Fox News Airs Live Flop Of Their Benghazi Wannabe Scandal – Stephen Colbert Gets Mad

Posted by Mark NC on May 8, 2013 at 11:50 pm. 6 Comments :

The events of September 12, 2013, in Benghazi, Libya, were unambiguously tragic. However, while most Americans would hold the band of terrorists at the scene responsible for the attacks on our diplomatic facility and CIA post, Fox News and Republicans in congress have been fiercely battling to find any excuse to blame President Obama and/or Hillary Clinton.

With the circus sideshow offered today by GOP Representative Darrell Issa’s House committee, the effort to politicize the affair hit a new low. Although much was promised prior to the hearing, there was nothing illuminating that came from it. This was even after Fox pundits repeatedly vowed that the information they knew was going to be unveiled would be shocking and devastating to the administration. Their previews were so emphatic that Stephen Colbert made a point of launching a “Benghazi – Something That Will Make You Mad Clock.”

It’s fair to say that Colbert is furious today. And so are some of the right-wing media fluffers who are appalled that these unproductive hearings were ignored by much of the television press. NewsBusters went to the trouble of compiling the aggregate minutes that each of the cable news networks allotted to the hearings. To no one’s surprise, Fox dominated their competition. But that’s because the Benghazi Show was a Fox News Presentation from get-go. The other networks might have devoted more airtime to the story if there were anything actually newsworthy emanating from it.

What NewsBusters didn’t bother to report to their deluded audience was that all the extra time that Fox spent airing the live hearings was focused largely on Republican members of the committee. Media Matters did their own compilation and discovered that 71% of the 65 minutes they monitored featured GOP members making statements and questioning the witnesses. And that was even after anchor Megyn Kelly announced that their coverage had been unfairly weighted toward Democrats. That, of course, was not true, yet Kelly kept her promise to feature even more Republicans.

Now that the hearings have concluded with no smoking gun – not even a gently glowing ember – we can expect Fox and the GOP to set aside these spurious allegations and pursue some other fabricated scandal. And if you believe that, you haven’t been watching Fox the past 17 years.

Could Stephen Colbert Join Al Franken To Form A Senate Comic Caucus?

Posted by Mark NC on December 10, 2012 at 3:11 pm. 5 Comments :

Stephen Colbert - Al Franken Public Policy Polling has just released a new survey of South Carolina residents on who they would prefer as the replacement for Sen. Jim DeMint, who is leaving the senate to head the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Among those included in the speculation are long-time state pols like former governor Mark Sanford, his ex-wife Jenny Sanford, congressmen Tim Scott, Joe Wilson, and Trey Gowdy, and GOP official Henry McMaster. All of these folks would be conventional picks for Governor Nikki Haley, whose responsibility it is to appoint DeMint’s successor.

But leading the pack is Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, a South Carolina native and former candidate for President of the United States of South Carolina. According to PPP…

“Colbert tops the wish list of who South Carolina voters would like to see join that body at 20%, followed by Tim Scott at 15%, Trey Gowdy at 14%, Jenny Sanford at 11%, Henry McMaster and Mark Sanford at 8%, Jeff Duncan and Joe Wilson at 5%, and Mick Mulvaney at 4%.”

This could send shock waves through the political world. Colbert has a hefty campaign war chest via his Super PAC that has nearly a million dollars left over from the presidential campaign. He has a devoted following that is nationwide in scope, and a platform for expressing his views on his television show, which gets a bigger audience than Fox News. He has testified before congress on labor issues. He delivered an epic speech before the White House Correspondents He has won two Peabody Awards. However, he also has powerful enemies. Nancy Pelosi launched the Stop Colbert campaign earlier this year:

Yet to be heard from is Minnesota senator Al Franken. The two have a common background and could form a coalition in the senate to advance legislation favorable to political satirists. A “Comic Caucus” in Washington could be a significant counterweight to the other congregation of politi-clowns, the Tea Party.

Neither Colbert nor Gov. Haley have given any indication of their intentions. For Colbert the decision has to include consideration of the fact that a seat in the senate would be a demotion for him. He has far more influence where he is now, although he could earn more money taking kickbacks from lobbyists who would eventually provide him with a multimillion dollar job when he tires of the senate, just as Sen. DeMint has done.

Breitbart’s Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, And Penis Envy

Posted by Mark NC on April 15, 2012 at 1:57 pm. 5 Comments :

A few days ago I posted an article in response to a moronic ratings analysis by Breitbart’s editor-in-chief John Nolte. I noted that Nolte’s glee over the Daily Show having lower ratings than some other cable programs was a vacant and desperate stab at relevance, particularly considering that the ratings of his right-wing darlings at Fox News were even lower.

What I hadn’t noticed at the time was that Nolte is virtually fixated on what any coherent observer would agree is the unparalleled success of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The late night Comedy Central pair have created a Renaissance of political satire and much of their humorous insight has entered the popular culture. In addition to their broad-based popularity, they have both been the recipients of numerous broadcasting awards – and not just Emmys, but journalism honors. The Colbert Report just won its second Peabody this month.

That must be why the Breitbrats are so feverishly hammering away at these stars of satire. Nolte is either consumed with jealousy or merely suffering from a paranoid psychosis triggered by his Olympian lameness. In the past month Nolte has published four articles all making the same insipid and easily rebutted claim that Stewart and Colbert are failures. Four articles restating the same misinformation. But worse, Nolte imagines some Grand Design being orchestrated by Comedy Central and the White House to subvert – oh, I don’t know – motherhood? The NRA? Democracy? God’s will? In his dementia Nolte describes Stewart and Colbert as…

“…elite millionaire, speech-policing leftists,” and…
“…the dynamic duo of left-wing free speech oppressors…” and…
“…left-wing, speech policing, Obama Palace Guards…”

Talk about delusional. And he hasn’t even gotten warmed up. He also declared that…

“It’s all a mainstream media scam used to protect Obama and to get leftist talking points out there using a Trojan horse marked ‘satire.’ and…
“The corrupt entertainment media creates a phony reality around television shows they like.”

Nolte takes particular offense at Colbert about whom he rants…

“There’s a HUGE left-wing agenda behind what Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert is doing, and it’s a serious agenda that has nothing to do with satire.” And that Colbert is…

“…attacking constitutional free speech by attempting to make a mockery of a new Supreme Court ruling that finally allows private citizens and corporations to have as much say in the political process as Stephen Colbert and corporations like, say, Comedy Central.” [Editor’s note: Comedy Central is not a corporation]

Who knew? The Stewart/Colbert cabal to undermine America’s foundations, in concert with a Marxist Manchurian in the White House, is conspiring to silence “private citizens and corporations” like the Koch brothers, and China’s biggest trading partner, Wal-Mart. Indeed, Colbert’s mockery of the Citizen’s United decision is brutal in that it exposes the blatant excess of corporate billions corrupting the democratic process. Thank goodness for the Breitbrats who single-handedly come to the defense of otherwise defenseless waifs like ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, and AstroTurf Tea Party sugar-daddies at Americans for Prosperity.

I’m not sure why Nolte is so obsessed that he feels it’s necessary to repeatedly pound on a couple of comedy programs, especially when those programs are often as tough on liberals as they are on conservatives as I documented here. Perhaps he doesn’t like the abundance of dick jokes. Or maybe it’s just a part of his moral character that compels him to speak out when he sees injustice, such as this recent outpouring of outrage over an HBO program that crossed the lines of decency.

Apparently the outrageousness of the program was not enough to keep Nolte from republishing the object of his disgust. And he further demonstrated his moral fiber and family values by advocating the murder of the child-actress’ mother (Nolte later scrubbed that remark and replaced it with one saying that the mother should lose custody of her children). And somewhere in the process Nolte hallucinates that the left is supportive of this sort of televised gross-out.

I can’t say that I was ever a fan of Andrew Breitbart. In fact, I considered him to be a deliberately dishonest purveyor of propaganda who reveled in rancor and divisiveness. But still, I have to wonder if he would be proud of his successors who are driving his media empire into ever more juvenile territory. I would imagine that he would at least be dismayed at what a hopelessly ineffective operation they have turned his web site into by slathering it up with such puerile trash. On the other hand, Breitbart’s biggest claim to fame was posting a TwitPic of a congressman’s wiener. So respectability was never really a part of his mission, but the wiener obsession survives.

Not So Breitbart: Jon Stewart vs. Robot Chicken

Posted by Mark NC on April 11, 2012 at 11:54 pm. 3 Comments :

The Breibrats over at BigHollywood have once again set out to knock Jon Stewart down a peg by noting that there are other TV programs with higher ratings. I suppose I should give them credit for being able to count and to read a list, but they are still embarrassingly bad at ratings analysis, so I thought I would help them out by amending their big headline:

If the Breibart crew is intent on criticizing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for being such losers, it might have been a good idea to read a little further down the list (well, actually to the very bottom), where they would have found Fox News stars Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Then this commentary would not seem so idiotic:

But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys regularly humiliated in the ratings by cartoons, reruns, and “Robot Chicken” are American phenoms…?

But-but-but the media keeps telling me that two guys who couldn’t muster three million viewers combined are populist heroes who speak for the people…? […]

Stick that in your clown nose, you speech-policing, left-wing elitists.

Hey, maybe stop being dicks. That might help.

If Stewart and Colbert are humiliated by placing 27th and 45th, than how would the Breitbrats describe Hannity and O’Reilly showing up dead last at 99 and 100? It would seem that Stewart and Colbert are more representative spokespersons for the people than Fox’s biggest stars. And as for being dicks…I think the Breitbrats have that honor sewn up.

Not So Breitbart: Daily Show vs. Cartoon Network vs. Fox News

Posted by Mark NC on March 17, 2012 at 3:23 pm. 3 Comments :

The geniuses at Breitbart.com have published another of their astounding revelations that illustrate just how mentally deficient right-wingers can be due to their fixation on bashing anything and everything they regard as liberal.

In a posting that takes obvious pleasure in their analysis of television ratings, the Breitbrats report that Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are not the highest rated programs in the universe.

Breitbrat John Nolte: Just a friendly reminder that less than 1% of the population watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. If it wasn’t for the elite media — the same elite media desperate to convince us these two are some sort of national treasures — hardly anyone would watch them at all.

Via TV By the Numbers:

TOTAL VIEWERS
Comedy Central, 11-11:30 p.m. “The Daily Show,” 1.6 million
Comedy Central, 11:30 p.m.-midnight ET, “The Colbert Report,” 1.3 million
TBS, 11 p.m.-midnight, “Conan,” 1.0 million
Adult Swim, 11:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. ET, 2.1 million
Adult Swim, 12:30-1:30 a.m. ET, 1.4 million

Whatever influence Stewart and Colbert have does not come from the people; it comes from the elite. This dynamic duo of left-wing free speech oppressors are about as populist as caviar.

Wow. What a couple of losers. The Comedy Central pair of media satirists can’t even rate higher than Cartoon Network programs. And it serves them right for all that free speech oppressing they are doing [Note to Nolte: Can you provide an example of this?].

What the Breitbrats failed to notice is that their pet network, Fox News, rates even lower than the Comedy Central late night lineup. For the month of February 2012, “In total day FNC placed fifth (vs. news programming) with 1.093 million viewers.”

Ergo: Whatever influence Fox News has does not come from the people; it comes from the slack-jawed yokels. These bombastic right-wing free speech oppressors are about as populist as roadkill.

Do the Breitbrats really think that they are scoring points by attacking Stewart and Colbert, even though those shows have more viewers than Fox News? How stupid do they think their readers are? (Don’t answer that). I reported long ago that Fox had fewer viewers than SpongeBob SquarePants in an effort to demonstrate how the perception of their influence was overly inflated. I also reported that the highest rated program on Fox (O’Reilly) has about half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program (CBS Evening News). But my comparing a news network to a cartoon network actually makes a point due to the contrast. Comparing a comedy network to a cartoon network is really not indicative of anything. Stewart is the first person to say that his program is not a news program and he is not a journalist.

The Breitbrats seem so ecstatic about this that I hate to spoil their fun. But the next time they attempt to characterize a program as irrelevant, they had better check to see if their own TV pals aren’t even less relevant. It is Fox News that is struggling to have an impact on society, and despite their best efforts, they were unable to prevent a socialist Muslim with no birth certificate from getting elected to the presidency in 2008. They aren’t having much better luck in 2012. This is partly due to idiots like the Breitbrats who continue to embarrass what’s left of the reasonable wing of conservatism.

Andrew Breitbart At CPAC: I Have Videos Of Obama In College

Posted by Mark NC on February 11, 2012 at 4:11 pm. 7 Comments :

As if Andrew Breitbart’s performance before some Occupy protesters wasn’t pathetic enough, the terminally choleric pundit delivered an incoherent rant from the CPAC podium. He spent much of the time rambling in sentence fragments, struggling to make sense. But one portion of his speech teased what may be his next video crusade. And, no, I’m not talking about the hilariously twisted “Hating Breitbart” documentary that was announced at the conference. I’m referring to Breitbart’s tantalizing claim to have unearthed videos of President Obama in college.

“I have videos. This election we’re going to vet him from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008. The videos are going to come out, the narrative is going to come out, that Barack Obama met a bunch of silver ponytails in the 1980s, like Bill (Ayers) and Bernadine Dohrn, who said one day we would have the presidency, and the rest of us slept as they plotted.”

OMG! Obama in college plotting with Ayers to become president. That’s blockbuster material. I can just picture it: A twenty year old Obama meeting with the middle-aged Ayers, drafting a scheme that would see Obama elected to the presidency thirty years later. What foresight and commitment they must have had. Especially since they never met until long after Obama graduated from Harvard Law and eventually moved to Chicago where Ayers lived.

It is also interesting that Breitbart would characterize his comrades on the right as sleeping through the eighties. You know, the eighties when Ronald Reagan was president and conservatism was at its peak. That would explain a lot, like how Reagan got elected president in the first place. Little did they know that liberals were holed up conspiring to take over the free world – thirty years in the future – by electing a black man with no birth certificate to the presidency. A brilliant plan that couldn’t possibly fail. It makes you wonder if there might not be a young, undocumented, Mexican atheist currently putting together a plan with billionaire drug lords to occupy the White House in 2040.

For Breitbart to make these allegations involving Bill Ayers is curious since he just attended a dinner party thrown by Ayers a few days ago. Breitbart was invited to the party by Tucker Carlson who paid $2,500 in a charity auction to have dinner with Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn. Breitbart, ever the gracious guest, told Eric Bolling on the Fox Business Network (whose show was just canceled) that Ayers was a great conversationalist, an incredible chef, and a sociopath.

Another guest for dinner, Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard, posted his recollections of the affair with a distinct and buoyant whine about not having had enough time to harangue his hosts. He ate their food (personally prepared by Ayers), drank their wine, and enjoyed a scrumptious desert of apple pie topped with Ben & Jerry’s AmeriCone Dream (the flavor inspired by Stephen Colbert). But apparently two hours and a free gourmet meal is not deserving of appreciation. How rude of the Ayers’ not to take a seat in the dunking booth and allow their rightist guests to harass them for another hour or two about things they did forty years ago.

Which brings us back to the videos that Breitbart claims to have in his possession. If they are anything like the videos he has released in the past, we can be assured that they will utterly lack any truthful representation of events. Like the ACORN videos that were deliberately edited to create false and negative impressions of people who were unselfishly helping low income citizens to vote and find housing for their families. Like the Shirley Sherrod video that was cut to make her look like a racist when the the whole, unedited video proved just the opposite. Breitbart’s history with video exposes is a cavalcade of conscious deceit.

I have doubts that any videos of Obama’s college years will ever actually be released, but if they are it seems unlikely that they will have any relevance this many years later. Breitbart once famously declared that he would “take down the institutional left” in three weeks. That was two years ago. He’s a radioactive bundle of bluster and petulant anger. And even though he has threatened his liberal enemies saying that “We outnumber them in this country, and we have the guns”, I’m not losing any sleep over it.

Nancy Pelosi Launches Campaign To Stop Stephen Colbert And Super PACs

Posted by Mark NC on February 9, 2012 at 3:49 pm. 6 Comments :

The Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has just launched a campaign to “Stop Colbert,” as in Stephen Colbert, the acerbic incarnation of right-wing blowhardism. The first shot in this battle, for which a brutal retaliation from Colbert can be expected after he gets back from vacation, is this video that Pelosi posted yesterday:

The issue is one that has become an integral part of this election year that has seen income inequality, corporate abuse of power, and fair elections, take precedence over almost every issue other than jobs. Pelosi sums up her position saying that…

“…House Democrats are reintroducing the DISCLOSE Act today to get unlimited, secret donations out of politics. The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United opened the floodgates to unrestricted special interest campaign donations in American elections—permitting corporations to spend unlimited funds, directly or through third parties and Political Action Committees organized for those purposes, to influence Federal elections and opened the door for the emergence of Super PACs.”

It is Colbert who has succeeded in making Super PACs one of the most reviled political devices ever conceived. And he did it by starting his own (Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow) and demonstrating how easy it is to collect huge sums of money from secret sources and spending it on self-serving activities without any unaccountability whatsoever.

The issue made headlines this week when President Obama announced that he would not oppose the formation of Super PACs to support his reelection. Republicans immediately pounced on the announcement, portraying it as a flip-flop of his previously expressed position against Super PACs. Of course, Obama did not flip-flop at all. He is still against Super PACS, he has just resigned himself to the fact that they are a part of the electoral process as it currently exists and that abstaining from using them would amount to a unilateral disarmament that would permit Republicans to vastly outspend Democrats this year.

Obama and other Democrats still intend to pursue an agenda to bring an end to the practice as quickly as they can get support from enough members of the GOP to pass legislation like the DISCLOSE Act which Pelosi is addressing in the video above. It is only by the obstructionism of the GOP that the bill has not already become law.

Pelosi is firing both barrels at Colbert in the video. She hammers him for “taking secret money from special interests” and for being “out of control.” And she nails him for his hatred of kittens. As an aside, she zings Newt Gingrich with what could be a fatal blow by referring to him as her friend. If Gingrich’s campaign weren’t already dead, this would surely kill it.

Still, this campaign aimed at Colbert is a big step for Pelosi and company. It was not that long ago that one of Pelosi’s top lieutenants in the House was advising Democratic members to refrain from appearing on The Colbert Report. Rahm Emanuel was the Democratic Caucus chairman before leaving to become Obama’s Chief of Staff, and then mayor of Chicago. But back in March of 2007. while still a member of Congress, Emanuel told his colleagues to “steer clear of Stephen Colbert.” That advice was widely ignored, to the dismay of many congressmen with deficient senses of humor.

The DISCLOSE Act is an important first step in restoring the power of people over corporations and wealthy special interests. Pelosi’s efforts on behalf of this bill are welcome. But in this topsy-turvy world it may turn out that Colbert will wield more influence over the matter in the long run. His brilliant comedic sensibility and fearlessness in injecting his satire into the real world is having an impact that could never have been anticipated. And as Pelosi says, He.Must.Be.Stopped!

Sunday Funnies Featuring Stephen Colbert And Mitt The Ripper

Posted by Mark NC on January 15, 2012 at 3:24 pm. 3 Comments :

This election season’s most electrifying development is the announcement that Stephen Colbert has formed an exploratory committee to discern whether there is a “hunger” for him to enter the race for the Republican nomination for President of the United States of South Carolina.

Colbert has already placed in polling that shows him ahead of Gov. Jon Huntsman. And today he appeared on ABC This Week with George Stephanopolous (which is more than Mitt Romney has done). Notably, Colbert appeared in character throughout the interview (which Romney always does).

Clearly Colbert is off to a great start despite it being too late to actually get on the ballot in South Carolina. But in that regard he isn’t much worse off than the so-called “real” candidates like Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, who failed to get onto the primary ballot in Virginia.

In other news, Colbert’s former SuperPAC (which he transferred to Jon Stewart so as not to run afoul of election law) has released its first ad in South Carolina:

Some may regard that as an over-the-top negative advertisement, but Colbert has made it clear that he is not affiliated with the SuperPAC and that he regards Jon Stewart as a political foe. In any case, Romney has other fictional comparisons he has to worry about.

Was Andrew Breitbart’s X-Rated Photo Release Really “Accidental”? [Updated]

Posted by Mark NC on June 9, 2011 at 2:26 pm. 11 Comments :

Just when you thought that Andrew Breitbart could not become any sleazier, he is now accusing Anthony Weiner and his wife of releasing the news of her pregnancy as a PR stunt. That’s a stretch even for a scumbag like Breitbart. As usual, he has no evidence, not even an anonymous source. It is a wholly invented canard whose only purpose can be to smear the Weiner family and bring them more pain, and consequently bring more pain to his real target, the Democratic Party.

This is politics at its worst. Despite Breitbart’s disingenuous assertion that he didn’t want to hurt the Weiner family, he now says that “We have every right to find out to what extent he’s been misbehaving.” Since when? And if we have that right with regard to Weiner, should we also be stalking every other public servant to disclose their misbehavior? Should we see what Breitbart is up to when he’s not peeking through the windows of his ideological enemies?

If anyone is engaging in PR stunts, it’s Breitbart. When the latest and most graphic picture of Weiner was “leaked” to the media this week, Breitbart feigned outrage, insisting that he had nothing to do with it. Why should anyone believe that?

Here are the known facts: Breitbart took the photo with him when he went to the radio studio of shock-jocks Opie & Anthony. That’s the first curious thing. Why would he need to have that picture with him while visiting a pair of professional jerkwads who make a living off of rank controversy? Then, without any prodding, he handed the photo, which was on his cellphone, to others in the studio who passed it around amongst themselves while making juvenile wisecracks. That is not something someone concerned about the subject’s privacy would do.

Later, Breitbart alleged that a surveillance camera in the room captured the photo from his cellphone. That is a suspect assertion at best. It is simply not credible that a surveillance camera could have picked up the image from Breitbart’s cellphone and produced the detail on the leaked photo that went public. Most surveillance cameras are positioned high on the wall near a corner of the room so that they have a broad perspective of the area they are monitoring. Breitbart expects us to believe that one of those cameras, that are not generally high resolution devices, got a clear and detailed shot over somebody’s shoulder of an image on a small cellphone screen. That assertion needs to be challenged.

Additionally, Breitbart claimed that he only offered to show the photo after he was assured that there were no cameras in the room. That is a verifiable lie. Breitbart knew very well that the show was being videotaped. You can see the video of the show below.

Clearly this was taken on a hand-held device, not a stationary surveillance camera. Breitbart even looks directly at the camera on several occasions. So he obviously lied when he said that he thought there were no cameras in the studio. And his assertion that he was told that there were no cameras was also a lie. The video shows that he never asked for, nor received such an assurance.

In my estimation, Breitbart wanted this photo to be released but he didn’t want to take the heat as the sleazeball who released it. So he manufactured this cover story with a couple of radio publicity hounds who would gladly insert themselves into a national melodrama. Anthony Cumia even admitted as much in an interview on Fox News:

“When you take a chunk of meat into a lion’s den, someone’s gonna take a bite. […] I do kind of like attaching ourselves to an international story. It is the credo of the shock jock.”

This appears to be a deliberate scheme to extend and amplify the controversy, and it is just the sort of thing Breitbart would do based on his Legacy of Sleaze. There are so many pieces of Breitbart’s story that don’t fit, or are certifiably false, that one has to refer to his history of dishonesty and purposeful deception. Until Breitbart can satisfactorily explain these discrepancies, we should assume that he deliberately devised this scheme to release the photo with his shock-jock pals as accomplices.

[UPDATE] Stephen Colbert also noticed Breitbart’s ridiculous cover story about the “accidental” release of the photo. Colbert succinctly nailed the notion that Breibart was an innocent victim of unforeseeable circumstances:

“What happened to the sacred tradition of confidentiality between respected journalists and shock-jocks?”

Colbert also mocked the absurd claim that Breitbart didn’t know there were cameras in the studio by pointing out that no cameras were visible in the video of Breitbart that was taken by a camera across the desk from him.

Stewart And/Or Colbert Restore Sanity And/Or Fear

Posted by Mark NC on October 31, 2010 at 1:17 am. 2 Comments :

Today was the day that many historians will record as the day that sanity was restored to America. And the rest of the historians will mark it as the day fear was kept alive. Then the two warring groups of historians will pelt one another with eggs. That’s just the way historians are.

Jon Stewart’s long anticipated Rally to Restore Sanity, and Stephen Colbert’s opposing March to Keep Fear Alive, took place at the National Mall in Washington, DC. By all accounts it was a rip-snorting success. But as Stewart noted, what’s important isn’t what happened there, but how what happened there would be reported:

“I think you know that the success or failure of a rally is judged by only two criteria: the intellectual coherence of the content, and its correlation to the engagement…I’m just kidding. It’s color and size. We all know it’s color and size. But I think we’re in good shape. As I look here today I can see we have over ten million people.”

In fact, the actual estimates were slightly lower. CBS News hired a firm to estimate attendance and they reported the crowd to be 215,000. The same firm pegged Glenn Beck’s Rally to Restore Honor at 87,000. Expect Beck to bitterly condemn the socialist, mathematician, elitists who deliberately skewed the estimates in order to plunge America into tyranny.

Amongst the highlights of the event were Colbert’s entrance from far beneath the stage in the Fenix capsule that was used to rescue the Chilean miners. Then there was the epic battle between Yusuf Islam’s Peace Train and Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train. That skirmish was settled by The O’Jays’ Love Train.

It’s funny how this rally, whose purpose was to lower the rhetoric and to “take it down a notch,” has incited much of the right to blow a virtual gasket as they complain that Stewart and Colbert are hopelessly far-left and are engaged in propaganda and disinformation. They regard this event as a blatant attempt to manipulate the upcoming election. There are even some who are disturbed by the presence of Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens), a devious Muslim trying to infiltrate American culture and commerce. To these demented Tea Partiers and pundits everything is a conspiracy. And that really isn’t funny at all, when you think about it.

In addition to the massive crowd in Washington, some satellite rallies were held around the country, including one in Los Angeles that I attended. There were approximately 2,500 people at this unofficial, spontaneously planned gathering at MacArthur Park. That’s an impressive turnout. And we were treated to some high quality entertainment that included cartoonist extraordinaire Lalo Alcarez and comic Jimmy Dore.

Obviously having a good time:
Sanity Rally