In the past I haven't found Jon Stewart that funny, so I don't watch the Daily Show, but after going through those links I've gained a lot respect for him. He's exactly right. Listening to him was one of the most politically refreshing things I've heard in a long time, people being reasonable instead of loud sounds fantastic. I live on the opposite side of the country from where the rally is going on; if it's broad-casted I'll definitely watch.

It's being broadcast on Comedy Central.

I want to go but it looks like I'll have to buy a plane ticket for ~$150 for a two day span to do so, so meh. =/

EDIT:

Watch this: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-12-2009/jim-cramer-extended-interview-pt--1

(plus parts 2 and 3)

Just wow. He absolutely rips Cramer. That's probably the most honest journalism piece I've ever seen, and yet it's almost emotionless. You can tell Stewart is absolutely raging inside and yet he's still able to articulate his rationale with poise and directness.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 15 2010, 3:44 pm by FaZ-.

I may be wrong, but I believe reactionaries do not frequently watch The Colbert Report, and that the majority of its viewers are carried over from The Daily Show''s audience. My republican friends, at least, put both shows in the same category of liberal media.

I would imagine Stewart's rally would be semi-serious, whereas Colbert's rally just sounds like a pointless, non-contributing addition. I stopped watching The Colbert Report on a daily basis quite a while ago, and therefore I don't have full details on his rally. It's simply a way to put both shows together in one event, but in that case, I would prefer if Colbert just joined the Rally to Restore Sanity.

Abra Kadabra, Alakazam, your wish is my command!

That actually happened. Colbert's thing is happening at the same place as stewart's rally. My suspicion is that Colbert's part is to add fun back into the more serious message of stewarts rally. Anyway, I'm not too concerned about the details of the viewing audience, my point is that there will be a punchline.

Colbert is straight satire...

Stewart is more cynical and ironic than satire.

I can't wait. =D

You know that the Colbert Report is a parody, right? That he's taking the piss as an extreme right-wing biggot as a way of poking fun at right-wing biggots, right? If there were right-wing rednecks watching his show, taking it seriously, that only makes it even funnier...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_(character)

“The more we got to meet people [in the media], it was—‘Oh! You’re fucking retarded! You don’t care!’ The pettiness of it, the strange lack of passion for any kind of moral or editorial authority, always struck me as weird. We felt like, we’re serious people doing an unserious thing, and they’re unserious people doing a very serious thing.” - Stewart

Also: Obama is going to be on The Daily Show on the 27th. Hopefully he'll prove to be an equal, unlike the other running Democrat they brought on, and I hope Stewart actually challenges him, unlike Condoleezza Rice.

Finally: another of Stewart's really profound pieces: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-20-2001/september-11--2001. Until recently, I'd been one of the guys who's always thought "3000 people? That's pretty insignificant in today's world..." and dismissed the media reaction as American egoism, but this raw emotion changed my perspective on the events a good deal. And yeah, I cried.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 22 2010, 6:17 am by FaZ-.

It's highly unlikely. A common critique other networks give The Daily Show is that Jon doesn't challenge his democratic guests. I always find it hilarious that mainstream news can hypocritically criticize a satirical show for having bias.

Also, your hyperlink is including the period, which gives a 404 when one clicks on it.

Not bad at all... about as best as you could hope for really considering how nervous Stewart looked. Hope it's one of many to come.

that entire show was hilarious, just because of the situation. Great move by Obama though. I want to hear fox's take on it.
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/27/obama-rejects-timid-characterization-daily-show
Is just news, no opinions. It's no fun when there's no opinions.

President Obama: setting the presidential standard for undignified TV appearances. At least he's still doing late night pseudo-news shows on cable instead of just appearances on regular cable shows, like mythbusters.

I don't see how you can call that an undignified appearance. That was easily one of the best interviews I've seen Obama do, simply because our media is so fucking terrible. I saw one commenter liken it to Frost versus Nixon and I thought that was a really ambitious analogy. I would love it if Stewart could function in that sort of role as his career progresses, Frost's career was satire for a while and he progressed to:

"Frost is the only person to have interviewed eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2010 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) and the seven US presidents in office between 1969 and 2008 (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush). He was also the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.[9]"


One thing I am kind of disappointed about is that with Stewart having both Oprah and Obama on his show within a week it makes the Rally seem much more liberal-slanted than I'd originally foreseen. Obviously the crowd was going to be more liberal because that's his viewer base, but now it seems like conservatives will just be a token as if "we're not all ideologically similar!"

The rally is live on Comedy Central right now if anyone is interested, wish I was there. =o

The best part was when they had a sing-a-long and told everyone to sing the lyrics on the screen, and John started singing the wrong lyrics.

Sadly I got kinda annoyed at the unseriousness of it halfway through (edit: I mean I stopped watching TV), so I left midway, missing the serious 15 minute speech at the end.

This.

http://bit.ly/apsGPL

Stewart's "moment of sincerity." Pretty good.

This is exactly because of the polarization the rally was trying to oppose. I think people assume that if someone isn't a bible-toting-rifle-shooting-fox-supporting redneck, they're not a conservative or republican, which of course isn't true at all. The crowd was probably pretty mixed, but I suppose it is unfortunate that he didnt have a strong republican voice appear on his show.

Yeah, that's definitely true but that doesn't mean the criticism isn't valid. Stewart is simply not a moderate, and his viewership (and thus the rally) tends to reflect that. His willingness to have dialectic rather than debate makes him come across as much more moderate than most, but every view I've heard him espouse fits perfectly into the liberal mold. Republican Eric Cantor was on his show and they had a pretty good discussion that was a bit more than skin-deep, but there generally just aren't politicians truly willing to step beyond talking points because there's no reason or reward for doing so while the risks are high. There's only so much you can force out of someone in 15-20 minutes and Stewart is just not as effective when playing devil's advocate with Democrats. I guess my point is that I'm disappointed that there isn't a Stewart equivalent from the right... they could do a lot together. =o


Also, he did touch a lot on how the media was going to portray the event (paraphrase)...

'As we know, there's only two ways to judge the success of a rally: how many people came, and how diverse were they. And we have here approximately 2 million people who just happen to be a perfect cross section of the United States.' ... =D

I went with a bunch of friends. Pretty fun.