Fans, Protesters Turn Out For Michael Moore
October 20, 2004
By Kevin Reece
SEATTLE - Love him or hate him, controversial filmmaker Michael Moore nearly filled Seattle's KeyArena Tuesday night.
The man behind the film "Fahrenheit 9/11" made Seattle the 34th stop of a 61-city tour called "The Slacker Uprising Tour:" an attempt to get undecideds to vote on election day.
A small group of protesters did get into a few spirited debates outside Key Arena before Moore arrived.
"Moore's not going tell to you the whole story," said Ralph Nader supporter Erin Alexander. "We're here to say there's more choices.
"I'm proud that Bush is my President and I'm not afraid to show it, " said Cody Rizzolo.
But Moore is no stranger to political disagreements and he welcomes the continued debate he's brought to the presidential race.
"This attitude of can't we all just get along... and what... all think the same way?" he said at a press conference before the event. "That's not what's called a democracy. So I don't think this is so bad."
At the Seatte stop on his tour Moore got some added starpower from Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder. He sang three songs at the start of the evening and then, after poking his own fun at President Bush, introduced the man who is making a career out of it.
"He showed up to a 90-minute debate with 5-minutes worth of material," Moore chided the president in a standup-comic like presentation that covered the debates, the war in Iraq, and health care.
Moore admits at that these events he knows he's preaching to his own choir. He says his nation-wide tour will continue through election day because in his view that choir hasn't been singing loud enough.
"So instead of waiting for the Democrats to get it together this time I think we all decided we've got to do something ourselves. We can't just sit back and think the Democrats are gonna get rid of George Bush."
In a controversial move of it's own the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or operates 62 television stations across the country, plans to air a one hour program Friday October 22nd critical of Sen. Kerry and his post-Vietnam political activities. Sinclair says the program will air on 40 of it's stations.
In a statement on it's website Sinclair says "the news special will focus in part on the use of documentaries and other media to influence voting, which emerged during the 2004 political campaigns, as well as on the content of certain of these documentaries."
Moore says he considers it an attempt to counter the effect of his award-winning documentary and his current tour. He says he'll counter with another publicity stunt of his own: using a projector to show "Fahrenheit 9/11" on the side of one of Sinclair's buildings.
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