Rally, Take 2

Alex:
airphotosLive.com is the GIS and RS company who was contracted to provide the figures.
http://airphotoslive.com/
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Astonishingly enough (or not), the photo on their website replaces the one yesterday, which was there since Glenn Becks Rally for Insanity on 8/28.
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I think that until competition arrives on the scene, they are the horse at the source for crowd size estimates.
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Go look at their methodologies…

A huge happy diverse crowd versus a much smaller crowd of angry white people. Not much of a choice if you have to pick one.

Less we Forge How we got Here, a Remindert:

Excerpt from PlanetWaves.Net

(Conservative public officials spend) “$1 million a year per soldier in (Iraw and now) Afghanistan makes the bonuses of Wall Street execs look like a bargain. And we’re doing what? Intervening in the affairs of a foreign country? ”

(The GOP Party want to privatize or reuduce) “Social Security benefits in half — as if they’re not low enough already. People went on and on about entitlements, without noting that companies such as Bank of America and General Electric pay zero corporate taxes and get plenty in corporate welfare.

Candidates pandering to this constituency are promising to eliminate the minimum wage, take away health care, give the Social Security fund to Wall Street. Women voters are leaning Republican this year. They are being manipulated by hundreds of millions of dollars worth of anonymous attack advertising, allowed by a new Supreme Court decision called Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. I don’t understand this. Lots of conservatives are Christians, and Jesus said we should take care of the poor. And as for those ads, why would you conceal your identity unless you have something to hide?

On a radio show, Sal Russo, the ‘chief strategist’ of the Tea Party Express, a political action committee that funnels money into the campaigns of Teabag candidates. Mr. Russo got his start shining the shoes of Ronald Reagan, who looks like a bleeding heart liberal these days — he raised taxes dozens of times, granted amnesty to illegal immigrants and did quite a bit of deficit spending. Russo rambled on for an hour about how the (Democrat-controlled) government is over-regulating business and therefore creating the recession. All we need to do is get rid of these pesky regulations and the recession will disappear, he said (about 14 times). There used to be an expression for this — putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.

Respect for individual rights, including privacy and free speech. The United States is based on keeping private things private: including our personal papers and private property. That’s what the law says. In the United States, citizens are sovereigns, not subjects of the crown. A smaller, less invasive government stays out of your private life. It does not have time, resources or authority to monitor every single pregnancy. Family planning is a family matter. Then, as citizens, we mind our own business. What your neighbor does in the privacy of his or her home is none of your business, unless it directly impacts your life in some way.

Non-interventionist military policy. We need to take care of our own country before we conquer or ‘help’ any other country. That might translate to shorter, more efficient wars — or no wars at all. The purpose of the military is to defend our nation, not to randomly attack other countries, or worse, to steal their resources. We have more than enough here in magnificent North America.

Speaking of education, it’s money well spent. We need to invest in the future, and an effective, economical way to do that is to support education. Parents should have a diversity of options for educational philosophies available: different kinds of schools to suit different values and ideas about life. Public higher education needs to go back to majority funding by the state, remembering its primary mission, which is access to all citizens; this in turn will create a prosperous, functioning economy. We have to stop this whole business of student loans and go back to grants.

Help for those in need. The purpose of a society is to take care of all its members. Why bother otherwise? We are a nation based on abundance, and there is plenty to go around, especially if we’re talking about food, shelter, clothing and health care. Many of my fellow conservatives these days say they read the Bible. Remember this part? “Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.”

Not bad, Alex. One thing of interest:

“It’s four days before the election,” said a Capitol Hill staffer. “Instead of being here, why aren’t you knocking on doors in Ohio?”

Ignorance born of arrogance. Whoever this Beltway gomer is, s/he obviously didn’t have a clue.

This was a nationally-televised sanity check (which was actually in the rally’s title) instead of a pre-election political party’s pep rally.

Alex, shuouldn’t you be covering this:
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http://hotair.com/archives/2010/10/30/boxers-sweetheart-deal-with-reinstated-indian-tribe/
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And also, Alex, why dont you compare CBS’s estimates of the Beck rally with this one? It looks curiously like CBS is playing with the numbers.

What does it matter? The sentiments the other day were along the lines of ‘Will there be 10, or 15 people?’, today its ‘Liberal rallies are always bigger because they have nothing better to do!’.
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And again, what were these ‘bad’ signs?

My favorite signs were “This Is My Sign” and “Mildly Irritated At Extreme Outrage”.

My favorite I heard about on NPR was “The Person behind me can’t see”.
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Also, they reported, the audience began to chant “Three word Slogan! Three Word Slogan”.
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It would have been fun. I wish I could have gone there.
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Sure, I’m the first one to wrestle with the wingnuts here, but, that’s because I never ended up learning martial arts, so, I do, when we can’t have intelligent debate due to the extremely vocal but rare extreme of conservatives come online, like to verbally beat the crap out of them.
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I like the idea of a format where you can either physically beat the crap out of somebody in a match and then have a beer afterward or to verbally beat the crap out of somebody when they don’t know know where you live.
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At the end of the day, of course, I agree that conservatives do, also, want what is best for America, but, often are woefully misinformed about the issues and/or are totally unaware that, historically, the solutions they suggest have been tried many times before and failed miserably. (Like no unemployment benefits – back then people didn’t suddenly find work, they begged on the street corners or rode rails half starved and, some, even resorted to lives of crime if they couldn’t find work.)
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I don’t actually hate conservatives, just beating up wingnuts is fun online since I never learned how to flip an opponent over my back the way martial artists do.

http://patterico.com/2010/10/31/charles-johnson-shreds-the-last-of-his-credibility-discussing-the-stewart-rally/

Good link-please keep us updated on the fight between wingnuts.

Who are those two people and why should anyone care?

Spob,
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First, the concept of a liberal media has been blown away years ago.
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“The U.S. media are rapidly being monopolized by a dwindling number of parent corporations, all of whom have conservative economic agendas. The media are also critically dependent upon corporations for advertising. As a result, the news almost completely ignores corporate crime, as well as pro-labor and pro-consumer issues. Surveys of journalists show that the majority were personally liberal in the 1980s, but today they are centrists, with more conservatives than liberals on economic issues. However, no study has proven that they give their personal bias to the news. On the other hand, the political spectrum of pundits — who do engage in noisy editorializing — leans heavily to the right. The most extreme example of this is talk radio, where liberals are almost nonexistent. The Fairness Doctrine was designed to prevent one-sided bias in the media by requiring broadcasters to air opposing views. It once enjoyed the broad support of both liberals and conservatives. But now that the media have become increasingly owned and controlled by corporations, conservatives defiantly oppose the Fairness Doctrine. This is probably the best proof that the media’s bias is conservative, not liberal.”
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“Conservatives often promote the myth that the U.S. media are liberal. This myth serves several purposes: it raises public skepticism about liberal news stories, hides conservative bias when it appears, and goads the media to the right. GOP strategist William Kristol also reveals another reason: “I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.” (1)

In unguarded moments, however, even far-right figures like Pat Buchanan come clean: “The truth is, I’ve gotten fairer, more comprehensive coverage of my ideas than I ever imagined I would receive.” He further conceded: “I’ve gotten balanced coverage and broad coverage — all we could have asked… For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every Republican on earth does that.” (2)

So what’s the real story? The fact is that conservatives have powerful friends in the media: the corporations that own them, and the corporations that pay for their advertising. These giant firms have been increasingly successful in bending the media’s message to suit their self-interests, which include a conservative and pro-corporate agenda. Studies show that the media are eerily silent on the issues most important to workers, consumers and other citizens adversely affected by corporate behavior. Conservatives respond to these charges with (old) polls showing that most journalists are personally liberal, but these polls are outdated. New polls show the majority of journalists are centrists. And of those who are not centrists, there are more conservatives than liberals on economic issues. We’ll explore more of this question below.”….
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“The Media Monopoly

Easily the most famous book on media trends in the last 15 years is Ben Bagdikian’s 1983 book, The Media Monopoly. In it, he predicted that deregulation under President Reagan would allow media ownership to concentrate in fewer and fewer corporate hands. This, in turn, would result in a more pro-corporate media. Ridiculed as “alarmist” when it first came out, it has since been praised as a classic for the accuracy of its predictions. “I derive no pleasure from having been correct,” writes the former dean of American journalism in his most recent edition. (3)”
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http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-liberalmedia.htm
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Secondly, look at your own pictures. They are taken from the opposite sides such that it is totally unclear which is bigger since they photograph different areas.
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Third, this could, easily be called a moderate rally or just an entertainment event. There is no reason to suspect that 100% of the people at the rally were liberal and that none were conservative.
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Fourth, the Republicans look like they will both beat Democrats in the midterms and, unfortunately as far as I am concerned, take the house majority, so, why worry about a rally if you have the voters? Who matters more, rally attendees or voters? If only five people showed up but Democrats were going to take fifty Republican seats, then I would be happier than am that a good comic got a big audience.

“It looks curiously like CBS is playing with the numbers.”
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Spob:
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Do you know anything, anything at allabout Geographic Information Systems?
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How about Remote Sensing.
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I think the idea of trying to compare an opinion on hotair to tried and true GIS/RS methodologies is not only laughable, it is patently ridiculous!
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You are welcome to defend your point, but I’m giving you advance warning that you would be headed for a much worse trouncing than I gave you a year or two ago about global warming…

I have this “Go Evolve Some More” button lying below the fan next to me.
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A cherished memento given to me by an attendee here in Seattle…

I think spob wants everyone to be angry like him.
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This is the Teabaggers American moment and how dare us upstart mixed diversity happy people make jokes at their expense.
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Call out the National Guard. It’s martial law:
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No smiling. No laughter.
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Or ELSE….

If there was a liberal media, you idiot wingnuts, don’t you think that they would have given this rally far more coverage than they did?
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Holding up tin ear horn
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Eh? I didn’t hear you…

“I think spob wants everyone to be angry like him.”
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Fitty that reminds me of this song.
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http://www.twintonedigital.com/mp3/7907-03.mp3
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1979 compilation “Big Hits of Mid America Volume Three”

By always playing the victim, the reactionary right hopes to include everyone in their victimhood. Well, most people don’t like whining and always blaming others for their complaints. It would be nice if they took some responsibility and had a real view of “real” America.

What Derek said on the previous thread.

And what Dennis Perrin said:

“F@ck Sanity”

“Again, Stewart could be putting everyone on. I certainly hope so, yet doubt it. You don’t achieve mainstream prominence by calling our terrorist culture by its right name. And you sure as f@ck don’t mock it. Stewart knows his place. Just the other night he sat across from a man who oversees a vast network of theft, torture and mass murder. And how did our most celebrated satirist since Mark Twain react? With deference. Respect. Sanity.”

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2010/10/use-your-privilege.html

Apr, we were discussing this the other night over dinner.
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You know who America gravitates to? The Happy Warrior. I think that’s why Sarah Pailn has whatever popularity she has and sour pusses like Newt really have never resonated beyond a media that thinks he is brilliant.
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To be parochial Wellstone and Franken, despite honest philosophical disagreements from the republicans, had and have earned respect because they aren’t humorless.
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That’s something that is lost on many on the right and left.

Paul not,
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It sounds like this band was a major influence of the Strokes musically. (The Strokes are a Manhattan based band which had a couple of hits about five years ago).
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I never heard that song before, but, it has a great sound!

Conservative doublespeak drives me crazy. With it lies the whole fake victimhood against “liberal elitist”.
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Liberals, as I consider liberals, are political egalitarians and often include all disenfranchised groups while conservative to me are people who wish to conserve their current, advantageous situation from change.
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So, “liberal elite” to me is an oxymoron like an obese anorexic, giant dwarf, dumb intellectual and wealthy pauper.
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I imagine a true beneficiary of conservatism economically a part of the top 2% driving his BMW around town and pulling over to yell at those McDonalds workers, those construction guys on the street, the high school teacher, the college professor and everybody in the ghettos, especially minorities and telling them how they oppress him and how tired he is of being at the bottom of the totem pole.
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If he only had the advantages of an inner city school rather than an award winning public school in a well off suburb! If he only had the advantages of food stamps instead of being qualified for a six or seven figure income! If only he weren’t white and could get stopped and frisked on the way to work! If only it weren’t for all of those people oppressing him, then he’s be… working at the McDonalds wishing he was the guy in the BMW with a nice house in the suburbs rather than actually being that person.
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The whole reversal of roles through right wing doublespeak is so transparent to me that I find it hilarious, but, since so many people are so confused as to vote against their own self interest, also, depressing at times.

Reports indicate that Comedy Network rejected up to 60% of media requests for the rally.

Glad you liked it Patrick.
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The vocals are similar and some of the guitar is similar to The Strokes for sure.

I guess most folks didn’t take away the ideal of reasonableness from yesterday’s event.

The vast majority of Americans are rejecting Liberal/Progressivism.
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Here’s an interesting article from POLITICO.

“If some Democratic consultant told you they are feeling better, they must have dropped some heavy drugs,” said a senior pollster who is working for candidates in competitive races. “It’s hard.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this week launched something of a last-ditch offensive to save some of its incumbents, purchasing airtime to defend endangered members like Iowa Rep. Dave Loebsack, Illinois Rep. Bill Foster and New Jersey Rep. John Adler — all of whom are highly vulnerable but whom party officials believe could ultimately prevail.

The committee also sought to shore up incumbents who until recently were not thought to be in electoral peril: Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley and North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre.

Still, among those in the Democratic consulting class, there’s a gloomy acknowledgment that many of the incumbents the DCCC has spent millions of dollars to protect won’t be coming back to Congress.

“Everybody that is tied will lose, and everyone that is ahead by a few points will lose because of the GOP wave,” said one party media consultant who is involved in a wide array of House races. “There are going to be some surprises.”
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Looks like Republicans will win an additional 60-100 seats in the House. In the Senate they will gain between 9-11 seats. 11 will give them a Majority in the Senate.
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I thought you would all like to hear this very good news.

.http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44448.html

Actually Republicans only need 10 seats in the Senate to gain control.

Looks like Republicans will win an additional 60-100 seats in the House. In the Senate they will gain between 9-11 seats.
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Stop drinking the antifreeze, grandpa. The Republicans will gain in the House, likely taking control, and come close but not close enough in the Senate. There is no way they get the gains you’re masturbating about here.

It’s easy to be happy when pols are handing you other peoples money

Kevin, a voice of sanity.
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Fact: the president’s party lost seats during midterm elections every single time since 1934 except for 2002.
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In the case of 1934 it was the Great Depression and the early success of the stimulus package known as The New Deal which motivated people to vote for more Democrats in 1934 and in 2002 outside of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, DC, Virginia and Maryland had been successfully duped by the Republican Party to believe that Republicans could fight terrorism better than Democrats. (In other words, none of the places where there were significant numbers of people killed during 9/11 went further towards Republicans, but people who had never been to or never lived in or near DC or NYC fell for it).
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So, 3X, keep your pants on. This does not change Obama’s likelihood of re-election nor does it imply that Democrats will not take the house back after the Republicans keep us in slow growth or recession by not using government to work on Trillions of dollars of infrastructure which needs work nationwide to compensate for a lack of consumer spending.
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You won’t be able to afford you Viagra if the Republicans hold down the economy as they plan to, so, you’ll really have to keep you pants on.

“NYT LEAD MONDAY: Both parties see possibility of bigger Republican wins in House than either side was talking about — even few days ago”
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Kevie have mom take away your shoelaces and sharp objects away

“How about Remote Sensing”

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Didn’t mom tell you that would make you blind

“First, the concept of a liberal media has been blown away years ago”
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Yes it was liberals blowing smoke up everybodies shorts and only liberals still believe it.. Another “liberal fact”.

Most are not even discrete about it anymore. And only the learning impaired (you) keep hoping soembody else believes it.

“Conservative doublespeak drives me crazy”

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That ship of you being crazy sailed a long long time ago.

Hmm – can you tell me what that even mean in context of this event?

“And only the learning impaired (you) keep hoping soembody else believes it.”
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Hearing impaired people who discuss music?
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Freak, you’re off your medication, aren’t you?

“That ship of you being crazy sailed a long long time ago.”
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The… ship of crazy?
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Freakinpa, you’re even losing at snark 101.
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It’s past your bedtime, isn’t it?

“Kevie have mom take away your shoelaces and sharp objects away.”
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Kevin, like, basically, all of us are in this for America, not one team against another like the World Series.
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When the Republicans take more seats and keep their promise to hold down the US economy when consumers will not spend, it is our fellow Americans of all political persuasions who may well need to stay away from sharp objects.
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The last time Republicans tried cutting spending during an economy as bad as this one, the stock brokers were diving out windows.

Need I even say more?
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Naaaahhhhh….

In re 10.4:
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That isn’t even real, unless you’re that guy on tv that sees headlines before they run.
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Try this, instead:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/31/election.final.predictions/index.html

Good to see you back, 3x. I did a quick read before retiring and see that you and free have our progressive friends all stirred up again. I think the obvious has finally dawned on them and we are seeing pre-election jitters, making their usual nasty temperament, even worse.”Restoring the sanity” was not a Saturday event, but will actually take place on Tuesday when Americans start correcting the multitude of democratic mistakes they have been making for the past two years. A side benefit, will be the removal of several consistent progressive apologists from the swamp, due to your challenge of “of putting up, or shutting up”. Thank you, you have made the swamp a more hospitable environment for us all. It will be interesting to see if these gentlemen will indeed honor their word.

“It will be interesting to see if these gentlemen will indeed honor their word.”
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3X bet sacred that if the Republicans did not gain both houses, he would go offline for a month.
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I bet 3X that if the Republicans had a majority over 4, I would leave the swamp for one month.
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The odds are that both 3X and I will be offline between November 2nd and December 2nd.
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I have my doubts about 3X keeping his deal with Sacred.
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It’s too bad I didn’t make a bet with you for both houses the way Sacred did.
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So, either you are being pretentious and using the verb “too retire” in it’s archaic form meaning to go to sleep or you, claiming to be 37 years old, are leaving a medical practice nobody ever believed you practiced to begin with.
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“…we are seeing pre-election jitters…”
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Jitters is a melodramatic way of putting things. I am concerned that we will return to the 1981 to 1993 and 2002 to 2008 reality where government is sold off to the highest bidder or, more likely, to an exaggerated version of the 1995 to 2001 reality where the job of congress was to investigate the president’s genitals instead of writing good laws.
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I’d put the odds at 80/20 in 3X’s favor for my going offline for one month, but, I would put the odds at 90/10 of 3X losing his bet to Sacred, too.

Really JC? You’re anti-Stewart now?
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Do yo mind if I ask who it is you do admire? I know it’s fun to sit on the sidelines and give the FU to Obama, the Democrats, Stewart, Children, Puppies, and Apple Pie, but at some point you have to state that you do respect somebody’s coherent vision of what to do in this world, right? I recall that in the past you’ve given LBJ credit for being the last Pres. to try a true liberal agenda- does his embracing such policies excuse him from guilt for overseeing “a vast network of theft, torture, and mass murder”, to the point where a comedian could have a polite interview with LBJ without being pilloried? Do you think any American President is less guilty of these crimes than Obama, since apparently the latter has so quickly crossed that line in your mind?
Do you think any politician is going to be democratically elected while running on the “dismantling the Empire” platform? Or do you think that American society and government need to be rebuilt from scratch before it is worth a damn?
Sorry to ask so many questions, but when you tear down a guy because he is pleading for reasonable discussion, its hard to figure out where you’re coming from. I mean being pissed at Stewart for conducting a respectful interview with the president? What did you want- yelling, biting, scratching, and spittle-flecked outbursts of “you lie!” Would that have accomplished more than Stewarts pointed-but-fair questions? It is to say you were disappointed in a tough interview because it wasn’t an inquisition.

Anon, not to blow you off, but it’d take me a lot of words to respond fully, and with a (yet again) feverish infant on my hands, it ain’t going to happen tonight. Perhaps I’ll get a chance tomorrow or at a later date if we’re in the Swamp at the same time.

Thanks JC- I’ll keep an eye peeled. And sympathies to the littlest lady- on this side of the Pac. we’ve in the final throes of fighting off a 2-week home infection that gained entrance courtesy of our little vector as well.

I read somewhere that ABC has hired Andrew Breitbard to be an analyst this Tuesday. I hope that was a joke.

If it is true, then Stewart’s constant criticism of the MSM is now more warranted than ever.

Did NPR and PBS scoop up all the sane Republicans and now all that is left are the cynical and the crazypants?

“A side benefit, will be the removal of several consistent progressive apologists from the swamp, due to your challenge of “of putting up, or shutting up”.
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Just to set the record straight, it was me that proposed the challenge back in mid-May. I also proposed a much longer bet. If a recall correctly, I wanted 90 days or 6 months. And yes, I will honor the bet. I’m leaving whether I win or lose. At the very least, it will be for a month.

I hope that was a joke.
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Nope, but apparently a bit of an exaggeration:
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http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_10/026396.php
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“What’s interesting about this is not just the defensive tone — I can only assume ABC received quite a few phone calls yesterday — but also the ways in which it seems different from what those involved were saying the day before. On Friday, ABC said Breitbart ‘will be … on our air.’ Breitbart himself boasted about being “featured” in ABC’s ‘election night coverage,’ bringing ‘live’ analysis.
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Nearly 24 hours later, however, ABC News wants us to know Breitbart will be ‘participating in an online-only discussion.’”

freep translated:

Yeah, there were a lot more smiling Sambos and Mexicans at the Stewart rally but that’s only because they have no jobs and thus plenty of time to use the foodstamps paid for by “real ‘Murikans” (TM) to buy tickets to take tree-hugging eco-friendly busses and trains down to DC to attend Stewart’s elitist liberal hatefest.

Still, the fact that ABC has allowed itself to be associated with such a person shows how far the MSM has jumped the shark. To use an overused phrase.

OK, anon, here goes, groggy as all get out notw/standing.
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First off, I’m hardly anti-Stewart. He’s done great work in the past and he’ll continue to do so in the future. That said, I’ve never been a regular viewer, but I’ve read/seen enough of his clips in the blogosphere. As GG said:
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“I think Jon Stewart is one of the most incisive and effective commentators in the country, and he reaches an audience that would otherwise be politically disengaged.”
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http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/19/stewart
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That said, me & mine from the shrill leftist precincts who’ve been proven right over the last decade, take some small umbrage at being equated with astroturfed corporate demagogues. There’s a difference between Malcolm X and Joe McCarthy, or the Vietnam War protesters and the Teapartiers. There are times to be angry and there are more than worthy objects of such anger.
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The core difference I’d imagine is that you probably don’t think Obama is a colossal failure. Or perhaps you view him as a liberal constrained by forces beyond his control? Did LBJ oversee one of the empire’s more soiled stains on history, yes. But he didn’t excuse or continue some of the nation’s most egregious crimes (torture/civil liberties in general). And his terrifically successful Great Society was in no way shape or form related to Obama’s domestic agenda–(i.e. theft: market based, corporate friendly bailouts of the wealthy at the expense of hardworking Americans, not to mention the looming extension of the Bush tax cuts and the catfood commission). LBJ would have rightfully seen Obama for what he is, a republican.
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So, it comes down to how you view Obama. Stewart, my mocking first link notw/standing, isn’t really the issue. He is, as most dems say, the best thing on TV (well, since Bill Moyers retired at least), and he’s generally on our side. Beyond that, Stewart’s interview was no worse than the supposed hardhitting work of the netroots (all hat and no cattle). See here:
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http://agonist.org/sean_paul_kelley/20101028/what_obligations_blogger
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“Do you think any politician is going to be democratically elected while running on the ‘dismantling the Empire’ platform? Or do you think that American society and government need to be rebuilt from scratch before it is worth a damn?”
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No and possibly yes. I tend to lean towards the notion that 2008 was our last chance to prevent the completion of a coup that’s been taking place for some time. Two years later, I’d say the corporations own the system lock stock and… While I think the duopoly is too fundamentally complicit in this state of affairs, I do hold out hope that the majority of voters who ID as independents (not to mention nonvoters) will eventually begin the long and arduous task of forming alternative parties that might, just might, be able to challenge the power of the now corp. state. And I hope it’s not bloody, but I don’t have a lot of hope at this pt.
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As for admiration, I think politicians aren’t eligible for any would-be list. Zinn, Chomsky, Emma Goldman, Oe Kenzaburo, Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill, Greenwald, Terry Eagleton, Steinbeck–some of the names that pop into my head.

BTW, here’s an even more amusing take on the rally:
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“Look, I will be the first (not literally the first) to admit that John Stewart can work for a network that can hire a staff that can put together a video montage of some people saying some things this time that are different from and or exactly the same as things that they said some other time as well as the next guy. White bachelors of the arts find this uproariously funny, I guess. In support of the right of Americans to watch television programs about other television programs, one hundred billion Weslyan alumni turned out on the National Mall in order to contribute sanity and sanely contribute their voices to Comedy Central, an owned subsidiary of MTV Networks dba Comedy Partners, an owned subsidiary of Viacom, NYSE: VIA, VIAB, VNV. Having reaffirmed the fundamental right of college-educated Americans to be critical of media consumption habits, they returned to their nests. There, the queen sheds her wings and begins her life’s work, laying millions of eggs.”
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http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/

Funny that someone so clearly smart incorrectly spelled the name of his target.
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Well I guess people are his topic, Jon Stewart just his means.

Thanks for the further explanation, JC. I do indeed think that Obama ranks better than colossal failure, but obviously what really gets my hackles raised is insults aimed at Stewart. To me the message of the rally was not that right/left are in any way equivalent, but rather that informed discussion is more productive than screaming and yelling, regardless of underlying beliefs. Imagine, say, discussing progressivism vs. conservatism with Exiled vs. doing whatever it is people do when they engage with Rusty or FreeinPA. There can be passion or anger, just no need for vilification, pandering, or other activities which detract from understanding.

“Imagine, say, discussing progressivism vs. conservatism with Exiled vs. doing whatever it is people do when they engage with Rusty or FreeinPA”
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Or 5% of the Swamp vs. 95%. While I defend people’s right to argue as vehemently as they like, it is, per most of my record here, hardly something I fancy personally. Again, as GG says at the end of his post, some of the most polite discourse comes from folks like Bill F’ing Kristol. And Washington loves nothing more than comity that masks fundamental establishment agreement about some rather pernicious policies. If our politics needs anything, it’s more baldfaced truth telling to power–whether it’s shrieking or merely politely pointed.
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In the end, this entire debate is largely about the nature of our rhetoric, the tone, civility what have you and not about ideas. In that regard, it’s yet another win chalked up for the ruling class. B/C their ideas are going to literally wreck the nation.

BTW, I’d add that many on the left are downright hostile/incivil at times b/c they’ve been banished from the conversation for decades. Some might say that’s b/c their rhetoric if often heated but that’s hardly true when you look a giant like Chomsky or Zinn (RIP) or Amy Goodman etc. We on the left talk mostly amongst ourselves, so if we want to F bomb this or that person so be it. Polite or otherwise, the village will never engage us (let alone hire us).
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And I’d say comparing what we do (the left vs. dem partisans) with the Patrick S/Freeper wars is beyond false equivalence.