The “Restoring Sanity and/or Fear” Rally was a couple hours of torture that Human Rights Watch would be protesting if it were played to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It was attended by a crowd of mostly pasty-faced hipsters which makes you wonder if the NAACP will start accusing Comedy Central of being racist. It was as diverse as the roster at MSNBC. And half as funny.
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You can tell how spellbound the audience was in the clip. They swayed back and forth like extras in the Walking Dead show that airs on AMC Sunday.
Aside from the smug sanctimony oozing from these alleged comedians, this tuneless anthem can’t decide if it’s pro or anti-American. But it stands as a good example of the kind of “entertainment” what preceded it. An attempt to extol the virtues of big government sandwiched between performances by geriatric pop stars and lame humor bits that sucked harder than a million vacuum cleaners.
How many people showed up? Hard to tell from the crowd shots because they wouldn’t allow filming except from approved camera people (how Soviet!). But this says it all.
Comedy Central’s park permit puts the crowd estimate at 60,000.
Here’s an aerial photo.
Beck’s “Restoring Honor” Rally, that this was supposed to be an answer to, drew in over 200,000 people and they weren’t even astro-turfed by PeTA and the Arianna Huffington. Beck’s rally was non-partisan and non political. This rally had people with signs comparing Republicans to Nazis. And had various left wing activists on the sidelines hoping to score some guilt gelt from the self haters to fund their causes.
Despite the meager crowd, about an hour in it started resembling a party. The kind with FAIL written all over it.
“People are abandoning the Mall en masse, report Judkis and Cooper. “Mass exodus,” says Judkis, who reckons many people are heading to bars near Union Station.”
And to show how inclusive they were, they had Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) singing Peace Train. The guy who supported the fatwa (Death Sentance) on Salman Rushdie. I guess he was there to appease the Muslims who want to blow up Comedy Central for daring to pretend to show Mohammad by not showing Mohammed.
It ended with no encores. Stewart and Colbert may be tired, but at least they aren’t cruel. Though the last bit where they said they weren’t trying to insult anyone’s patriotism or religion was pretty funny in a non-intentional way.
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