I don't know why you love dumping on Beck ...

... other then you know it ticks me off.

Everyone has advice for how to stay #1 ... sheesh. Why do you complain so much about a a guy no one is forcing you to watch/listen to, nor holds any public office which has sway over your life? Do I come in here and complain about Oberhman, or Chris Matthews? True, I've ranted about NPR in the past (and raved, at times), but then they get my local, state and federal subsidies, so I'm paying for that right.

This comedic "rally", if you want to call it that, was pure show business. Why do you afford it the seriousness of even asking whether it was "the counter" to Beck's rally? If anything was, the 10/2/10 rally, set in motion by the Ed Schultz fella on MSNBC, was meant to be a serious "counter." And we already discussed and agreed that be it that rally or Sharpton's, the clear "winner" in terms of a positive message, being apolitical, offering images of a sea of red, white and blue, and not to mention pure numbers (including a Dr. King), was Beck's 8/28 gathering. I watched a grand total of 5 seconds of Colbert & Stewart. Do you know why? I'm in the mood for all things political 3 days outside of this election, and they're comedians. Nothing wrong with what they did, "rally" all you want. I just didn't give a comedy festival a second thought in terms of politics. Beck should no more be concerned about Stewart's "swipes" then Obama is about Jay Leno's monologue, that's all I'm saying.

The "ammo" he hands critics ... The moment he starts walking on egg shells, or in any way curtailing his speech so as to hand Stewart (et al) less "ammo", is the moment he's finished professionally. I'm not claiming Beck is flawless, nor do I agree with every word he utters. Love him, hate him, listen, don't listen, I couldn't care less. But the idea that his message should be crafted so as to offer crtics less "ammo", or make his message more palatable to "mainstream" America seems so counter intuitive to me, a fundamentally flawed observation. "Mainstream" as comapred to what? NBC? The NY Times? My goodness, think about what you're saying - his television show garners more ratings then the entire prime time MSNBC line up (between him and O'Reilly, just their two shows alone, have more viewers then MSNBC and CNN prime time line ups combined). On TV he's second only to Billy O', on radio third to only Limbaugh and Hannity. And bare in mind just 5 years ago he was barely a regional blip on the political radar, his rise has been meteoric. He has, by my rough count, no less then four NY Times best sellers (and they don't even count sales at Wal Mart, Costco or Sams Club!). I'd wager his website has more hits then Stewart's Comedy Central "click here" logo, and that doesn't even count the new Blaze. His combined listening/viewing audience is more than that of the three network news broadcasts, combined. And he sold more books the first week of his new release, "Broke", then the NY Times has in subscriptions, per year. By all accounts HE IS THE MAINSTREAM, or at least as mainstream as it gets. That's why his (& Limbaugh's and Hannity's) contracts dwarf Katie Couric, Brian Williams, et al. This isn't even close brother. With his company "Mercury" he's putting together a mini Rupert Murdoch research, news, printing and broadcasting machine. And while he hasn't quite hit #1 on TV or radio, the fact that he is #2 on television news and #3 on radio, combined with his best sellers, makes him (in my opinion) the over all most influential commentator in these United States.

Again, he ain't perfect. He goes into areas I can't follow sometimes. I think the Revolution, the Civil War, and FDR all posed greater threats to the Republic then what we face now. So he can "get it wrong" sometimes. However, and perhaps it's his comedic ability, perhaps his desire to interject historical aspects into modern political conversation, maybe the passion in his voice, maybe the fat jokes about himself, probably ALL OF IT, but the bottom line is that he has stormed the news and information arena (oh ya, he regularly sells out arenas for live concerts) in a seriously impressive way and filled a void millions of Americans clearly felt was wonting in their news and information world prior. So to suggest that someone with that sort of mega success he should start now to craft his message so as to not hand his critics so much ammo, or that his baggage some how overshadowed a rally that HE was the impetus behind to begin with, or that he is not palatable to mainstream America, well ... that just seems rather laughable to me.

What I really hope isn't going on here is you listening to Beck and actually saying to yourself, "Boy Stewart's going to have a field day with that one", because this would mean you're taking your "valid/invalid argument" cues from Comedy Central ... and that would be sad state of affairs indeed.

PS> the boys love (the elder has read 11 books of 12 in the series) A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Fablehaven. And they went through the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series in about a week, but they laughed the whole time.