Last week, political satirist Jon Stewart (Comedy Central) announced his plans to spearhead a sort of apolitical, political rally in Washignton D.C. on October 30, 2010 named the, "Rally to Restore Sanity." As this video shows, the announcement garnered widespread media coverage, including considerable coverage from the "mainstream" media like ABC Worldnews, CNN, and even Fox News. Not to mention the buzz it appeared to create among the Internet crowd, at least from my unscientific research. The whole idea is obviously a jovial response to right-wing Glenn Beck's "Restore Honor" rally, that was held at the same location (the National Mall) in D.C. in late August. Although it is, at least in part, a poking-fun-at-the idiocy-of the-Beck-rally, I also think Stewart is genuine in his intentions to "restore sanity" to America. I for one, like Stewart, happen to believe that some of the political pundits in this country take themselves waaaay too seriously. And I'm certainly not just singling out the hard-right pundits like Beck, Bill O'Reilly and pretty much all of the Fox News channel. No, even guys like Keith Olbermann, a bleeding leftist, in my opinion go too far in their commentaries. Stewart believes that most Americans, the "major majority" that Nixon used to refer to, are hard-working, centrist citizens, who care about taking care of their families, and on the weekends-hanging out with their friends...if they can. They are, like myself, liberal on some issues, and conservative on others. And though we might disagree with, say, President Obama on some ideologies, we don't think he is Hitler...nor did we think George W. Bush was either.
However, have you seen some of the signs at some of these rallies in the last few years!!?? Holy cow, there are some pretty extremist views out there. And Stewart is saying that for most of Americans, the "80% of us who have jobs, and families, and are otherwise trying to create a better life," their voice is far too often overlooked and rarely heard. The louder 20%, Stewart contends, make their voices heard on the news programs that we watch, and read. And that is a gross misrepresentation. To me, that is the demographic Stewart is targeting with his latest satire.
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