It was a shouting match of "four more years" versus "no more years" outside the Bryce Jordan Center Friday night, as the thousands in line to see Michael Moore gradually worked their way past about 60 protesters.

"You're the stupidest people on the face of the earth if you're going in there," Penn State College Republicans member A.J. Fluehr yelled to the passing crowd.

Fluehr said Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary was "despicable" in its representation of facts.

"He did some things that I would have received zeroes on if I turned in as papers in high school," he said. "It just doesn't fly."

Though police said there were no reported incidents, a few verbal confrontations erupted between protesters and those waiting to go inside.

A driver passing the protesters yelled at them to "stop lying to America."

"This is free speech in action," College Republican Josh Stanton (freshman-supply chain and information systems) said. "You get people who look like they're about to boil over."

One man stepped out of line to tell Fluehr that he had incorrectly spelled the acronym for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as "ANWAR" on one of his signs. The man then added that spelling probably would not matter to President George W. Bush, either.

Dwight Yerger of West Chester said he has been coming to Centre County for the past three months to help win Bush's re-election. "It's funny. I've never done this before in my life," he said. "Now's the time."

He said he was surprised at how few people were able to hold rational discussions with the protesters.

Many of the people in line who did talk back exhibited "irrational anger," Stanton said. "You're going to attract more extremists [with Moore]," he said. "It's a very emotional election."

As the protesters showed support for the war in Iraq, a man in line questioned how many of the protesters were actually going to enlist to serve in the war.

Others merely said that being anti-war is not anti-American. One man called Bush the "anti-Christ."

Yerger said he remembered protests in the 1960s, though he did not participate in them. "This is fun. Gets you fired up," he said.

Because Centre County has a more divided political makeup than Philadelphia and its surrounding areas, Yerger said he feels his efforts are more valuable here.

"At least up here, maybe there's a shot," he said. "It doesn't matter where you help in the state."

Penn State University Police supervisor Tyrone Parham said there were no reported problems at the event.

"We had no incidents from that event," he said. "We had several protesters there, but no incidents or problems at all."

The protesters began to disperse shortly after the audience entered the building, at about 9:40 p.m.

Collegian staff writer Kathleen Haughney
contributed to this report