Saturday morning Bob Ohmen donned his Ku Klux Klan robes, grabbed a homemade anti-Republican rally sign and headed for Millennium Park to preach about GOP wrongdoings and to tell tale of President Reagan’s connection to the great racist kingdom.

“This is serious business,” Ohmen said.

The self-proclaimed 1968 liberal and West Rogers Park resident said the Chicago satellite “Rally to Restore Sanity and or Fear” — a Comedy Central brain trust parody of rallies organized by Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Tea Party hacks spreading hate wherever three right-wingers have assembled — was as political as events get.

One hundred yards away, mixed in with a few thousand mostly white people hoisting witty political signs and watching the band shell in Butler Field, a twenty-something dressed in a penguin suit said the Chicago rally was politics in a new form, mixed with entertainment.

“But that’s the point,” said John Mocuta.

The rally scene included costumed freaks offering odd and rabid political rants while small-scale profiteers sold buttons and trinkets.

Event organizer and local comedienne Angie McMahon put on Saturday’s mid-sized production without permits after the city denied her application as insufficient. McMahon went forward on “The People’s” right to assemble.

Shortly after listening in on the Washington, D.C., rally and the singing of the National Anthem, Chicago’s big-screen link to the Capitol was muted and liberal politics ruled the stage. The crowd of Comedy Central demographics listened for a short time as the local lineup hammered away against conservative values.

After watching a leader from the LGBT community remind the city’s gay youth that “It will get better,” the event turned sideways when a female security volunteer took the microphone and began cussing out rally goers for watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on the muted mega-screen at stage left.

The crowd began to thin and acts left the stage, disappointed in the crowd’s lack of interest in them. “You’re all watching TV. That’s insane,” quipped Chicago comedian Aaron Weaver before he, too, left.

“I thought it only fair to not ask the speakers to pack up and go home at that point, ’cause folks wanted to watch TV,” McMahon wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. “I never asked anyone to curse. Nor did I expect them to bitch people out.

“I tried my best, as I was being pulled aside by rally members leaving telling me how much I have ruined their lives, it was tough to keep trying to pay attention to the screen and stage.

Watching TV with a few thousand fellow Daily Show fans on the last weekend before historic midterm elections was exactly the point, said Jon Siegle. He and his wife, Vickie Hellyer, said the Chicago rally was not a place for hardcore politics with a growing number of other Daily Show fans looking for entertainment.

“We didn’t get our fix here,” Hellyer said.

---

By S A GOULD from Park Forest
Posted: 11/09/2010 8:22 PM

People who went to a LIVE RALLY that sent out two emails with schedule and times of presenters, and expected to watch a big TV set were... delusional. To then BOO the scheduled LIVE SPEAKERS was... childish. To say that they were \"FORCED\" to stay and watch is... ridiculous. Sometimes, in \"real life\" you may not get your way. (Bet the organizers would have preferred for you to stay home, too.) Why should YOUR wishes have taken precedence over the majority, anyway? Next time, stay home.

---

By Daniel from South Loop
Posted: 11/04/2010 5:43 AM

The irony is not lost. The Rally to restore Sanity, a bunch of Liberal Dweebs, host an event in the liberal city to protest the Tea Party (a group who wants accountable and less government), but "The Rally to Restore Sanity" folks can't get through all the permit requirements of Big Bad Government, that they are rallying for. You can't script stupidity and humor that well. Where is "The Rent is too high" guy?