As far as the first 9/10ths of the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” no one captured what a debacle that was better than Reason’s Nick Gillespie who memorably tweeted, “This rally reminds me of a stage show at a water park.” And how anyone or any rally that’s serious about “restoring sanity” would allow the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, a convert to radical Islam who wholeheartedly approved (and we have the video) of a fatwa on author Salman Rushdie and then later lied about how he was only joking (har, har) about it, to take the stage is beyond absurd and might qualify as the biggest p.r. debacle since, well, Alaska’s entitled Senator Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) did something Jon Stewart might approve of — had a radio host removed from the air who dared criticize her highness-ness.
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And I say Jon Stewart might approve because for the last tenth of “Restore Sanity” the liberal comedian decided to remove the clown nose and get serious — any by serious I mean a little smug, a whole lot elitst, and all kinds of sanctimonious over America’s three cable news channels, what he called the “24 hour politico, pundit, perpetual panic conflictinator” that he says “did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder.”
Good god.
Here’s another word for the “24 hour politico, pundit, perpetual panic conflictinator”: DEMOCRACY.
Of all people, do we really need lectures on how to handle our politics from a dishonest comedian who’s made a career of smirking from the sidelines, tearing down whoever he sees fit, and who hides behind the cowardly cloak of “performer/moderate” in order to avoid putting his own ideas and beliefs out there to face the same scrutiny that his pile-on team of writers put everyone else through?
And we all know where Jon Stewart wants to take us, and that’s back. Back to the days before Fox News and MSNBC, back before journalism started to get a little honest about their political viewpoints.
The fight going on in the media, the one that so offends Stewart’s sensibilities, is happening because finally! the healthy flag of open partisanship is being planted where once the dishonest but oh-so sober and thoughtful flag once few — the same flag that allowed an Uncle Walter to help lose a war and condemn millions to slavery and death with what I’m sure would be the Jon Stewart-approved tone of declaring Vietnam lost.
Stewart simply could not be more wrong about what’s best for politics in this country. The media’s baby steps out of their partisan closets and the declaring of an open war for their side is one of single most healthiest things to happen to our politics in decades…
Because it is honest.
MSNBC is staffed with a legion of beclowned fools, but Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann deserve credit for not hiding behind the cloak of lies found in the words “objectivity,” and I will take 50 openly honest left-wing MSNBC loons — 50 honest brokers over any ONE of those who refuse to remove that cloak, namely the Stewart-approved PBS, ABC, NPR, and CBS — and most especially a Comedy Central comedian who appears to be a little uncomfortable with the messiness of democracy and then arrogantly assumes that he’s one of the elite few who can make sense of all the amplified cable noise. Gee, thanks Jon, what would we among the great unwashed do without you to inform us that the press over-reacts.
Personally, I like the noise and I relish the fight…
Because it is honest.
You know where I stand, I know where you stand, and dammit this country’s worth rumbling over, isn’t it?
What I don’t like, no matter how sober sounding. dulcet-toned, or wrapped in hipster irony it may be, is the dishonesty of those who have the arrogance to stand on the sidelines, throw shit from the luxury boxes, and dare assume the role of a Play Caller who knows better — who makes a complete mockery of everything until it’s time for a very special episode of Jon Stewart Lectures the Rest of Us.
Tomorrow I go back to war with Keith Olbermann but today I stand with him, and anyone else with the stones to step into the arena and take the hits. And if Jon Stewart wants to wag his finger, cluck his tongue, and lecture my one-day pal Keith Olbermann over what he sees happening in the arena, he can start by stepping into it; and the first step out of the luxury box is manning up by planting your partisan flag and the wiping away of the above-it-all smirk.
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