ravishingravi Posted October 28, 2010 Posted October 28, 2010 Yesterday, we noted Ryan Kearney's able takedown of the handful of self-proclaimed cultural critics who've had themselves a round of the piss-and-moan blues over the Rally To Restore Sanity. At that time, I should have predicted that Politico would try to wade into those waters, because reliably, here they are today, doing something Politicoey with it. Essentially, they've taken that smallish gaggle of walleyed concern-trolls, mixed in a clueless academic and added a heaping helping of straw-men to contend that Jon Stewart will utterly destroy his brand by staging a comedy show for people. Kearney's piece is cited by name, but Politico carefully omits Kearney's central premise -- the essential witlessness of the rally critics -- in order to pretend that they form some sort of important cultural vanguard. It contains paragraphs like this: Stewart will navigate two sets of risks Saturday: He will, a handwringing legion of journalists and bloggers worry, cross the once-bright line from commentary to political participation, and find himself stranded, unable to return. And he could - television industry analysts say - alienate portions of an audience for his show that isn't as polarized as that of the real cable news shows, with viewers divided starkly left and right. Sounds scary! But here's what's going to actually happen. Stewart will face the same risk he's faced every single day of his life as a stand-up comedian -- that his decades of performance seasoning will fail him and his jokes will fall flat. Whoever is playing the DC Improv Saturday night will be facing the same risk. As for the chances that he'll alienate his fans, well that's not likely. Let's recall that it was "Daily Show" fans who originally asked for this in the first place -- calling for a Stewart/Colbert driven event in Washington on October 10, 2010. Originally conceived by fans of the show as the "Rally To Restore Truthiness," the call went out in early September for the comedians to do something to serve as a counterweight to Glenn Beck's "Rally To Restor Honor." When the two shows returned from a hiatus, the hosts then began to cryptically hint that they were going to honor the request. Also, there is no "bright line" between "commentary" and "political participation" -- political commentary is political participation. The core assumption seems to be that the rally will either err by presenting some sort of narrow, partisan content -- thus alienating people -- or it will err by failing to present some sort of narrow, partisan content -- thus alienating people. What's actually going to happen is that the core viewership of these Comedy Central shows are going to recognize themes that are continually presented, and prove themselves capable of holding two ideas -- 1) we should vote for the people we like and 2) we should strive to be sane in our discourse -- in their brains at the same time. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/28/politico-gets-into-the-ra_n_775381.html
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