Update: 9:15 AM
Roving Reporters calling in from the Metro Station–both north and south lots are filled. One reporter is standing in a line 300 yards long to get to the trains. Message is, if you are going, get dropped off or find another way in to town.
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If you watched the news yesterday, you could feel the presence of fear and that something was wrong. We had planes being escorted into JFK by fighter jets. The FBI and other spook groups were pouring all over places near Newark, Phillie, Portsmouth, Maine, looking for packages that might have contained explosives. Uneasy times.
It was impossible not to think of 9/11. We need to be reminded periodically.
The Daily Show feature is from September 20, 2001. In trying to restore sanity, Jon Stewart had the following:
From the Huffington Post—
…[T]he opening segment of the September 20, 2001 edition of the Daily Show, their first show back from the attacks of September 11th. Jon Stewart took to the stage, and made his best effort at elucidating the great grief that the country was feeling, unsure of when or how he’d be able to be funny again. It was a weird time for the show. “Irony” has been declared to be dead. There was little to joke about, and few in the mood. But that’s what comedians do, they take risks and make leaps and hope that they’ve got wit and soul enough in them to expose some truths and settle some nerves and unite an audience in common mirth.
This is the segment where Stewart talks about the privilege of getting to do the Daily Show, to be allowed to chuck “spitballs” from the “back of the country” at the news of the day. A lot of the people who believe that it’s not Stewart’s role to attempt anything resembling seriousness cite that “spitballs” line as the moment that Stewart permanently defined himself. They forget what he says next: “Our show has changed. I don’t doubt that. What it’s become, I don’t know.”
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| September 11, 2001 | ||||
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The rally can be seen unedited and uncensored on Comedy Central starting at noon. Its time for Jon Stewart to throw more spitballs.
UPDATE-SATURDAY MORNING:
The “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” is billed as a correction to what Stewart, Colbert and their legion fans consider the extremism, vacuousness and dishonesty that has infected the American political system, especially the self-righteousness and conservative fear-mongering they see in Beck and his employer, Fox News. It will include musical interludes by reliable openers such as the Roots and professional rally balladeer Sheryl Crow. It will be emphatically covered by the rating-points and Web-traffic-hungry mainstream media — including The Washington Post — that it vigorously mocks. For his part, Beck, a professed fan of Stewart, has passive-aggressively wished the rally “great success.”
Does anyone else see the irony here? Comedy Central has become a dependable news source–at least for today.
Not so much if this is accurate. It seems that they are trying to control all filming at the rally.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/rally-to-resore-sanity-pledges-to-strictly-prohibit-filming-at-national-mall-106355893.html
There are over 900 still pictures at the website.
Jon Stewart is on the stage, right on time. 1 pm
Great National anthem ..a capella
@Cargosquid Probably to hide the fact that the crowd is largely white, a huge issue when it comes to conservative rallies, but a fact that the media will subdue for the left.
And it is exactly that type of uninformed comment that the rally was about. You obviously aren’t watching the Rally to Restore Sanity or you would see the audience. It is a fairly representative demographic.
Emma, you are so smart and talented. Why do you have to try to piss on every parade?
John Stewart, in the keynote address to the crowd-
I will post the address in its entirety when it goes to print. It was quite moving and in my opinion, quite accurate.f
There were lots and lots of cameras. I watched the whole thing.
Emma’s statement about the diversity of the crowd is in error. I saw blacks, Asians, women with head scarves, “mature” couples. Certainly a lot more diverse than the Beck rally attendants.
What I liked best was the part when they showed all the fear mongering screamers on TV
from all sides alike. Certainly made it clear to me that the TV loud mouths have contributed most to the fear many are feeling right now.
Loved the entertainment. Good old Tony Bennett, still in pretty good voice, singing “God Bless America” w/o accompaniment. Cat Stevens!
“Civility trumps sarcasm” = one of the good signs.
The crowd was huge beyond belief. People were still streaming out of Metro stations at 2:30 pm. The crowd extended from the stage on 3rd St. back to the Smithsonian “Castle” Museum on 12th. The signs were great and I saw Eric Byler and many others videoing the rally. It was a cross between a Halloween party and a political convention.
Comparing Beck’s rally to this one would be like camparing an Osborn game on Friday night to a Redskins game at Fedex Field on a Sunday afternoon.
@Moon-howler Well, I don’t piss on EVERY parade 😉
I know you like Jon Stewart, Moon, and I don’t have a huge problem with him per se. However, I looked at the photo stills on WaPo, and the crowd did not look a whole lot different from many of the Tea Party gatherings. Just noting the irony and the obvious difference in coverage.
And speaking of pissing on parades, it’s Osbourn, Ivan, not Osborn–and unlike the Skins, our Eagles are UNDEFEATED this season!
You tell him Emma! OHS!!!
I heard there were 90 million people there! At 27 times what showed up at the Beck rally! I heard there wasn’t a honky in sight!
Actually there were signs depicting Sarah Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, and others with Hitler moustaches. Very classy crowd!
I’m very interested in comments from those that attended. Been discussing it with some friends over FB tonight but would love to hear what our friends on the left here have to say about it.
Personally, I have no issue whatsoever with the rally and those that went. I think it’s GREAT. We need people to participate in the system and understand what government is about (or what it shouldn’t be about).
My favorite sign was BECK/PALIN 2012
The Mayans Got It Right
My favorite one is the following:
Top sign seen in the crowd so far: “The Founding Fathers were East Coast liberals”.
I also liked the one I kept seeing on TV: Birthers for Hawaiian Statehood
Emma, you are right. You don’t piss on every parade.
Diversity Gal was there also.
Slowpoke, I think you exaggerated the crowd size. There were a lot of people there, according to Ivan and my brother.
I am trying to find the keynote address. It was awesome.
My second favorite sign was I HATE SIGNS.
We drove in around 9:30. We had considered taking Metro, but decided to drive to my office and walk to the mall. When we went by Vienna the walkway over 66 was packed and the crowd extended into the parking lots. The parking decks on both sides were full up to the top. We were about midway back in the crowd. The demographics appeared to be about the same as the population as a whole. The signs we thought were the best included “I may disagree with you but I believe you’re a real American,” “Death to No One,” and “Think outside the Fox,” and the spelling and grammer on all the signs was excellent. The most hateful sign I saw was “Para salin’ is better than Sarah Palin.” It was well worth the effort to get there and I’m glad we went.
@Moe, thanks for a great report. Mr. Howler called me from the road around 11:30. He was headed to the Maryland game and they were stuck in traffic going 8 mph for miles.
“Papa Smurf 2012” was another good one.
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MORRIS DAVIS: Hate to rain on your parade but “the spelling and grammer on all the signs was excellent.” should be “the spelling and grammAr on all the signs WERE excellent”.
Just a detail. Not important.
And that’s why I didn’t make a sign.
He just wanted to see who was paying attention. Moe, we just can’t trust you not to give us a test. grrrrrrrr…not a mama grizzly, just a virginia brown bear.
I heard that math professors at MIT have been forced to invent new numbers to describe the crowd. Apparently, it’s going to be million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, morethanbeck. Initial estimates were that there were 477 morethanbeck people at the rally yesterday. Currently, the number can only be expressed in scientific notation. MIT professors estimated that the new number, morethanbeck, will suffice until the lame duck congress comes back and continues expanding the national debt on entitlement spending.
Oh, some more info to put it into perspective. 1 Morethanbeck is roughly equivalent to all the grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth times all the stars and planets in the universe squared.
Don’t know if there were 477 morethanbecks there. Producers at comedy central are pretty sure the crowd totaled around 30 million. Colbert however estimated the crowd to be around 6 billion.
The message of the rally was excellent. I LOVED the “duet” with Ozzie and Yusef!
I LIVE opposing views every day in my household and it can be very stressfull. I LIVE navigating that compromise in order to have a marriage and it is hard work and often times I feel like I have to compromise more, but politics should not divide a people. Democracry should allow us an opportunity to agree to disagree to LIVE the very tenant of Democracy. Democracy IS about differences and finding compromise.
I just balled like a baby watching that jon stewart segment. I had never seen that before, how moving.
I meant the first show after 9-11