Mikey at GMU

Yesterday I received the following email.

Hey guys,

Big fan of your site here.  I’m a graduate student at George Mason University in Virginia, a state school.  Michael Moore is being paid 35,000
for a speaking arrangement 5 days before the election.  The kicker is, he’s being paid with Virginia taxpayer funding.

Word of this has spread like wildfire throughout the entire Northern VA/DC/MD area and there’s a good chance Moore will be dumped.  The dean of the school has gotten bombarded with phone calls demanding that Moore’s appearance be canceled if the money comes from taxpayer dollars.

The general consensus is, let Moore come and speak, but he shouldn’t be paid 35K in taxpayer money when George Mason students (including myself) are already struggling to pay our way through school.  If Moore wants to speak, he’s more than welcome, provided he speaks for free or the money comes from private funds.

I just thought you might find this story worth posting.  Moore is not nearly as popular as he’d like to think, and the fact that he has the audacity to take 35K for a single speaking appearance out of taxpayer money is really starting to strike a nerve.

Phil

Well, it happened.

George Mason University on Thursday canceled plans to have “Fahrenheit 9/11” director Michael Moore speak on campus five days before the presidential election.

The decision came after a Republican state legislator wrote a letter to university President Alan G. Merten protesting the Fairfax school’s plans to pay the filmmaker $35,000 to speak on Oct. 28.

“We just felt it wasn’t the most appropriate use of (public) funds, so we decided the best thing to do was cancel,” school spokesman Daniel Walsch said.

George Mason didn’t notify Moore before making the decision public, Walsch said.

A message left seeking comment from Moore wasn’t immediately returned to The Associated Press, but he told The Washington Post he plans to come and speak anyway.

“I’m going to show up in support of free speech and free expression,” he said.

See, this shows how utterly transparent Moore’s message is.  Nobody was preventing him froim showing up, they just objected—legitimately and appropriately, I might add—to his exorbitant speaking fee, which was coming from taxpayer funds.  Can you imagine what Moore would say if the school was paying $40,000 out of public funds to bring, say, Kenneth Lay to speak at the school?  Why did he need the fee in the first place?  If he’s such a champion of free speech and expression, why ask for such a huge fee?  Why not ask GMU to cover his plane ticket and motel room?  Michael Moore is a multi-millionaire who has a price tag of roughly $40,000 per speaking event.  Think about that one, moore-ons, the next time your hero talks about what a working-class guy he is.