I had immensely high hopes for the Stewart/Colbert rally in DC- high enough to get me out of bed at 3:00AM local time to watch the online stream.
It had all the trappings of making a difference- satellite rallies all over the planet, big splashes in mainstream media, celebrity endorsements (Oprah ‘anti-vaccination’ Winfrey, no less), a crazy amount of Twitter chatter, drew around 150,000 215,000 people to The Mall in DC… but then near the end, Keith Olbermann was cited as an hyperbolic offender of the ilk of Glenn Beck. That’s a false equivalency that pulled the rug out from under the whole thing.
Olbermann is not in any way, shape or form comparable to Beck. Olbermann’s an editorialist but doesn’t distort and lie. Beck is a complete corkscrew nutball tinfoil-hatted fantasist who spreads fear using hate speech for fun and profit.
In his attempt to appear moderate, Stewart changed the tone of the event such that it became a clarion call for inanity. To quote @UncommonRecords: “All Stewart really represents is the thought that if you are passionate about ANYTHING, you must be a radical.” While that may be a bit of a generalisation, that’s where the tone of the event landed when Stewart threw Olbermann under the bus.
Sorry, Jon, but you stepped on your dick.
-weez
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Word.
I watched it with high hopes too. I thought that it truly could had the potential to make a difference.
Comment by rainie 11.05.10 @ 6:02 amHey you. Good to see you drop in. 🙂
Yep, I thought it was an opportunity wasted- and the false equivalency Stewart offered up has filtered into the minds of some people less familiar with American politics as being some sort of gospel- and the folks I refer to (unnamed here, for cause) are no dummies.
Upside to the influx of ‘black helicopter’ Repuglicans into Congress is that they’ll get great media exposure. With any luck at all, they’ll launch into a late ’90s type onslaught against Obama, as happened with the Ken Starr witch-hunt brought against Clinton. The result of that was Clinton’s re-election. I’m really quite confident the same will happen for Obama in 2012.
Comment by weez 11.05.10 @ 6:14 amCase in point as regards extreme-right crazies; Markos sez: Thanks guys! Tea Party cost GOP control of the Senate
Truly, with enemies like teabaggers, who needs friends?
Comment by weez 11.05.10 @ 7:27 amLeave a comment
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