I wanted to live-blog from today’s Sanity rally, sho nuff. Or at least Twitter. But there were so many people (200,000?) and probably almost as many cell phones packed into Washington, D.C.’s National Mall, and the traffic simply overwhelmed the carriers. Or AT&T, at least. No Twitter, no texts, no emails, no saving to Movable Type, no nuthin’.

“I’ve been hanging out inside the so-called special guest area at the D.C. Stewart-Colbert Sanity/Fear rally,” I wrote to a friend this morning. “It’s about 11 am, and the show, such as it is, doesn’t start for another hour. I can see the stage from where I’m standing, about 150 yards away. Cool breezy weather. Most are standing, some sitting on grass.

“How many thousands are here? You tell me. I’m in the thick of a total liberal feel-good Woodstock happy zoo. It’s fun. Everyone’s in an easy, amiable mood. Mostly 20 and 30 somethings. Almost no boomers or 40ish GenXers. In my section, that is.

“The special invited guest area is no picnic in the Hamptons, but at least it’s semi-close to the stage. It beats the shit out of the hoi polloi area, that’s for sure. Regular Joes are waay back and behind all kinds of trucks and tents and other obstructions. It’s like the Kansas City stockyards back there. So the elite area is at least some kind of okay thing.”

Except the friend never got the email.

I know I wrote earlier I don’t really agree with the Sanity Rally’s attitude, but it was very, very nice to be with so many cool people, all of them into the idea of chillin’ friendly and not demonizing the Tea Partyers. It just felt good to be putting out so much in the way of calmness and kindness and to have the sword in the sheath.

The right should be demonized, of course. They should be made to suffer in any way possible as long as it’s legal. The right doesn’t know from fairness or reasonableness. They’ve been doing everything they can to stall or undermine President Obama from the first day he took office. Righties understand one thing — pain. Stick it to them hard, and then harder, and then still harder. And once they’ve begun to whimper and beg for the beatings to stop, then you really let ’em have it. That’s the only way to treat them. You have to use the whip and the stick and the club.