I will admit that I find the whole Rally To Restore Sanity amusing, but not much else. Hosting a very large group of people on the Mall in Washington to tell them and all the rest of us to calm down is funny, really. That liberal groups are seizing this moment is so sad. They should be in on the joke, rather than seeing it as an opportunity.
Sanity has rarely been a hallmark of American politics. Since the election of 1796, and particularly 1800, attacking one's political opponents as not just empty of ideas and plans, but actively engaged in undermining the United States has been part and parcel of our politics. It has been a conceit for some time that there was a time when political discourse hewed some fanciful line known as "civility". Nonsense. Those who decry the nastiness of so much of what happens in political discussions on the internet, talk radio, and increasingly cable news seem to be unaware this is as American as baseball, jazz, and cherry pie, and violence.
I have no interest in insisting that our discourse follow some set of rules it has never followed. I have no interest, furthermore, in attempting to reason with those who, on an hourly basis, attack the President and his party as a threat to the very fabric of our social and political stability. It would be nice if all sides acknowledged that, at heart, we all are seeking the best interest of all of us. The problem is, this isn't true. Even this fanciful notion is belied by the rhetoric and actions of political actors.
So, as with most big DC rallies, I am going to ignore it. They rarely do more than grab a headline or two anyway. That there are liberal groups out there who believe for one moment that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are going to do anything meaningful beyond laughing at all those earnest young faces on the Mall are only fooling themselves.
