Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear.  Oct. 30. © 2010 Matt Dunn

Fear the Sanity: Turns out a crowd equalling about one-third of the District's population showed up on the Mall on Saturday to demonstrate in favor of... well, Comedy Central, and the Roots, and also clumsy metaphors involving the Lincoln Tunnel. CBS News, which estimated the crowd at Glenn Beck's August march at 87,000, used the same technique to declare 215,000 people packed into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. That helped set an all-time Saturday Metro ridership record of 825,437 trips. After tomorrow's midterms turn into an unmitigated disaster for Democrats, chances are Jon Stewart's rally will serve as the closing bracket on the "We Feel So Good About Politics" thing that had been common to the Daily Show-watching, college educated, hipster slice of the Obama coalition for the last two years; a year from now, people will look back at the fact that they went to a Viacom-produced TV event on the Mall just before the GOP took over with no small amount of bewilderment that it happened at all. But hey! At least they had funny signs! +3

Gary Condit Returns<: During the summer of 2001, Adams Morgan was a vast wasteland of cable TV satellite linkups and 24-hour-stakeouts—all because reporters couldn't bear to stand the thought of missing the possibility that then-Rep. Gary Condit might say something about the dead intern he was, allegedly, boinking at the time of her disappearance, Chandra Levy. Testifying at the murder trial of the guy police say actually did it, Ingmar Guandique, Condit played the gentleman and refused to say whether he had a romantic relationship with Levy. Which means we're one day closer to that happy moment when we can all forget about Gary Condit again. -2

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas: With Halloween now past, the entire U.S. economy is rapidly gearing up to get you excited to buy whatever gifts you can afford for your friends and family after you splurged, in a recession-caused bit of the blues, on buying too much chocolate this past weekend. (Or maybe that was just us.) Even the federal government is getting into the act; tickets for the Dec. 9 lighting of the National Christmas Tree will be distributed via an online lottery starting Thursday. Yes, this item is officially part of the War on Christmas, which in future years, will probably see early skirmishes starting in, oh, June, if this holiday calendar creeping continues. -2

Detroit Rock City: This NFL season had, for a time, threatened to undo the cosmology of Redskins fans, accustomed—ever since Dan Snyder bought the team—to spending their Sundays watching ever-more frustrating, confusing, and embarrassing losses. Fortunately, with yesterday's 37-25 defeat by the Detroit Lions, the gentlemen in the Burgundy and Gold reverted to form, complete with a mystifying quarterback change and countless unforced errors (like, say, center Casey Rabach tackling quarterback Donovan McNabb so the Lions defensive line didn't have t0). With a bye next weekend, Redskins fans have two weeks to ponder what sins they may have committed to deserve Snyder. -2

Friday's Needle rating: 49 Today's score: -3 Today's Needle rating: 46

The Huffington Post has buses. Washington City Paper has these two.

Meet Keli Anaya and Molly McGinley. They'll be providing free walks from the Smithsonian Metro to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear tomorrow morning, from 10:45 a.m. until the rally starts at noon. We couldn't afford to bus people in for the shindig, and besides, if you're reading City Paper, chances are, you're already here. But we did want to help out somehow; after all, we're for sanity, at least most of the time.

Look for Anaya and McGinley at the Metro tomorrow morning. They'll have the sign they're holding above—and they will not be laughing. And look for coverage of the rally here on City Desk throughout the day.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Let's All Overreact!: The best policy, when faced with some danger of a terrorist attacks, is to abandon any commitment to civil liberties or, really, rational thought. Or at least, that seems to be the theory Metro officials are now operating under. In response to the news that a guy who wanted (but hadn't actually gotten his hands on) some kind of explosive materials wound up working with FBI agents to plot an entirely imaginary attack on subway stations, Metro Transit Police want to implement random searches of bags within the system. Congratulations, terrorists! You win again. -4

Don't Drink and Trick or Treat: Halloween always seemed like more of a holiday for kids, but maybe that's just because we're not the biggest fans of sexy [inappropriate noun] costumes. Enough adults observe, though, that police are mounting an aggressive crackdown on drunk driving over the weekend. One fact that's far scarier than any flick Vincent Price ever appeared in: 58 percent of traffic fatalities during Halloween in 2008 were caused by drunk drivers. Boo! +2

Popcorn? Milk Duds? Cabernet?: Years ago, you used to be able to watch arthouse movies and hang out in the bar at Visions, the long-defunct theater in Dupont Circle (whose space on Florida Avenue NW still sits maddeningly untouched, taunting anyone who used to love the place). Well, happy days are here again—you'll be able to do just that at West End Cinema, a new movie theater/bar set to open tomorrow night. Even better for nostalgia purposes: The theater will occupy the former home of the long-closed Inner Circle on M Street NW. Next project for D.C. film buffs: Reclaim the likes of the Biograph and the Key from CVS. +3

Bike (Ironically) to Rally: An update on an earlier Needle item—the Washington Area Bicyclists Association now says you should ride your bike there. Comedy Central, not generally known for its protest-organizing abilities, had failed to work with WABA to set up a bike valet station, and the National Park Service hasn't seen fit to install much in the way of bike racks on the Mall. So it didn't seem like there would be any place to lock a bike if you did ride there. On first glance, it still doesn't seem like that fundamental problem has been solved, but hey! People have been riding their bikes to rallies and locking them to benches for years now. Surely even a bunch of faux protesters can manage that on a gorgeous fall day. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 46 Today's score: +3 Today's Needle rating: 49

We at Washington City Paper are here to help, with our free walks from the Smithsonian Metro station to the rally site, a long eight blocks away. We're like Arianna Huffington, but with no buses. Meet up with City Paper staffers at the Metro any time between 10:45 a.m. and noon, when the rally starts. They'll help guide you to the rally—providing a service that merely following the hordes of other fake protesters wouldn't accomplish.

After the rally is over, here's where to eat in D.C., and how to keep the irony going the rest of the day.

And remember, if you see those City Paper staffers laughing, as opposed to chuckling politely and non-genuinely, report 'em.

Photo by Minesweeper via Wikimedia Commons

Tornados and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!: Welcome to Kansas-on-Potomac. Both last night and today, weather officials issued tornado watches, advising that thunderstorms (which come naturally with the unseasonably warm temperatures in the area) could bring on twisters. Fortunately, no such things materialized. Though in a year that's already seen blizzards, record heat, and an earthquake, it would hardly have been a surprise if one did sweep through. +2

Terrorists and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!: With the tornado watch canceled by mid-afternoon, Washingtonians could devote their full psychic energy to being scared by terrorists. Authorities say Farooque Ahmed was plotting to blow up Metro stations around the area, preferably during the evening rush hour for maximum casualties. The fear factor on this story fell dramatically, though, if you read the indictment—which makes clear that Ahmed was ensnared in a federal sting as soon as he started looking around for undisclosed (but probably scary) materials. Remember: Only Metro can kill you on Metro. -4

Metro, Its Own Worst Enemy: And as if to remind us all that the real danger in riding Metro comes from within, news broke today that a team of workers on the Blue and Yellow line tracks were nearly run over by a train last month while doing maintenance work. Yet another reason to ride your bike to work; that way, some bozo talking on his cell phone can run you down instead of the subway. -2

Obama-dy Central: Given that the midterm elections are now just a few days away, it's probably a bad sign for the White House that President Obama's visit to Chinatown for an appearance on tonight's Daily Show is being treated like it's a bigger deal for Obama than it is for Jon Stewart. Change isn't easy. The whole thing will only increase public attention on Stewart's rally, with Stephen Colbert, on Saturday on the Mall. (Which you may have noticed we've mentioned a few times.) Unfortunately, you won't be able to bike there; organizers didn't set up a bike valet station, and the Mall has almost no place to lock anything up. Which means... take Metro. And keep fear alive. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 48 Today's score: -2 Today's Needle rating: 46

Stewart vs. Carlson on Oct. 15, 2004 (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Jon Stewart has everyone in town (including, yes, Washington City Paper) in a bit of a tizzy this week, between the weekend Rally to Restore Sanity and the Daily Show tapings in Chinatown. But it's not the first time the funnyman has come through town and caused a stir.

Remember that infamous October 2004 episode of CNN's Crossfire when Stewart told pundits Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala that Crossfire news theatrics were harming the nation? (Stewart: "So I wanted to come here today and say... Stop...Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.") I was able to score complimentary tickets to the taping, and was lucky to observe things viewers at home would not have seen. What was clear to those in the audience and those at home was how Stewart's exchanges with Carlson, in particular, became more testy during the course of the interview. ("You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show!" Surprisingly, that line made the transcript!)

But I wish there was a recording of Stewart and Carlson's off-air remarks during the commercial breaks. They were really going at it, as you might be able to tell in this photo I snapped from the audience. You couldn't hear anything, though, because of the stupid in-house studio music—some choice tunes from Bare Naked Ladies, Simon and Garfunkel and Dusty Springfield, to be exact.

As I wrote about the now-infamous Crossfire episode for DCist:

[I] tried to read Stewart's lips, but couldn't make anything out. Carlson's head was turned away from the audience. Paul Begala, meanwhile, just sort of sat there.

Stewart's appearance and skewering of Carlson and Begala made waves and has been credited with Crossfire's cancellation in January 2005. Could a Stewart skewering of Obama help lead to a voter-led cancellation of his presidency in 2012? Might this whole thing be the launch of... the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert ticket in '12?

Watch the Crossfire appearance here:

Photo by Michael E. Grass

TO: WASHINGTON CITY PAPER STAFF

FROM: MICHAEL SCHAFFER, EDITOR

RE: STEWART/COLBERT RALLY

Colleagues—

Several of you have asked me about this coming weekend’s satirical National Mall rallies featuring Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. As you probably know, at least one other news organization, NPR, has forbidden news staffers from attending. Others, including the Washington Post, have reminded staffers that newsroom policy permits them to witness events, but not to “participate” in ways that could call into question their impartiality—i.e., by chanting, waving signs, etc.

At a time of grave concerns about our economy and our national security—not to mention a period of tumult in our industry—it is obviously crucial that all media organizations develop appropriate guidelines for staff attendance at mock-political public appearances by cable-television celebrities. After significant consultation with Washington City Paper’s expensive outside team of professional ethicists, we’ve settled on the following guidelines. Please read and follow them closely:

1. You may attend the rallies in a non-participatory fashion.
2. However, because the rallies are comic events, you may not laugh.
3. The act of not laughing, though, can be just as politically loaded as the act of laughing. Therefore, staffers are advised to politely chuckle, in a non-genuine manner, after each joke.
4. To avoid any perception of bias, please make sure to chuckle at all jokes, whether or not you find them funny. As journalists, we must make sure to not allow our personal views of “humorous” or “non-humorous” to affect our public demeanor.
5. Likewise, it could be devastating to our impartial reputation if our staffers were seen laughing at something that was not intended as a joke, thereby appearing to mock the entire event. If we are lucky, the comedians will have a drummer on hand whose rim-shots may be used as a cue for when to politely chuckle.
6. If no non-verbal cues for laughter are available, please observe audience members around you. If they are laughing, imitate their laughter with a non-genuine polite chuckle. If they are not laughing, remain stone-faced. Whatever you do, do not apply your own personal cognitive skills to determining the humorousness of any particular clip. Such an approach exposes us to charges of bias.
7. On the other hand, a situation could arise where partisan foes of the Comedy Central hosts laugh at them in a derisive manner unrelated to the timing of their on-stage jokes. In this case, your failure to join in the mockery could potentially be interpreted as a sign that you disagree with the derision—an equally distasteful indication of bias. Please follow the above guidelines and also chuckle politely, but not genuinely, at any instances of counter-comedy.
8. In our experience, public appearances by comedy figures also draw audiences whose members frequently make jokes amongst themselves. These attempts at humor might not necessarily fit into the rational example of protesters versus counter-protesters outlined in the guidelines above. However, you could nonetheless indicate a great deal about your personal biases via your decision as to whether or not you laugh along when the person next to you riffs about, say, marginal tax rates. Please make sure to follow the above guidelines and respond via polite, non-genuine, mild guffaws to the jibes of amateur comics in the audience.
9. We’re also aware that the large crowds expected at the rallies could produce a cacophonous din, one in which you are unable to discern which jokes are being made by audience members, counter-protestors, or the day’s main attractions—and, worse still, where observers may think you are laughing at an anti-Republican joke when you are actually laughing at an anti-Democrat joke. To protect our cherished reputation against such a danger, I have arranged for each of you to be issued a pair of earplugs. Should the event grow too raucous, please insert these earplugs immediately. Once you have inserted the earplugs, please chuckle politely, and non-genuinely, every 74 seconds, to maintain the appearance of non-biased and appropriate responses to the event.
10. You are free to laugh heartily and genuinely at any jokes that target the terrorists.

Please feel free to see me or Mike Madden should you need any further clarification.

Best,

Mike

Seeking to take advantage of the attention that Jon Stewart will bring to D.C. this weekend, a group of federal workers said they will also head to the Mall to plead a different case: basically, for the majority of America to stop hatin’.

GovLoop, a social network of over 30,000 government employees, will hold its rally–dubbed “Government Doesn’t Suck!”–near the National Air and Space Museum at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, a few hours before Stewart’s undoubtedly bigger, more popular “Rally To Restore Sanity.” The point is to reverse widespread anti-fed sentiments, which a Washington Post poll this month revealed are held by... most Americans.

We who live in and around the District might occasionally forget it, but many of our fellow countrymen don’t like what they think goes on here. Bureaucracy, seen as huge, anonymous, and burdensome, tends to give non-government people headaches. So GovLoop wants to put a face on those faceless federal employees and “to show the country that [they’re] capable of having a laugh,” according to its website. In other words: the almost 30 percent of city residents who work in government are people, too.

When last checked, 40 members of the GovLoop network have said they will attend, and 24 said they might attend.

Photo by Ibrahim Rustamov, via Wikimedia Commons

We at Washington City Paper can't rely on a fortune quite as large as Arianna's, so we can't afford quite such a generous gesture. And besides, most of our readers are already here in D.C., where Metro will be running frequent buses and subways toward the Mall for just a bit more than a buck (and, okay, the chance you might get run over). But inspired by the HuffPo's shuttle, we still wanted to pitch in somehow. So:

Washington City Paper hereby announces that we will offer free walking tours from the Smithsonian Metro stop to the Rally to Restore Sanity/Keep Fear Alive on Saturday morning, for anyone who may have trouble navigating the eight blocks along the Mall without the assistance of a media organization. Look for City Paper employees near the Metro between 10:45 a.m. and noon—they'll be wearing City Paper garb of some sort—and tell them you need a walk to the anti-protest protest.

Important legal disclaimers: City Paper will not assume any responsibility if you get distracted by the carousel on the Mall and wander away from the tour. City Paper employees may be willing to hold your hand to help guide you to the rally, but only if you're cute and ask nicely. Like the Huffington Post, City Paper is a free publication; unlike the Huffington Post, City Paper does not get much Web traffic from celebrity nipple slips. Offer of walking tour is only valid to the rally, so memorize the route. Do not taunt City Paper employees.

Remember, only you can keep fear alive. Restoring sanity is probably beyond all of us.

Conservative-correcting non-profit Media Matters for America wants you to "Drop Fox"—and they're launching their campaign from the bottom up. As in, the bottom of a subway tunnel.

A bevy of advertisements for the campaign against Fox News Channel hit stations across the Metro system last night. Picking up on the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert rally rhetoric, the ads proclaim that "Fox Keeps Fear Alive" and urge rally-goers to "Restore Sanity, Fight Fox." Media Matters' schtick is that fear-mongering Fox is "is not a news organization, it is a right-wing political operation."

The latest insertion into this weekend's frenzy is described as such:

"Each day, Fox News 'keeps fear alive' with a steady stream of false and misleading attacks on President Obama, progressive members of Congress, and policy initiatives like reforming health care, fixing the economy, and fighting climate change.

Fox hosts like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly play on the fears and prejudices of their audiences and help create a climate of uncertainty, paranoia, and hate. Network contributors like Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and Newt Gingrich appear as political experts while trafficking in lies and misinformation."

Media Matters will, naturally, be present on the Mall on Saturday. They'll be armed with rally signs, lapel stickers, and t-shirts to gather signatures for the Drop Fox petition.

We don't necessarily know if this campaign is going to work—for one, most of the people coming to the rally probably hate Fox News with a passion already anyway—but hey, can't complain about anything that puts a little revenue in Metro's coffers without another fare increase!

Photo courtesy of Media Matters for America

Welcome to The Daily Show: If you suddenly feel like the air around town is somehow more ironic, it may not just be because of the hipster riding past you on a track bike. Jon Stewart has arrived in D.C., five days ahead of Saturday's Rally to Restore Sanity, to tape this week's Daily Show episodes from the Harman Center for the Arts in Chinatown. The guest tonight is Austan Goolsbee; his boss, Barack Obama, shows up on Wednesday. We assume the invitation for Washington City Paper editors to appear as a group on the show has simply been delayed in the mail. +3

Sweep-up Time: D.C. isn't anywhere near as rigid as New York in enforcing the alternate-side street parking rules designed to allow for regular street cleaning. That may be because we don't clean the streets as often. At any rate, street-sweeping will end this week until the winter, as the Department of Public Works switches to leaf cleanup mode. Which means, the weather notwithstanding, it is officially fall. +2

More Statements About Nothing: Maybe rural Virginia isn't Wale's base. The president of the University of Mary Washington, Rick Hurley, has apologized to Fredericksburg, Va., residents who were upset by profanity uttered by D.C.'s biggest rap star at a concert Saturday night. If the university had known Wale was so foul-mouthed, it would have put the concert inside, Hurley says. (Give him points for not saying he would have canceled it.) -1

Super Bowl Bound?: It took the Redskins 16 games to win four games last year. This year, they've done it in seven. The Skins beat the Chicago Bears, 17-14, in an error-filled game that should probably have resulted in the loser being shipped off to the Xtreme Football League. Might the team be motivated by our pessimistic preseason forecast of a 6-10 year? If so, we'll accept thanks for the inspiration in the form of Super Bowl tickets. +2

Friday's Needle rating: 48 Today's score: +6 Today's Needle rating: 54

Rally to Restore Porta Potties: This whole Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert thing may be all about irony. But that doesn't mean Comedy Central can't still pull together and get some actual results when it matters. A burgeoning toilet crisis has been averted, and anti-protest protesters will be able to go the bathroom even though the Marine Corps Marathon had called dibs on most Porta Potties in the area. Could Glenn Beck manage such a feat of logistics? +3

H Street NE Streetcars Named Desire: The future is March 2012, as far as District transit geeks are concerned. That's when city officials claim the H Street/Benning Road and Anacostia Initial Line Segment branches of the new municipal monorail streetcars will begin rolling. The fare will be $1. One car will run the Anacostia line; four or five will cover H Street. Sure, the city only owns three for now, and of course, chances are all this will take more time and money than planned, but still—streetcars, people! Streetcars! +3

Cardinal Numbers: The District may not get a vote on things like who the next Senate majority leader or speaker of the House is. But we will be represented when the time comes to pick a successor to Pope Benedict XVI. The Vatican announced today that Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl was being elevated to cardinal, effective next month. Which puts D.C. in the same league as other major cities whose Catholic leaders are cardinals, like Minsk, Belarus; Riga, Latvia; and Baltimore. Hmm. +1

I-66, Where Are You?: Plenty of area drivers avoid Interstate 66; it's often congested, driving on it—like all highways—can produce intense feelings of suburban anomie, and besides, who needs to go anywhere in Virginia? Now it seems Google Maps has decided to erase the road altogether, giving directions as if it was never constructed in the first place. Hey, it worked for Stalin—traffic problems solved! +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 32 Today's score: +8 Today's Needle rating: 40