Let's get real about Jon Stewart.
Railing against the loud voices of the Right and the Left, Stewart says with a straight face that his jamboree with cohort Stephen Colbert on the National Mall Saturday is "a rally for the people who've been too busy to go to rallies.”
That’s crapology.
Forget the Silent Majority Redux, “The Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear” is all about preaching-to-the-choir ego, the Benjamins and the real dumbing down of America … and we’re all going along for the ride.
Also read: Shhh! Details of Stewart/Colbert Rally Leaked!
What’s actually going to happen at the two-ring circus has become almost a state secret. All we really do know, courtesy of the National Parks Service, under whose jurisdiction the National Mall falls, is that -- as of the September permit filing -- the Roots, Sheryl Crow and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy will be playing during the three-hour rally. It's hard to tell if they’ll prove a better warm-up act to Stewart and Colbert’s stand-up than Sarah Palin did for Glenn Beck at the Fox News host's "Restoring Honor" rally back in August.
What isn’t hard to tell is that success in America in 2010 is all about being able to sell something. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good or bad, nutritious or junk as long as you can sell it and humor is a great deal closer -- ask the over 300,000 who RSVP'd to Saturday's rally via Facebook.
It’s a reflection of our YouTubed times that Stewart, who got a good gig making fun of stupid politicians, has proven to be such a master peddler. In fact, according to a recent poll from AskMen.com, he has become “the most trusted man in America.” Sad to realize we’re talking about the guy who was the sidekick in 2002’s “Death to Smoochy.”
And here's the problem: Both Stewart and Colbert have made their recent careers on bashing and satirizing partisan politics. Now, I personally think it’s a cheap trick often employed by extremists on both ends of the political spectrum who want to get some free space in the mainstream spotlight. For another thing, partisan politics are what make America work.
But after all that bashing and satirizing, now Stewart and Colbert have jumped feet first into the game -- and clearly expect to gain from it.
You think it’s a coincidence that the rallynicely dovetails into the flurry of the midterm elections? Having pocketed a couple of prestigious Peabodys for past election coverage, “The Daily Show” team and Comedy Central couldn’t be unaware how good their rally and a week of broadcasts from Washington could be for ratings and future awards.
Its an additional refection of our times that, even with the kind of influence he has, this would-be Walter Cronkite, helped with free bus rides from Arianna Huffington and plane tickets from Oprah Winfrey, still shamelessly intends treats his audience like little more than warm-props.
