With Election Day looming, throngs of people flocked to the nation's capital for a rally making fun of politics as usual.  TV funnymen Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hosted the three-hour event, which included performances by Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, John Legend and Tony Bennett.  While the pair tried to steer away from overt political commentary, the event was organized in response to conservative commentator Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally two months ago and comes the weekend before the mid-term elections, a crucial test of the Obama administration.  "It's a perfect demographic sampling of the American people," Stewart quipped, looking down on the audience of predominantly younger whites.  "As you know, if you have too many white people at a rally, your cause is racist.  "If you have too many people of color, then you must be asking for something - special rights, like eating at restaurants or piggyback rides."  Thousands of supporters wait to board busses to Washington DC at Citifield.(Nicastro/News)Thousands of New Yorkers were in the crowd, which organizers estimated to be well over 250,000, and many had dragged themselves out of bed in the early hours to board buses.  Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington supplied 200 free buses, which left the Mets' Citi Field Stadium at 6 a.m.  "Of course I came down to help restore sanity," said Helen Ho, a 30-year-old grad student who arrived on an NY2DC bus. "I think the Tea Party movement is really way off track, but they're very vocal and highly sensationalized so they get a lot of media attention. But I think they're taking us in the wrong direction."  There was a festive party atmosphere along the Mall as huge Jumbotrons broadcast the songs and skits taking place on stage.  Colbert, who takes on the guise of an ultraconservative in his show, personified irrational fear on the stage, pretending to distrust all Muslims - until basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is Muslim, made a star appearance.  "Your reasonableness is poisoning my fear," Colbert told Stewart.  Some people donned faux Tea Party costumes, while others dressed as Harry Potter characters, robots and space aliens.  The crowd was peppered with phony protest signs ranging from "Think outside the Fox" to "Jump rope with a Muslim" and the more ridiculous "Don't you hate pants."  At the end of the event, Stewart addressed the masses sincerely.  "If we amplify everything, we hear nothing," the "Daily Show" host said. "We know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, that we have to work together."
Thousands of New Yorkers dragged themselves out of bed at the crack of dawn to head to Washington, D.C., Saturday for Comedy Central's "Stop the Insanity" rally.