The Rally To Restore Inadequacy

I'm a big fan of Jon Stewart and his Daily Show, and also of Stephen Colbert's Cobert Report. I watch the show(s) every night (4 nights a week anyway, but I curse the fact that they don't tape/air on Fridays), I buy the books.

I've found that in the past three years or so, Colbert has been more consistently funny, while Stewart has adopted a more serious approach. Colbert 'pretends' to be a Conservative while Stewart is openly 'Liberal' and has shifted his sarcasm not towards the message but more towards the news outlets delivering it - as has always kind of been the show's mandate.

But Stewart rides a high horse that needs to be put down: as an avowed Leftist, he went hard on George W. Bush's presidency - particularly the last three years - and time and time again has pretty much told the Democrats where they should attack Republicans to win seats and, hopefully, elections.

But since Barack Obama's election, probably because he wants to appear like the only 'fair and balanced' pundit out there rather than a blind follower, Stewart has repeatedly called Obama on every single one of his 'failures' or mistakes, often times making it seem like he's doing a worse job than Bush ever did.

And we're talking about the third President ever in ranking in terms of getting bills passed, including a historic health care bill, tax cuts for the middle class (which people actually believe was a raise in taxes), a bailout that was paid back in full by the automotive industry, and finished combat operations in a wildly unpopular war, all while staving off another Depression in the worst economy of our lifetimes.

But with the Tea Party firing up the Republican base and Stewart and the like diminishing the Democrats' accomplishments, is it any wonder Obama's party lost the House and barely kept the Senate?

Keith Olbermann and most of the other journalists at MSNBC have also been a target of Stewart's criticism, as he compared them to Fox News in their defense of the Left (where Fox News is pretty much the Republicans' mouthpiece). Except we've seen for 8 years how Fox News and NewsCorp in general not only don't even pretend they're an actual news network, but they go to great lengths to prove their points, most times being unethical (planting evidence then saying there's wrongdoings, such as during their Acorn reports or with their former male stripper asking Bush softball questions at an official press conference), and even go as far as hirting all the leading Republicans to serve as correspondents: Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Liz Cheney, and Karl Rove, to name a few.

Part of Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity was to have pundits stop calling everyone 'Hitler'; well, Jon: stop calling every news outlet Fox News. And grow up, and see what the world is made up of. To quote Olbermann: you can't work on “the assumption that if the good guys stand down, the bullies will too.” Life isn't a fairytale, it's where reality lies - and in the real world, you have one party that led for 8 years on fear and cutting rights one at a time, and another one who vowed to do all it can to put an end to this. Shit takes time. You can't topple Washington and reform it in one night, those who run it and have run it for years (big companies, big lobbies, fat five-term-and-more politicians who forgot how the real world operates) don't want to let go of the stick, and you have to pry it out of their mouths; for some it takes strength, for others it takes wisdom, and others yet it takes time.

Let the Democrats do their work, or endure Republicans again. It's a two-party system, there is no other choice.

Even Bill Maher had a take on this. A good one, as you can see below. Here's one part that struck me:

“The message of the rally, as I heard it, was that, if the media stopped giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side forgetting that Obama tried that and found out…there are no moderates on the other side. When Jon announced his rally, he said the national conversation was dominated by people on the Right who believe Obama’s a Socialist and people on the Left who believe 9/11’s an inside job, but I can’t name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11’s an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama’s a Socialist…all of them.”

Look in the mirror, Jon. You are not the middle-ground voice that most Americans view as the voice of Reason. For many of them, say fans of Larry The Cable Guy (i.e. people who can't afford actual cable and live in trailer parks), you are a rich, Jewish entertainer from New York/New Jersey that politicized the Oscars for a couple of years - all things they hate. Add that you are open-minded, tolerant, neither racist nor homophobic, educated, have traveled abroad, an avowed Democrat, an entertainer - and one who makes his audience think, at that! - and they have even more of a gut urge to disagree with you on all points.

It's good to show both sides of a story, to hit either side who makes or says something stupid. But you can't bash your own side more than the opposing side even when it's unwarranted just to give you enough credibility to be listened to when you do bash the other. It won't make Bill O'Reilly swing your way in an argument nor Sean Hannity defend you when Olbermann gets pissed off. All it does is fuel their fire and have them say: ''See? Even Jon Stewart agrees with us!'', thus giving your opponents undeserved credibility. It's called shooting yourself in the foot. And you're just as bad a shooter as Dick Cheney was.