Or, as it was officially titled, the Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear But Apparently Not Comedy. If you’re tempted to pat the attendees on the back, don’t bother. They’re way ahead of you! Courtesy of Reason.com, a picture is worth a thousand self-congratulations:
As PruPaine on Twitter pointed out, if Mr. Genius Person there was as brilliant as he claims to be, he would’ve made a reverse acronym out of ELITIST. Here’s one: Every Liberal Is Totally Intelligent. Smart, Too! Not that the teeming masses of drooling, unwashed flyover morons who don’t hate Glenn Beck are capable of understanding such self-evident truth.
That’s from Nick Gillespie and Michael Moynihan’s excursion into that sea of smugness for Reason.tv. They really captured what’s so insufferable about Jon Stewart’s fans:
Some were apolitical and just out for a fun day, some were big fans of Comedy Central’s best-known personalities, some were inadvertent dadaists, and more than a few defined sanity strictly in terms of heartily agreeing with themselves.
I particularly enjoyed the woman who noted, “You don’t see reasonable people putting Hitler mustaches on people’s faces.” Can’t argue with that. But then she added an asterisk: Yeah, okay, there’s one guy, other than Hitler himself, who probably deserves it. (No spoilers!)
As for the event itself, a day later I’m still insane enough to think it was a disaster. If my liveblog/nervous breakdown was too blasphemous for you, Rick Bayan at The New Moderate has a good running commentary that’s slightly more appreciative of whatever the hell they were trying to do. Although he does say, “Colbert is funny enough, but his perpetual irony is starting to wear a little thin.” Already? He’s only been making the same joke every day for 5 years.
My heart goes out to Colbert, though. Just imagine the look on his face when he heard the news that Not All Muslims are trying to blow stuff up again. “Oh well. We already built that whole big Fearzilla puppet, let’s just try to get through this…”
P.S. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: Are They Pro-Islamofascist or Just Stupid?
P.P.S. More sanityliciousness from Jon Ward and Matthew Boyle. Only 1% of the moderate, centrist, independent-minded freethinkers at the Rally to Restore Sanctimony are going to vote for a single Republican. The other 99% want their names so they can be chastised.
P.P.P.S. To be fair, it wasn’t all one-sided. Stewart & Colbert did mock both sides: conservatives and Republicans!
P.P.P.P.S. Nick Gillespie also had the line of the day: “This rally reminds me of a stage show at a water park.”
P.P.P.P.P.S. As you’re ruminating over Jon Stewart’s closing statement, an uplifting appeal for civility and calm, be sure to check out this helpful collection of Daily Show f-bombs he’s launched at people he doesn’t like.
