"Wild exaggerations only diminish what was actually a decent sized crowd."

Get a clue, willya?

Exaggerating the size of the crowd means that the media and reasonable people will debunk the exaggerations, which then PROVES to the faithful that "they" really are biased against 'em.

It's a motivational tool.

I was there and I counted them and there were way more than a million.

(Dick Armey's)"FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event,"

". . .several conservative sites ran with a purported aerial photo . . . a shot from the Promise Keepers' rally from 1997."

total LIES!- this was a grass roots event, with absolutely no organization or funding or control by Shadowy Powerful Interests.

By the way, I have a Bridge in Brooklyn . . .

It's perfectly normal for raving lunatics to make crazy claims about their insane-a-thon.

It would have been noteworthy had they merely inflated attendence by a factor of 2.

It is important to remember that the only people who are embarrassed by this lie are mainstream media types with a truth sense. To the activists, the TV is not for rational discussion, it is a battleground where you win talking points and air time.

If the hourly newscast on NPR or CNN radio reports all day that (1) Right-wing activists met in Washington, (2) They claim a million people showed up (3) Critics claim it was only tens of thousand. In addition, for the wingers, (4) They occupied two minutes of the CNN hourly reports and (5) They can brag that the liberal media was picking on them again.

Against this score, the liberal and moderate opposition gain (1) a few more independents think the right is unpleasant/nuts/tempermentally childish.

Wingers win this part of the daily discourse 5 to 1. On to the next talking point!

Once again the Tea Brigade proves that ignorance is not bliss.

1,2,3...wait, uh, 1,2,3,4...let me start over...1,2,3...no, I counted him already..1,2...

Life is a Monty Python skit.

"In your plan, 'A Better Britain For Us', you claimed that you would build 88,000 million, billion houses a year in the Greater London area alone. In fact, you've built only three in the last fifteen years. Are you a bit disappointed with this result?"

"No, no. I'd like to answer this question if I may in two ways. Firstly in my normal voice and then in a kind of silly high-pitched whine..."

Lies and distortions from the rightwingnuts...so hard to believe!

I've got a great idea: Let's spend a Saturday trying to block the black muslim socialist marxist communist foreigner/traitor masquerading as POTUS that's trying to help you in order to help the white patriotic capitalists that are trying to rape and manipulate you.

60,000 to 70,000. About the same number at U2's Soldier Field concert last night.

Meanwhile, over at DKos some overeager beavers accused Malkin of faking a traffic cam photo, which accusation they had to retract after numerous persons confirmed it was real. Thus achieving the rather remarkable feat of actually bolstering Michelle Malkin's credibility -- and on a day when she absurdly claimed 2M in attendance.

I love me some DKos but unfortunately wingnuts have no monopoly on FAIL.

I am suspicious of NBC news because Saturday night, they were saying approx: "other reports put crowd at tens of thousands; we think hundreds of thousands" and nearly gushed about "grass-roots movements" and such. I didn't see Gregory, but I can visualize his smirking grin if he was saying it.

In all fairness, this claim of 2 million is less full of shit than most of the stuff they make up.

In this case, given that some 70,000 actually showed up, their claim to 2 million is only 96.5% full of shit.

Al, Al, c'mon now, we know you can't count that high.

-Z

In truth, I don't think the right has to feel embarrassed about an event that drew 70,000 people.

I dunno, if I were a winger organizer I'd be pissed. Hell, The Indianapolis 500 draws about 400,000 and that's pulling from mostly the same demographic. Did Saint Sarah show up? Because if she was on the guest speaker list they could have gathered another 70,000 easily. Those toothless hillbilly motherf*^@kers love them some Sarah.

The picture posted on Free Republic appears to show an aerial shot from the Solidarity Day union protest in 1981, which I attended. The crowd at that time occupied the whole Mall from the Capitol Building to the Washington Monument, and was credibly estimated at anywhere from 800K to 1 million.

What tipped us off at the time that Solidarity Day would be HUGE was that the rest stops and fast food restaurants around DC were absolutely overwhelmed by the buses that had been chartered by various unions around the country for the protest. I would be interested if anyone noticed anything like that this time around.

I've attended my share of DC protests and it seems no matter the sincerity of our sentiments and the seriousness of our slogans, the media would focus on the one protester holding a sign calling Reagan a cannibal or whatever.

I don't think the media had any trouble finding "colorful" protesters this time around.

Does anyone know and can explain to me what these people that went to that protest in Washington want. Do they even know themselves?

What is interesting is when millions did in fact turn out, not only in the US but in Europe, to protest the imminent invasion of Iraq in early 2003 the coverage was minimal to nonexistent. Yesterday NPR gave how ever many wingnuts showed up in D.C. more coverage all day long than Obama's speech in the mid-west.

Go figure.

Gotta love the protest march demographics and crowd size.

1) The Promise Keepers was 100 percent MALE
2) The Tea Baggers 9/12 was nearly 100 percent WHITE

When can we get the crowd shot for the third part of RICH, WHITE, MALE?

Or is that the lobbyist crowd that doesn't do the National Mall protest thing?

"In truth, I don't think the right has to feel embarrassed about an event that drew 70,000 people."

"60,000 to 70,000. About the same number at U2's Soldier Field concert last night.
Posted by: Saint Zak on September 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM | PERMALINK"

Thank you Zak for pointing this out. And those "suckers" going to U2 last night, and for all their other sold out stadium shows, will be paying over $100 a ticket to attend.

Obama is the worst thing since the church "invented" the Devil, and ONLY 70,000 people gather to save humanity? Not a very impressive attendance figure when you think of what Obama is supposed to be doing to "destroy" our country!

More people care about U2 every night they play than can come out to a rally to save the WHITE AMERICA they love against the "colored devil"!

Go Obama. Go Democrats, and go to hell you racist pigs we saw in Washington D.C. yesterday

"First of all, you know, size of protests--it's like deciding, `Well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group.' The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon, in this case, the security of the people."
-- The Decider

To be fair it is always sunshiny in Teabagger World. And American Indians only exist as targets for John Wayne.

So bright photos on a cloudy day and absences of physical buildings on the mall is not dispositive, oh ho, not at all. Here! Have a day long sucker! Or for some of these guys life long sucker.

but getting 70,000 conservatives together for an event with no clear purpose isn't bad.

My parents live in the tiny town of Harrisville in NE Michigan, in which the population of the entire township is just 1411 people.

Their Labor Day Arts and Crafts Fair, which features mainly oven mitts and birdhouses, draws over 30,000 people each year.

In a similar vein, the Ann Arbor Art Fair draws over 500,000, although to be fair it does have some really nice art.

We can therefore infer from these figures that it's pretty easy to whip up 70,000 people with some oven mitts and a few pieces of spun glass, so getting the same number of people to show up to "take their country" back from whom they believe to be a black, socialist, secret Muslim who is going to intern them in death camps is not a significant achievement.

getting 70,000 conservatives together

Damn and not a cattle car in sight.

They can probably count the crowd with a satellite photo.

But the frootcake myth machine has already kicked in and I'm sure next year's Texas history books will say the crowd was over 2 billion.

color me dubious about 70,000....early news reports for yesterday were talking about 30K...and today, both faux news and npr described the crowd the same way: "tens of thousands of protesters."

as i type, there are 73,000 people at cleveland browns stadium to witness a not-very-good football team play a somewhat-better football team...

What's that smell in here? Fear? So much fuss over a supposed handful of kooks when the WH, Congress and the media are firmly controlled by the left . . . for the time being. Just whistle on past that graveyard.

What's that smell in here? Fear? So much fuss over a supposed handful of kooks when the WH, Congress and the media are firmly controlled by the left . . . for the time being. Just whistle on past that graveyard.

There's no "supposed," they really are kooks.

What? The "left" might not forever have a majority, you say? My stars, you've just given me a fainting spell! Do you mean to say that control swings back and forth between both parties we just don't get to keep it?

Like this post, it's not fear you smell but mockery, princess. The only concern is that these kooks will continue to use shootings and assassinations to vent their political frustration. You know, like Al Qaeda.

Let ABC squirm.

They've been lying down with the dogs long enough to know they'd have to get up with fleas at some point.

Those are your people, ABC!

Embrace them!

What is forgotten is millions stayed home in opposition to these goobers. "Take our country back?"...we did. That's why you lost the election...and why 70,000 showed up to rally while millions stayed away in protest.

Suck on that Malkin...you're still a small minority by comparison to your opposition. (Still, many thank Freedom Works and others for a free trip to Washington DC via your buses and traveling expenses paid)

I think they mistook all the boogey men that they see in their feeble minds for actual participants in the "protest"

How grass roots is a movement that charges for participation? Armey charged other groups fees to dispense literature or have their org name attached to the event.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/FreedomWorks_not_free_10k_to_participate_in_DC_Tea_Party_march.html

Grassroots profits, what will they think of next? But as long as you have this core of idiots protesting taxes they will never pay, and working to keep Mr.Armey's taxes down, well then anything is possible. As Barnum said, "there's a sucker born every minute."

OVER 9000!!!!!!!!!!

I was at the Promise Keepers event, have a commemmerative arial picture. The pictures from this are comparable to that picture. That means ten times the 70k you guys are claiming.

When will you learn? Spinning the news to help your friends ends up hurting liberals. They think that your spin is reality and overreach. Obama would have been fine if he had taken things slower, say achieving his goals over 8 years rather than doing them all in the first year. He's blown it now because he believed your spin.

THank God you guys don't get it.

That means ten times the 70k you guys are claiming.

We aren't claiming 70k attendees, reporters covering the story are. It's the organizers who are wildly exaggerating the attendance number, unsurprisingly, given the "movement's" utter reliance on falsehoods and wild claims to keep going.

Next.

given the "movement's" utter reliance on falsehoods and wild claims to keep going.

And I should add: racism, bigotry, hatred and hysteria.

Obama would have been fine if he had taken things slower, say achieving his goals over 8 years rather than doing them all in the first year.

Uh, the Teabaggers have their origin in the fact that Obama wasn't sworn in originally with the exact magic words. Then when that dog wouldn't hunt they claimed he was really from Kenya. And those same people decided that when Congress allowed the Bush tax cuts to expire and the marginal rate to rise from 36% to 30% then Obama was a "socialist" from whom we had to "take back our country from."

Given that the madness started because you right-wing kooks can't stand the fact that your guy lost and a black Democrat won -- which justifies threats of secession and taking up of arms in your minds -- you'll certainly understand when I bid you a hearty "fuck you."

How many conservatives does it take to screw in a light bulb?

70,000.

One to hold the light bulb and 69,999 to carry all the flaming torches, screaming "We don't need no stinkin' light bulb!!!"

>>I was there and I counted them and there were way more than a million.

How long did it take you to count to a million?

I was at the Promise Keepers event, have a commemmerative arial picture. The pictures from this are comparable to that picture.

You're not talking about the picture that various right-wing bloggers had up claiming it was from yesterday's march, are you? Because that picture was, in fact, from the Promise Keepers event you attended. That would be why they look so similar.

It's time for us to march on Washington DC and show the press what 2 million people REALLY look like.

I wish a coalition of progressive groups would just set a date. I'de buy a plane ticket in a heartbeat.

Look more beautiful on your wedding day wearing gorgeous wedding dress that are unique and with lasting impression.

Any actual pictures might be misleading due to the National Council of Negro Women having booked the National Mall for their annual Black Family Reunion on Saturday and Sunday.

I read that the whites-only crowd of 70,000 eclipsed the previous record of 35,000 set by the KKK in the thirties.