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News & ArtsSunday, September 13, 2009
Politics / Media Malkin: Tea-Bagger Crowd 2 Million! (Give or Take 1.95 Million)
Posted by Anthony Hecht on Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 12:49 AM
Michelle Malkin and other conservative bloggers and Twitterers have been spending the day sowing confusion and misinformation about how many whackos showed up in D.C. today for that unintentionally ironic sign convention, or whatever it was.
First Malkin said that ABC News was estimating the crowd at 2 million.
ABC was all, "Ummm... No, we didn't say that. We said "thousands."
So Malkin updated her post, not to say there were actually 70,000 people at most (some estimates were as low as 30,000, including the organizers' own estimate), but instead to go on and on (and on) about how it's impossible to tell how many people there really were, and boy, it sure looks like a lot of people in the pictures! It's more people than she can count on one hand, so whatever, liberal media.. 2 million!
Jay Rosen has been providing a running timeline on Twitter here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Now I'm going back to pretending Michelle Malkin doesn't exist. Ahh.
1
Seems the pic is real - far more than mere tens of thousands - sorry to give these dogs credit for turning out their people - but, they did.
Beware, the cold wind is blowing.
Beware, the cold wind is blowing.
2
Oh my God, the anonymous and no doubt nob partisan troll is right, everyone! Give up! There is a cold wind!
3
they inflated the numbers!
(that's NEVER happened at a rally before...)
obviously we have them on the ropes-
I'll sit here on my ass smug, sophisticated and oh so much SMARTER than the teabaggers while my side rolls to Victory!
(that's NEVER happened at a rally before...)
obviously we have them on the ropes-
I'll sit here on my ass smug, sophisticated and oh so much SMARTER than the teabaggers while my side rolls to Victory!
5
#2 - Stupid fuckhead.
I am a gay man, as left as possible and not be a commie. I am Asian as well.
As the far right re energizes, backed by R. pr skill and money, I fear what they have created. Thus, beware.
You are to stupid I guess to see danger in what is going on in full color, real time TV, .and this is NOT a movie script.
Good luck in denial, just watch your back at one of these rallies. Oh, forgot, you are a couch activist.
I am a gay man, as left as possible and not be a commie. I am Asian as well.
As the far right re energizes, backed by R. pr skill and money, I fear what they have created. Thus, beware.
You are to stupid I guess to see danger in what is going on in full color, real time TV, .and this is NOT a movie script.
Good luck in denial, just watch your back at one of these rallies. Oh, forgot, you are a couch activist.
6
@1: We had more city blocks (although on narrower streets) packed during the WTO protests in 1999, and that crowd estimate was around 60,000. Sorry.
7
Oh for God's sake: Even the Washington Times - notorious moonbat paper of note - is saying it was "tens of thousands".
I think if anything, events like this show the dirty little secret of the Becks, Limbaughs, et al: Their audience is mostly old people, and they are literally dying off.
I do wonder though - as my generation gets older, will they take to listening to these nutjobs, or nutjobs like them?
I think if anything, events like this show the dirty little secret of the Becks, Limbaughs, et al: Their audience is mostly old people, and they are literally dying off.
I do wonder though - as my generation gets older, will they take to listening to these nutjobs, or nutjobs like them?
8
Another interesting point: I spent some time on Glenn Beck's awful teabagger site yesterday, and noticed that most of the comments are... anti-Glenn Beck.
There were a few right-wing name-calling kooks, they were the posts full of grammatical errors and misspellings, and the same "You're an evil commie!" rhetoric.
But there were many more well-written intelligent posts calling Glenn (and his idiot minions) to the carpet for the double-talk, hypocrisy, flat-out errors, anti-Americanism, and flat-out bigotry.
My point: Even the hub of Glenn Beck's empire is rotten. He only survives because his radio/TV shows are a one-sided communication. Where there's a chance for the other side to respond, his message is drowned out.
There were a few right-wing name-calling kooks, they were the posts full of grammatical errors and misspellings, and the same "You're an evil commie!" rhetoric.
But there were many more well-written intelligent posts calling Glenn (and his idiot minions) to the carpet for the double-talk, hypocrisy, flat-out errors, anti-Americanism, and flat-out bigotry.
My point: Even the hub of Glenn Beck's empire is rotten. He only survives because his radio/TV shows are a one-sided communication. Where there's a chance for the other side to respond, his message is drowned out.
9
A reminder of what two million on the mall looks like.
That said, tea-baggers should be happy with a turnout in the tens of thousands.
That said, tea-baggers should be happy with a turnout in the tens of thousands.
10
@1 - The aerial photos showing up on right wing sites as "proof" of numbers have been (easily) debunked as taken at other events. The shots used were mostly from Kennedy's memorial procession and some from Obama's innauguration. At least with Kennedy's procession the crowd was wearing summer clothes, though substantially more mixed races/ages, more formal than anybody yesterday, and they weren't carrying signs. It's pretty safe to say that there were no African Americans wearing WINTER COATS at yesterday's protest.
11
@5 -- wow, "Fred" it's uncanny how much you sound like "liberal" sockpuppet concern troll "PC", who also posts here every weekend. Is it possible that all the nonstop "right wing" trolling is being done by the same attention whore?
13
The size of the crowd looked about the same as the Seattle antiwar protest in February 2003. Notable by Seattle standards, but this was a DC protest by an ostensibly nationwide movement.
14
That's a good question, whoever you are. Because it contrasts with progressive discussion sites where the liberal side is also the side with the intelligent, well-thought-out posts mostly coming from the liberals, and the angry, ranting name-calling and baiting coming from the wingnuts and trolls.
I thought that the right-wing sites would be a mirror world, where the majority of the posts would be intelligent, well-thought-out posts from right-wing people, with a few angry rants from pissed-off liberals.
Amazingly, that's not what I saw. At least for Glen Beck's teabagger 9/12 site, 7 out of ten posts (my rough semi-hung-over estimate) were from progressives making careful deconstructions of GB's errors, rantings, and mistakes. The other three posts were wingnuts calling them names.
Other than a few zealots saying "Hellz yeah, Glen Beck is right on!" there weren't any well-thought-out and well-written explanations supporting and confirming GB's ranting lunatic statements about anything.
Huh. Maybe we *are* more smarterer and awesomer than wingnuts.
I thought that the right-wing sites would be a mirror world, where the majority of the posts would be intelligent, well-thought-out posts from right-wing people, with a few angry rants from pissed-off liberals.
Amazingly, that's not what I saw. At least for Glen Beck's teabagger 9/12 site, 7 out of ten posts (my rough semi-hung-over estimate) were from progressives making careful deconstructions of GB's errors, rantings, and mistakes. The other three posts were wingnuts calling them names.
Other than a few zealots saying "Hellz yeah, Glen Beck is right on!" there weren't any well-thought-out and well-written explanations supporting and confirming GB's ranting lunatic statements about anything.
Huh. Maybe we *are* more smarterer and awesomer than wingnuts.
15
If 2 million people had shown up at the Rally, wouldn't FoxNews been the FIRST one to latch on to that number and shove it down everyone's throats? Instead, they have stayed with the 10's of thousands number. The DC Fire Department itself said that 60,000-70,000 is what showed up. That's a far cry from anywhere NEAR a million. Does anyone think that it'd be hard to show one aerial shot of 2 or 3 blocks and make it appear to be more than it actually is? Is that difficult, in the least? For some REAL perspective of what it looks like to have over a million people at the US Capital, check out these pictures:
http://anotherpov.wordpress.com/2009/09/…
http://anotherpov.wordpress.com/2009/09/…
19
Well of course - since the GOP can't win an election fairly (all the non-retarded see through their sleaze), they have to depend on those men in dresses to help them out - kind of like the Catholic bishops do, but without the altar boys.
21
#20
Which Fred?
It seems Fred is being used by a number of posters. Interesting, a run of Freds, going to tell my mother who named me, after the Flintstones guy.
Fred of the Wind - and there was a cold wind blowing this evening - if that is an omen.
Which Fred?
It seems Fred is being used by a number of posters. Interesting, a run of Freds, going to tell my mother who named me, after the Flintstones guy.
Fred of the Wind - and there was a cold wind blowing this evening - if that is an omen.
22
Anthony,
Are you retarded or do you walk around and "you're all, I need more kool-aid"(with Vodka in it)...Since you are most likely, judging from your Blog posting, an asinine imbecil, please note the above phrase beginning "your're all..." was written tongue-in-cheek evidencing a fool with a keybord. You could not be more of an ass. Enjoy living angry. I'm rich and happy.
Are you retarded or do you walk around and "you're all, I need more kool-aid"(with Vodka in it)...Since you are most likely, judging from your Blog posting, an asinine imbecil, please note the above phrase beginning "your're all..." was written tongue-in-cheek evidencing a fool with a keybord. You could not be more of an ass. Enjoy living angry. I'm rich and happy.
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