25 Reasons that Restoring Sanity was More Fun than Restoring Honor

First of all, the rally was extraordinary. I'm usually a major hater, but while I rolled down here expecting to find little more than shameless sideline advocacy and the sort of mixed messages that are all too typical when lefties congregate, I'll be leaving with a smile. As it turns out, while I happen to be an extremist, most people aren't. In fact they're quite chill, if not hilarious.

But more on that early next week, when the Rally for Sanity is like 2,000 years old in Twitter years and there's been time to reflect. For now, as someone who's covered a number of (mostly insane) rallies on the National Mall, I'd like to address the least important but most pressing issue at hand: Were there more people out today than there were at Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally? In the dozens of conversations that I had with folks today, I was asked that question more than any other.

While I'm embarrassed to admit that my crowd estimating qualifications are minimal – especially with the Phoenix sky 'copter grounded – I can confirm that there's absolutely no way to determine the number of attendees. Unlike at Restoring Honor, many of the Mall's grassy areas were roped off for today's festivities; as a result, any serious tally attempt would have to account for every side street and avenue in downtown DC.

With that said – the Phoenix is able to certify some significant quantitative differences between Beck's event and Stewart's get-together. Keeping in mind that the joint was brimming with Halloween fervor, here are 25 nouns (persons, races, and things) that there were absolutely more of at today's jamboree than were present when Fox and friends commandeered the capitol:

1 - Spider Man pajamas

2 - Comedy Central viewers

3 - Self-respecting African-Americans

4 - Betsy Ross boxer shorts without skid marks

5 - Students from accredited colleges and universities

6 - Eurotrash

7 - Chilean mining enthusiasts

8 - Puppeteers

9 - Sandwich Democrats (both the Massachusetts and the ham-and-cheese kind)

10 - Musketeers

11 - Wu-Tang Clansmen

12 - Actual tree huggers

13 - Furries

14 - Self-respecting Muslims

15 - Canadians

16 - Sane membranes

17 - Pedro supporters

18 - Huge photos of Justin Bieber with a Hitler mustache

19 - Twitter jockeys

20 - Hare Krishna anthems

21 - Apolitical Teletubbies

22 - Lattes

23 - Sensible hemp outerwear

24 - Admitted masturbators

25 - Self-respecting human beings

BONUS: The notion that “We live now in hard times – not end times.”