Comedy Central talk show hosts Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert held the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on the National Mall on Oct. 30.
?I can?t control what people think this was; I can only tell you my intentions,? Stewart said in his ?Moment of Sincerity.?
?This wasn?t a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism?or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear,? he said. ?They are and we do.?
CBS News estimated 215,000 people packed into the National Mall to hear the comedians. Among those attending was English 10 and International Baccalaureate Film Studies teacher Pierce Bello.
Bello said that the event ?was fun and entertaining? despite being poorly organized and ?chaotic.? He said he went to be entertained but there were few jumbotrons to watch the stage. Bello said he went for sanity.
Many charities also used the huge turn out to raise awareness for their causes. ?I wanted to see the charity campaigns,? he said.
World History Honors teacher Matthew Axelrod was also disappointed by the apparent lack of preparation of the rally. The rally planners had originally estimated 60,000 people in their rally permit but they raised their estimate to 87,000 closer to the rally, a nearly 130,000 person underestimate.
Although Axelrod said he loved the concept of the rally, he felt he ?wanted to appreciate more than just the atmosphere of it.?
?I love the idea of [the rally, but] I was disappointed in the execution of it,? he said.
According to Axelrod, ?politics should be about ideas, should be rational. So much of it is about personality, is irrational.?
Junior Brandy Allen said she went for ?Team Sanity,? represented by Stewart.
?It was a lot of fun,? Allen said. ?Unfortunately you couldn?t see anything.?
Allen said that she had to take the metro out to Vienna on the Orange Line before she could board a city-bound train. Even then she ?got down there in about an hour.?
Although Allen said she could tell that Stewart and Colbert were talking, she could not hear the performance due to the poor audio system. Despite the trouble, Allen said that she was glad she went. Just being there, she said, was an ?experience of a lifetime.?