five non-voters to the polls. You know who they are. They're your friends, your family members, people you go to school with. Just commit now to convincing them. Tell them, you're at work or whatever, it's at noontime, tell them, 'Hey, let's all, come on with me. I'll buy everybody lunch,' you know, or if it's at night, you know – "free beer for everybody that comes vote with me right now!" You know, just get creative. Do whatever it is you gotta do!"

Republicans, says Just, have been trying recently to write off the "Gore-Moore left" as a "coalition of the wild-eyed." But, "it is more serious than that. All you have to do is see Moore's movie and you'll know you've entered into an alternate reality," adds Just, who has a masters degree in film from NYU Institute of Film and Television.

In fact, even reputable liberal pundits are stepping forward to denounce "Fahrenheit's" inaccuracy, from Christopher Hitchens to Ellen Goodman to The Washington Post's Richard Cohen.

"Moore's depiction of why Bush went to war is so silly and so incomprehensible that it is easily dismissed," Cohen wrote in yesterday's Post. "As far as I can tell, it is a farrago of conspiracy theories. But nothing is said about multiple U.N. resolutions violated by Iraq or the depredations of Saddam Hussein. In fact, prewar Iraq is depicted as some sort of Arab folk festival – lots of happy, smiling indigenous people. Was there no footage of a Kurdish village that had been gassed? This is obscenity by omission."

Hitchens called the film a "sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness," while Newsweek joined in this week with a headline, "More Distortions from Michael Moore."

"But remember this," Moore told the youthful audience, which filled the Brit Ballroom on the Southern Oregon campus. "The other side, they are organized! And they're really, I mean, they are historically, uh, much better at this than we are. They are up at the crack of dawn, uh, trying to figure out what group of Americans they're going to hurt today."

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