The Washington Mall once saw huge rallies that showcased serious causes.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" rally drew hundreds of thousands to fire up civil rights activists. In 1969, the Vietnam War Moratorium Rally filled the mall with protesters demanding an end to the Asian war. In 2004, the March for Women's Lives highlighted reproductive rights. The Iraq war drew hundreds of thousands of anti-war opponents in 2007.
Now the mall has fallen on hard times. Rallies these days are hosted by a TV demagogue, by TV comedians or by has-been imitators of King.
These rallies, obviously, are no substitutes for discussing serious problems.
Essentially, they are photo-ops, diversions for those with too much time to spare, camp followers of fringe politics spoon-fed solutions-by-slogan.
So meaningless are they that Fox television's Glenn Beck, the hoodwinking Pied Piper of over-the-edge right-wing thought who earns $30 million a year peddling books, gold and what have you, even took umbrage over attendance numbers for his badly named Restoring Honor rally. He claimed 500,000 attended. CBS television cited 87,000.
Hoping to spoof Beck and spike their own TV show ratings, Comedy Central's star comics will hold simultaneous Oct. 30 mall rallies—Rally to Restore Sanity (Jon Stewart) and March to Keep Fear Alive (Stephen Colbert).
Despite her appearance at Beck's rally, a poll released this week shows Sarah Palin with a favorable rating with the public of only 22 percent. At least some good has been achieved on the mall.