We are here for sanity and there are a lot of us," she said. It was, she admitted, her first protest march. She definitely had company. It was the brainchild — or publicity stunt, performance art project or political expression — of the country's two leading satirists, Daily Show host Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert , whose on-air persona of a rightwing buffoon lampoons the conservative media. At first glance it looked like any other demonstration of the type Washington DC had witnessed by the hundred over the decades.
A huge stage soared over the National Mall on a sunny autumn day. Behind the giant speakers and the railings was the gleaming white Capitol building that houses Congress. But a few things were askew. And of course the huge portraits of Stewart and Colbert — done up to echo the iconic Shepard Fairey image of Barack Obama — stared out bewilderingly over the masses. The crowd was enormous — easily a quarter of a million people. As the masses listened to music and comedy routines broadcast from the tiny distant stage over giant screens all the way down the Mall, it was an impressive display of the power of comedy and celebrity.
Whether it was a display of the power of American liberalism was much harder to say. Many observers saw the rally as a response to Fox News pundit Glenn Beck's recent "Restoring Honour" rally, which occupied the same space several months ago.
That event, which attracted between , and , people, was seen as symbolising the rising power of conservatism. And are you ready to restore sanity? He and Colbert then kept the crowd laughing and cheering with a double act that played off their themes of mocking and bickering with each other, while simultaneously making their point about a gentler style of politics.
Their stage act was in many ways a continuation of their TV routines, heavy on wit and poking fun at sacred cows. One of the funniest moments came with the introduction of singer and Muslim convert Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens. Islam began to sing "Peace Train", only to be interrupted by Colbert, who said ,"I am not getting on that train", before bringing on heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne to sing his s hit, "Crazy Train".
The O'Jays later sang "Love Train". Stewart has played down any political intent behind the Restoring Sanity rally. It was shared by Democratic leadership, most prominently by Obama himself, who spent the first precious years of his administration mistakenly convinced that he could find common ground with the right. The myth of unity remains a trope in much of the legacy media, while at least two leading candidates in the Democratic primary are selling themselves as uniters, not dividers.
The idea that the left has enemies who must be roundly defeated remains too gauche for many Democrats. That it came from Stewart and Colbert, who were otherwise in the midst of a decade-long hot streak, should have been the real warning. Facing growing right-wing hostility, the best they could offer was patting the backs of , people who probably would have been better off knocking on doors.
You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser and improve your visit to our site. Alex Shephard is a staff writer at The New Republic. Want more politics, health care, and media updates? Digital Design uses cameras on tethered balloons to take high-resolution photos of a crowd.
Then they enlarge the photos and begin counting. They try to figure out the density of sample crowd areas. Then they extrapolate from there based on how far the crowd spread. You can read about how one of their estimators goes about the work here. CBS used the same company to estimate the Beck crowd.
Their figure then was 87, The organizers of the Restore Honor event criticized that number as too low, and even some mainstream media figures who covered it felt that crowd was closer to , As you see, the estimates for the Stewart rally are all over the place. The difference between the low end and the high end is at least 25 percent. Beck rally estimates had an even wider variance.
Already a subscriber? Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations. Your subscription to The Christian Science Monitor has expired.
You can renew your subscription or continue to use the site without a subscription. If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at This message will appear once per week unless you renew or log out.
0コメント