The Washington Post had a great gallery of photos from the event.
I wanted to make sure that everyone got to see them.
Here's the link to the gallery
I sure wish I could have been there. It looks like there was a huge crowd of sensible, sane, rational people there, all fed up with the toxic nonsense that our nation has been drowning in over the past few years and especially leading up to this election!
The Washington Post article says
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the first names in fake-news anchormen, drew throngs of exuberant supporters to Washington on Saturday for a televised and live-streamed joint rally that shut down streets, overloaded the transit system and flooded the Mall.
In a fraught political environment, with midterm elections looming and Democrats bracing for historic losses, the two comedians kept most of their three-hour show to nonpartisan bits, musical entertainment and gentle ribbing of the purported enemies of incivility.
But at the conclusion of the program, Stewart switching his black T-shirt and blazer for a suit and tie, argued that the rally's intended butt of the joke was the level of discourse in Washington and cable television's hyperbolic 24-hour news cycle. Political affiliations aside, he said, everyone throughout the country found a way to work together.
"The only place we don't is here or on cable TV," said Stewart, speaking against the backdrop of the Capitol building. In earnest terms that bordered on political rhetoric, he orated, "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."
Crowds were so large that the Metro system was completely overwhelmed - completely full trains sped past stops closer in, and those who were able to get on the trains in Maryland and Virginia were confronted with huge lines. Amtrak was fully booked for both Friday and Saturday.
The New York Times article said
"We don’t have any place to turn," said Michelle Sabol, 41, a jewelry designer from Pittsburgh who was wearing a grey cap with a carpenter’s level sewn on top. "Why are these Democrats running away from Obama’s accomplishments? It’s a kick in the gut."
She said that Mr. Stewart and his compatriot, Stephen Colbert, whose show, "The Colbert Report," airs after Mr. Stewart’s, voiced the bitterness and frustration she felt.
"We came because we feel like this is a safe place to be reasonable," she said.
The rally seemed to be channeling something deep — a craving to be heard and a frustration with the lack of leadership, less by Mr. Obama, some participants said, than by a Democratic party that they saw as timid, fearful, and failing to stand up for the president’s accomplishments.
Jon Stewart said what I often repeat here, at MediaMatters, and in general conversation - My version is below, followed by Stewart's.
Our national discourse is being poisoned with the toxic nonsense from the right. They lie, they lie by omission of relevant information, and they disingenuously deceive people with distortions in order to succeed politically in defeating their political enemies. I am open and welcoming to those who have different political philosophies so long as they base their stances on reasonable, realistic and fair foundations!
As Senator and Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan so famously said
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.
Stewart said
The enemy, Jon Stewart told the masses gathered on the Mall in Washington Saturday for his "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear," is not people of faith, or activists, or those who want to have passionate argument, or those on the right, or those on the left.
The enemy, he argued, is not Americans at all. It is instead the false image of Americans being pushed by the cable news-driven media - what he called "the country's 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictinator - that he said is broken and making the country's problems worse.
"If we amplify everything, we hear nothing," Stewart said, accusing media outlets of fearmongering and spotlighting extremists instead of reasonable Americans. He later added that the press is America's immune system - and "if it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker."