The Reasonableness awards were nice (the one for Galagarra was especially deserved), and the Fear awards were biting. The closing speech was worthwhile, and was not just preaching to the choir, but actually saying something his own audience needed to hear. I think I may have been geared up for teabagger bashing and rallying the troops for election day, but they really left partisanship and demagoguery out it.
I pretty much couldn’t hear a thing and I was nowhere near the back. I’ll have to watch it online to see what actually happened.
Initially I was going to take the metro, but the platform was literally filled shoulder to shoulder and the trains were full. I doubt more than a dozen people got on at the stop. Probably left over 500 people at the station.
I think I got some decent pictures of signs. I did see a bumblebee costume with a strap on as the stinger.
The rally was also covered on C-Span and will be up in the archiveeventually.
Posting as I’m reading…We could NOT get on the metro at College Station at 11 am. We had tickets beforehand and yes 100’s were left at the station including us (we were at the very front of the crowd and could not get on). We eventually took a cab.
I would guess that it was a reference to the riff on the “Harry Reid wants your tax dollars to fund Viagra for child molesters” meme that Stewart made last night, which used existing interview footage to (not really) simulate Reid matter-of-factly declaring “I want to give boner pills to kiddie fiddlers” and Jon replying “I hear that,” which he then feigned regret over.
My daughter and I got to the mall just after 10, and the crowd was amazing! We tried to move towards the stage, then gave up and just found a place with a good view of one of the screens. I had a great time, but I could have used less of the musical start. However, once that was over, time just flew. The crowd was amazingly civil, even as we emptied into the surrounding streets.
We were fortunate in catching the Metro and arriving at Branch Ave just before 5, sunburnt, exhausted, and thrilled to have been there. Now I need to watch it again… maybe tomorrow.
Jon had a recurring joke for years whenever he talked about an acronym-named organization; he’d refer to them as “the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAMBLA…”. “Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or NAMBLA…”. That sort of thing.
I haven’t heard it in a while, but during their 10th anniversary shows they had a compilation of all of them. He closed by saying that the Daily Show had no affiliation with the North American Man Boy Love Association, or UNICEF.
I saw a witch with a sign saying “I am not a witch.” Another gentleman had a sign that said “I masturbate to Christine O’Donnell.”
I’m glad I went. The crowd was full of very reasonable people.
I’m finding it very interesting how the media is covering the rally. There is a general tone of dismissiveness and numerous pundits are saying that Stewart “wasn’t funny” (shades of Crossfire, there) or has “jumped the shark.” All rather ridiculous, considering Stewart just summoned a crowd three times larger than Beck’s, and oh yeah, he just gave the most incisive and thoughtful interview with President of the United States in years on his show. There’s also a lot of noise being spread about “traffic issues” and unruliness - a common rhetorical technique used by pundits to turn massive turnout into a negative.
I suspect all of this is because the media knows that it itself was Stewart and Colbert’s primary target, not Republicans or Democrats. Of course, rather than acknowledging their criticisms and responding in a [ahem] sane or reasonable fashion, the news outlets essentially turning to their assembled punditry and columnists to deliver ad hominem attacks at the Rally’s organizers and attendees to divert attention from the painful truth of Stewart’s message.
Based on the coverage I watched on NBC and ABC this morning, I agree with Tanbarkie. They seemed to me to be treating it like a big comedy festival and brought it up for discussion just to give the various pundits a chance to dismiss it.
I think I’m with you. I didn’t get as far as the last 10 minutes. The first hour was so lame I went back to football. What I did watch was pretty poor and unfunny. It was an impressive turn-out however.
Yeah, Jon seemed to be concerned about how this event would be received. He mentioned it a couple of times, not just at the end.
I think the event organizers were probably astonished by the turnout, but did a great job. I didn’t think there would be so much music, but it was great music! The Roots were fantastic. The dueling Cat Stevens and Ozzy Osbourne was great – I don’t know how old “Yusuf” is now, but this little old man with a guitar, trying to jump in and play as quickly as he can – hilarious! The Mythbusters guys were fun. The awards were fun. I thought there would be more of the correspondents – where was Aasif? I saw him on stage at the very end, dancing in the wings, but he didn’t get any camera time. I wonder if there were other things that they had planned to fill time and stuff got cut.
Anyway, I hope you guys got lots of photos. Is there a site to share rally photos – not just Doper photos, but everybody’s? I wanna see the silly signs people brought.
Jon Stewart rally: Huge turnout forces early retreat to nearby bars
Wow, that was a huge turnout.
I wanted to go, but when we got to Greenbelt station there was a line wrapping around the whole parking lot, just to get into the station. We’d have been stuck there so long we’d have gotten to town after it was all over. We weren’t up for fighting traffic all the way into and out of the city, so we turned around and decided to watch it at home on TV.
I agree with those who are saying it was too much “show” and not enough message, but it was entertaining and I was impressed with Jon Stewart’s speech at the end. My favorite line: “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” I’d get that bumper sticker.
Also, the duelling trains bit was the funniest thing EVER.
I attended, but am sad to say we left early because we could not hear anything. They really needed more jumbotrons and (at least) louder speakers.
The Post reported they only had a permit for 60,000 people. Were they not expecting such a large turnout?
I suppose being happy about this this may go against the spirit of the rally but a company hired by CBS News estimated the crowd to be at 215,000 vs. the same company’s estimate of 87,000 at the August Glenn Beck Rally. Of course I heard someone else on the one of the news programs claim that Beck had 1.5 million people there so that legend will just keep growing and growing.
Story here.
BTW, how come Comedy Central was able to run its coverage of this rally commercial-free but didn’t do so for the Daily Show interview with the president? Surely they could have gotten one of their regular advertisers to agree to a pre- and post-interview commercial, so that Jon Stewart didn’t have to tell the president that they had to stop for a freaking commercial break.
The interview was pre-taped, so there was no need. Whereas cutting away from a live rally would cause the TV and net audience to miss out. Also, if interviews ever go too long to be cut into an episode, they put the footage online the very next day.
Why should a president be above a commercial break anyhow? Especially in this economy! I could of sworn I’ve seen it handled similarly on The Tonight Show.
I wasn’t real happy that they had so much music in the program, but The Roots still kicked ass.
I still would have liked both Yusuf and Ozzy to play full songs.