UPDATE: The ultra-radical extreme-liberal left-wing hippie Communist/Muslim person-counting service AirPhotosLive has these estimates:
* 87,000 people attended August's "Rally to Restore Honor" featuring Fox News' Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.
* 215,000 people attended Saturday's "Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear" featuring Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
That 215,000 apparently did not include thousands who traveled to D.C. for the event but couldn't get close enough to see or hear the event in person -- and settled for watching it on TVs in bars and hotels.
(Beck estimated the true size of the Beck/Palin rally to be as big as 650,000 people. Colbert estimated the true size of the Stewart/Colbert rally crowd to be between 10,000,000 and 6,000,000,000 people.)
More details here.
Original post:
I am – Hercules!!
Jon Stewart’s “Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear” in Washington, D.C., arrives Saturday and viewers on the West Coast will want to make sure they’ve got the TV on by 9 a.m. if they want to catch it live on C-SPAN.
The Christian Science Monitor lets us know what to expect (all times Eastern):
10:00 a.m.: The pre-pre-show begins with videos and music on the jumbotron to keep the gathering crowd friendly and entertained.
Noon: The pre-show starts with a performance from The Roots.
12:40: A comedian (to be determined) warms up the audience.
12:57: A video countdown with a show introduction.
1:00: The show kicks off with the national anthem by a musical guest (to be announced).
1:05: Mr. Stewart welcomes the crowd – whose projected size is ballooning daily. Currently, there are 200,000 sign-ups on the official Facebook page alone.
1:20: Mr. Colbert enters, and two actors – Don Novello and Sam Waterston – perform readings.
1:40: Jeff Tweedy and Mavis Staple perform for 10 minutes, followed by Stewart and Colbert until 2 p.m.
2:15: Sheryl Crow performs for five minutes, followed by speakers and guests (to be determined).
2:30: Musical guests (also still being lined up) come on.
2:40: The show turns to a pre-taped sequence – The Sanity and Fear Awards.
Quite a number should be turning up, including my kid sister Christy, who made it all the way out from Keller, Texas.
How many?
As a point of comparison, the Aug. 28 “Rally To Restore Honor,” featuring Fox News’ Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, attracted between 78,000 and 96,000 people, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News, but Beck says his crowd could have been as large as 650,000. Which is more!
CBS commissioned AirPhotosLive.com to provide its crowd numbers. Beck has not yet explained how he derived his, or why they differ so significantly from the estimates given CBS.
If Beck’s number is anywhere near correct, I think CBS deserves its money back.
Stewart’s Wednesday “Daily Show,” featuring an interview with President Obama, was the third-most-watched episode in the series’ history, according to Comedy Central. (The two biggest episodes featured an appearance by then-senator Obama and an appearance by Obama’s wife Michelle.)
I'm guessing Waterston is coming down firmly on the side of fear:
Fox News viewers are the oldest who watch television. They, more than anyone, don't understand why the scientists keep making robots.
9 a.m. PT / Noon ET. Saturday. C-SPAN.
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