Stewart occasionally preaches Broderian false equivalence, and it's easily his most annoying trait, but while the Broders beg for a Serious Grownup to rescue idiot Americans from their own passions, Stewart's message is basically that all Americans have the ability to just not be assholes, and the press has a responsibility to not reward being an asshole.
(The only actual moment where everyone's worst fears about the event came true was the horrible Kid Rock song about how influential millionaires can't do anything to make the world a better place besides care, a bunch, about war and stuff.)
As a piece of politicking, the Rally to Restore Sanity got a couple hundred thousand young liberals excited about sincerity and inspired about their nation on the eve of the midterm elections. I can't really see a downside, unless you think tepid criticisms of MSNBC's tone will convince liberals not to vote this Tuesday.
via www.salon.com
Some people I know went to the rally, but left feeling underwhelmed. One took the Kid Rock/Sheryl Crowe duet as a cue to leave. I saw the rally on TV. I laughed a couple times, and was annoyed by Stewart's false equivalences. If we're making errors in reasoning to appear non-partisian, objective or fair and balanced, then we're making a mistake. One of the main things I like about The Daily Show and Stewart as a host is that he often tries to bring a little reason to political discourse. He often gets his laughs by pointing out blatant contradictions or fallacious reasoning in political discourse. So, when Stewart commits the very kind of error that he would normally be pointing out to get laughs I guess the joke is on him, this time. Let's not pretend the evidence in support of the claim that George Bush committed war crimes is not equivalent to the evidence in support of the claim that Obama is a Marxist. Let's not pretend like the right and left are equally culpable for the recent political violence. Right now the trouble pretty clearly is coming from the right.
It is precisely for this reason that his false equivalences are so problematic to me.
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