(2004-10-23) — Oscar-winner Michael Moore attracted 8,500 cheering fans last night to a lecture about documentary film technique at Penn State University. Most of Mr. Moore’s $30,000 speaking fee came from the university’s student activity fund, which cannot be used for partisan political causes.

“As we understand it, the speech was filled with shop-talk and technical jargon about filmmaking, since Mr. Moore is a prominent filmmaker,” said an unnamed spokesman for the university. “Penn State would never use $23,000 in student funds for an anti-Bush hate rally, for example. We’re delighted to see that so many of today’s college students are interested in camera angles, panning techniques and the other arcane subjects.”

Meanwhile, halfway across campus, nationally-syndicated talkshow host Mike Gallagher held a “bitterly partisan rally” in a packed auditorium. Sources said Mr. Gallagher is so filled with hatred of Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry that he actually charged no fee for his campus visit.

“What’s worse,” said an unnamed spokesman for Young American Democrats Against Hatred (YADAH), “Is that Gallagher showed the film ‘Stolen Honor‘ which impugns the character and record of Sen. Kerry using merely first-hand accounts of American prisoners of war who claim their imprisonment was extended by Mr. Kerry’s 1971 ‘atrocities’ testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It’s just another example of right-wing kook politics.”

Mr. Gallagher also led his listeners to contribute $62,200 to send care packages to U.S. troops in Iraq, “a vitriolic partisan move clearly designed to benefit Bush,” said the YADAH source.

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