Weird, Michelle Malkin forgot to include a link for her claim there are 2 million protesters in Washington, D.C today
September 12, 2009 3:03 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
It's like Malkin just totally forgot, y'know:
12:34pm Eastern: Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million.
Teeny, tiny fringe, huh?
Yep, Malkin claims ABC is reporting 2 million, but Malkin can't find the link to the ABC report. Funny, neither can anybody else. What I did find at ABCnews.com was an AP report which claimed "tens of thousands" of protesters are marching today. I don't know, in the right-wing blogosphere does "tens of thousands" now translate into "2 million"?
Also, love Malkin's unsubstantiated claim that D.C. police estimated the crowd at 1.2 million. Again, no link or specific sourcing. It's weird, it's almost like Malkin is trying to deceive people. (Psst, I heard from a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend that ABC News is reporting crowd at 9 million. Think Malkin will post it?)
UPDATED: if you poke around the GOP sections of the Internet you'll discover that that nifty 1.2 million number is "unconfirmed." Shocking, I know.
UPDATED: ABC News confirms it never reported the 2 million number. Says it's "a total myth." Anxiously waiting for Malkin to explain the extra-large blunder.
UPDATED: It's like the blind leading the blind with these wingnuts. Complete (purposeful?) incompetence.
Dems were trying to inflate the numbers, raise the bar, so when republican failed to even come close, than dems could say there was no popular support.
Problem with THAT whole storyline, is that I heard on talk radio in the DC area this week, from conservative organizers of this event that THEY were projecting 1-2 million people, not the Speaker.
DC Fire Department doesn't do official estimates, but still tweeted their unofficial count.. 60000 - 75000 (they can be found @dcfireems).
Look, a lot of us, including myself, were at the Inauguration in January. There were maybe 2 Million people there, and you remember, it was asses-to-elbows from Union Terminal all the way to the Capitol. Just insanity. I would never want to be in a crowd that big again. Malkin, et al are full of crap if they keep insisting this crowds was as big as the Inauguration.
To be very very charitable, I doubt they even came close to 6 figures, let alone 7. I think tens of thousands is the best they can hope for.
Okay, if they can do that then I want in. Reports say I look like George Clooney.
And,if they told their listeners that arsenic was a great drink..guess what!! The people would probaly drink it!!Yup,you betcha!
Here is a link for the Capitol Grounds. Most of the crowd was between the numbers 3, 4, 5, and really disipated after Second Ave.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/CapitolComplexMap.jpg
I will have some photos soon.
There was NO WAY there were 2 million people, nor a million. No way in h-e- double hockey sticks. When I was there, someone claimed, over the loudspeaker, that they had people going all the way back to the Washington Monument. Umm, not even close. As epk said above, after first street, the amount of people was cut back substantially, and there weren't really any rally attendees back there, just people walking up and down the Mall and to the Metro stops. Washington Monument? Not even close, bearing in mind that all along the Mall from like 2nd street on back towards the Monument, there was a Black Family Reunion festival of some sort going on.
I'll have some pictures shortly as well. I'd agree with epk's numbers of maybe 100,000 people were there. Maybe. That would be being generous for certain.
I did see some Obama supporters, and 2 guys I saw on bikes, had their Obama-Biden t-shirts on, and there was a ring of mostly women around there yelling and screaming at them. The looks on their faces were like WTF? They weren't yelling back, just sitting there, listening while they shouted, pointed, got in their faces (for no reason other than they had OBama t-shirts on). I mean, the red faced anger I saw was amazing, and again, for no good reason. You'd think these 2 guys just stole their daughters or something.
Crowd was, let's just say, VERY white. I didn't see one minority person for the 2 hours I was in the midst of the mass of people near the main lawn where they were speaking. And, from most of the people I heard talking, or saw holding signs, mostly white southern. Lots of NASCAR hats and Confederate flags.
There really was no coherent message going on. They hit the high points though. Czars. Freedom. Taxes. Health care. Teleprompters. Birth certificates. Joe Wilson. And so on. It was not organized very well, and basically, it was an "I HATE OBAMA" rally.
That's just my take on it. But if someone tells you they were there, and there were millions of people, they're freakin' lying their butts off.
And aren't these the same people who gladly gave up their freedom for security under the Patriot Act?
These people live in a now. There is no past, There is no future. There's only their alternate reality now, created for them by groups like Freedom Works and Fox News.
The biggest take away I had from this rally was that, they believe they are patriots, and that everyone else isn't. They believe they love freedom, and nobody else does.
I was amazed at the ignorance all around me today.
We're living in really ignorant times. Ignorance seems to have become something to flaunt for the world to see.
Great reports.
http://cid-8fa5718388d6cbd2.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/9%2012%20March%20on%20DC?permissionsChanged=1
My favorite is the one that says they don't just have all of the hot chicks but the smart ones too.
Palin, Hasselback, Heaton?
Not that hot and not very bright.
I did see some doosies out there, sign wise. Saw a Beck for Prez sign. Lots of confederate flags. I saw one that kind of cracked me up a little that said, "Czars equals communism." Which, anyone who knows even maybe just a little bit of history would tell you, actually, no Czars don't equal communism.
I had one guy tell me, point blank (he was holding some sort of anti Czar sign) that President Bush didn't have any Czars. None. Of course, that ain't even close to being true.
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President Obama is working on making changes that are patriotic to the core. What could be more patriotic than breaking down the barriers to universal access to affordable healthcare?
It is heartbreaking to see the misinformation spread by this movement.
Still depressing that we have "tens of thousands" of ignorant racist morons in this country.
Malkin apparently got her information from a random Twitter user. I think this speaks volumes about how she formulates her ideas.