The following column was published by the Huntsville Times on November 21, 2010. No part may be republished without the permission of the publisher. The title has been changed to the original submission title.
The Roots, John Legend, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), Ozzy Osbourne, The O'Jays, Jeff Tweedy, Mavis Staples, Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. If it had been a concert it would have been incredible. Add Father Guido Sarducci, Sam Waterston and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the lineup becomes more impressive and stranger. Mix in the guys from Mythbusters, Tony Bennett, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert and you have the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D. C. on Oct. 30.
Many of the press didn't understand what Jon Stewart was trying to do by holding a rally in Washington. Columnist Richard Reeves thought the rally was to make fun of politics and politicians, that Stewart is all about parody. That was not its purpose, although many politicians deserve to be the butt of jokes. On the right side of the aisle the gathering was derided. Rush Limbaugh called Stewart and Colbert "half baked comedians" and predicted that the rally would draw only 65,000 people.
To him, the comedian's purpose was to excite Democrats in advance of the election. Of course, he was wrong on both counts.
What was absent from the stage on that Saturday was political humor or talk. The crowd of over 200,000 didn't know what to expect but in interviews in advance of the rally, Stewart indicated that it would not be political. He kept his promise.
Although the rally began at noon, we arrived at 9:30 a.m. to get a good view. By arriving so early, we were able to get within two blocks of the stage. We spent the wait by talking to our neighbors and passing crowd members. I've attended concerts and rallies for over 35 years and this was easily the largest and nicest crowd I have ever been a part of. Most of the attendees heeded Stewart's plea for signs to be civil, so humor (Tights are not Pants!) and absurdity (Squirrels for Sanity) ruled over anger.
The rally was a serious plea for civility in our communities and our politics, delivered with silliness and in the end, a heartfelt plea from Jon Stewart.
If there was a target, it was the media and in particular the opinion media. Stewart's idea is that while it is OK to disagree about political ideas, you do the country a disservice if you demonize those that disagree with you.
Because our country has so many serious issues to work through, our leaders must be able to sit across the table from each other and work through their differences. Opinion leaders, whether politicians or pundits, are making this process impossible when they spread unsubstantiated rumors, when they condemn opponents for saying or doing the things they themselves do, or when they exaggerate the importance of a fact or incident.
Repeating a rumor does not transform it into a fact, correlation is not causality, and an outlier should not be mistaken for the average.
Humor is serious. Humor as a tool can cut through hypocrisy, inflated egos and vanity. If you have watched "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central you've seen this in action. The cast is silly, sometimes profane and immature and almost always effective. For me, the unseen stars of the show are the video librarians that locate the news clips played during the show's opening sequence.
Network news shows rarely call out politicians and pundits on hypocritical or contradictory statements they make. Jon Stewart shows the video evidence. Don't talk show hosts and politicians understand that people keep tapes and they can be fact-checked?
So did Stewart's target "get" the rally? For his part, Keith Olberman bristled at being equated with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, but he pledged to stop running his "Worst person in the World" TV show segment to try to cool down the rhetoric. Unfortunately, many on the right don't seem to have listened. While President Obama visited India, right wing superstars such as Michelle Bachman, Limbaugh and Hannity broadcast false rumors that the trip was costing taxpayers $200 million a day.
As Jon Stewart said in his closing remarks, "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing".
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