Satirist stirs latte land over Tea Party

Jon Stewart. Photo / Supplied

He's calling it the Million Moderate March.

Liberal news satirist Jon Stewart is planning a "Rally to Restore Sanity" in Washington next month to draw voters to an anti-extremism demonstration with witty irony as its selling-point.

His tongue may be in his cheek but it doesn't muffle the star TV host's rallying cry to an exasperated mainstream just days before the midterm elections in November.

Sent up as "a few hours of fun" but also a serious riposte to the right-wing Tea Party movement now stealing the spotlight, Stewart promised to supply signs such as "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler".

The day after he announced the rally on his political satire programme, The Daily Show, mainstream news channels were calling the Washington DC police to check it was not a hoax.

They were told Stewart had, indeed, applied for permits for a public gathering on October 30.

It will take place on the National Mall below the Lincoln Memorial, site of so many historic demonstrations over the decades, not least of which was the recent "Restoring Honour" rally organised by Stewart's antithesis, the right-wing conservative Christian TV host Glenn Beck.

The "Million Moderate" reference is also a poke at Beck's predominantly white rally, which talked of "reclaiming" civil rights on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, and is in the place where African Americans held their Million Man March for stronger rights in 1995.

Stewart's event is designed to counter what he called a minority of 15 per cent or 20 per cent of the country that has dominated the national political discussion with extreme rhetoric.

Last week began with a narrowly avoided Koran-burning on the anniversary of September 11 and ended with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin stoking speculation she will run for the White House in 2012. In the middle came the giant Tea Party upset, where inexperienced but hardline conservatives - opposed by their own official Republican Party - won primary elections and will fight for Congressional seats in the midterms.

Stewart is a master of comedy but he is also seriously influential. When he blasted CNN's dog-pit-style political pundit fight Crossfire programme back in 2004, saying it was "hurting America" with its mindless, partisan bickering, the show was eventually cancelled, with Stewart's criticism cited as one of the reasons. The largest segment of Stewart's audience is under 30 and has liberal views - and gets as much of its news from The Daily Show as from other sources.

Stewart's rally will be counter-balanced by a spoof "extremist conservative" rally called the "March to Keep Fear Alive" by fellow Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert.

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