As Politico reported on Wednesday, during a gathering in a Richmond, Virginia home, President Obama "seemed to offer a ringing endorsement" of Daily Show host Jon Stewart holding a 'Rally to Restore Sanity' in Washington DC, supposedly as a way to allow moderate nonpartisan voices to be heard.
Obama declared: "...apparently he's going to host a rally called something like Americans in favor of a return to sanity....And his point was 70 percent of the people – it doesn't matter what political affiliation –70 percent of folks are just like you. They go about their business. They work hard every day. They're looking after their families. They don't go around calling people names. They don't make stuff up."
Stewart has claimed that the rally is nonpartisan and designed to promote moderation: "If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence... we couldn't. That's sort of the point." However, Obama's endorsement clearly demonstrates a decidedly liberal slant to the event. In addition, NewsBusters' Tim Graham earlier reported that the rally was being organized by two former aides to Bill Clinton.
Even as Obama was praising Stewart's influence on American society, in a recent Rolling Stone interview he claimed that Fox News was a "destructive" force. Prior to promoting the satirical rally, Obama offered more media criticism: "A lot of them have figured out, the more controversial I can be, if I’m going out there and I’m calling Obama this name or that name or saying he wasn’t born in this country or — that will get me attention. I will then write a book, I’ll go and sell it."
At the same time, Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton recently described Obama's feelings toward left-wing hosts on MSNBC: "And if you're on the left, if you're somebody like Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow or one of the folks who helps to keep our government honest and pushes and prods to make sure that folks are true to progressive values, then he thinks that those folks provide an invaluable service."
