My friend's cousin said there were 4 million people there
September 15, 2009 12:47 pm ET by Ben Dimiero
Yesterday on his radio program, while discussing the crowds at this weekend's 9/12 protests, Glenn Beck claimed that the LondonTelegraph "quote[d] a source from the Park Service, the National Park Service, saying that it is the largest march on Washington ever." This led to a good deal of confusion here, as the Telegraph article contains no such quote. Just another case of Beck making things up? Actually, the story behind this turns out to be much funnier than we could have anticipated.
Several conservative blogs have been quoting National Park Service spokesman "Dan Bana" as saying the 9/12 protest was "the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever." This appears to be a repurposing of this quote from David Barna (who, unlike Dan Bana, appears to be a real person):
David Barna, a Park Service spokesman, said the agency did not conduct its own count. Instead, it will use a Washington Post account that said 1.8 million people gathered on the US Capitol grounds, National Mall, and parade route.
"It is a record," Barna said. "We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."
Very impressive! Unfortunately, as Little Green Footballs pointed out, that quote was actually about the inauguration:
This is so pathetic I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Dozens - if not hundreds - of right wing blogs are running with this quote, portraying it as a statement about the tea party held last weekend: 'We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever.'
The quote is from January. The National Park Service spokesman was talking about Barack Obama's inauguration.
Pam Geller quoted "Dan Bana" as saying this on Saturday. She cited Thomas Lifson at American "Thinker," who also calls him "Dan Bana." In keeping with his fellow conservatives, Lifson doesn't feel the need to provide a link for his outlandish crowd estimates:
Despite mainstream media attempts to characterize turnout as in the thousands, a spokesman for the National Park Service, Dan Bana, is quoted as saying "It is a record.... We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."
True, "Dan Bana" definitely "is quoted" as saying this. By whom? Well, Thomas Lifson.
Imaginary ABC News reports, unnamed universities, invented quotes, and for safe keeping, the journalistic equivalent of "I heard this one dude say."
From Pam Geller:
Here's the video over at CSPAN of millions on the mall. Incredible. Look at the pan of the crowd shot. The left fascists are debating the number to take the focus off what happened in Washington, D.C., this weekend. I'll go with the Parks department estimates, thankyouverymuch.
A 9-12 participant in DC claims to have overheard DC police discussing the crowd numbers. They put the numbers at over 2 million -- and those were only the people who could make it into the city. The local authorities as well as many participants claim that many many more could not even get into the city to the core of the protest.
Yes, she cited someone who "claims to have overheard DC police discussing the crowd numbers." Your conservative blogosphere, ladies and gentleman.
(H/T: DMS)
Regarding crowd numbers, he stated "you just know." This is the essence of right wingnut "thought" and "logic."
Don't be confused by facts. Rely on annecdotal evidence rather than rigorous (scientific) analysis.
Hey - "You just know!" You Betcha!
And the first comment following it. Priceless wingnuttery.
You can't parody the far right any more.
I think some on the Right are using the Afghan standard of counting Goats.
What is Laughable is how they keep getting away with this Gump.
It's like watching Pro-Wrestling, you know it's Fake but you still get goose bumps.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
"Journalists" anxious to break the news take hearsay and rumor as truth, in turn breaking the news into millions of pieces.
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/09/14/right-wing-blogger-war/
And the Washington Independent did a piece about his break with the vile Pam Gellar last year, and on his calling out Vlaams Belang. Also, the Daily Beast did a piece on how almost no-one on the right has been calling out Glenn Beck, but LGF has.
I'd seriously recommend that people start taking another look at LGF. It's an excellent place for political discussion now. Most of us on the left had our ideas of it shaped years ago, and on the basis of cherrypicked comments from some unhinged commenters-- nearly all of whom have been banned at this point. Whatever you thought about LGF and Charles Johnson's views in the past, (and a lot of those negative opinions on the left were probably shaped by the commenters), he's been the lone voice of sanity on the center and right for months now.
Definitely deserves a look, and he definitely deserves kudos for what he's doing now. The wingnuts are tearing him apart for refusing to go along with him.
There were NOT 2 million, or anywhere near 2 million people there. As I've said before, I went to both Inauguration and this protest event. Inauguration, totally jam packed, shoulder to shoulder, human traffic jam in the city (1.8 million people), and with the entire district shut down all day long.
This protest? I took the Metro in. Walked easily up the Mall towards the West Lawn, walked around the protest, got to within about 20 feet of where the main speakers were speaking from, and generally, had a nice walk, no impeded by people at all.
This was NOT even close to Inauguration, where it took me almost an hour to get OUT of the Metro station to the streets.
Why is the Main Stream Media suppressing my tooth!
Is it true that most 9/11 "truthers" were lefties? I have been hearing that a lot lately, and it honestly would surprise me, but I suppose I don't really know many personally, just that, obviously, they'd be anti-Bush _after_ they had decided he was behind 9/11.
Look, I don't think there are too many bright people associated with these protests. It's pretty clear to me that, by and large, we are looking at rich, powerful people, for their own selfish purposes, organizing the poor.
But calling them "nutjobs" and calling them all racist sinks us to their level.
And they are racists. I stand by my statement.
There is a small liberal population that lives to accuse conservatives of racism. What else they might be good for is anyone's guess.
Bob Somerby at the Dialy Howler writes of this on occasion.
Some calls here on occasion to copy wingnut behavior to effectivly fight them. Possibly to eventually become quite like them I'd suspect. This is allowing the wingnuts to define the conflict. Which strikes me as not a good idea.
How you got there is as important as where you got to.
Someone on Stefanie Miller made the analogy that the racist's are like an accelorent in a starting fire. They are feeling an enabling atmosphere. Their numbers are climbing. Threats against a sitting president have climbed by over two powers of ten. Several somebodies are primed to do something really stupid. I don't think the enablers will accept any blame when someone out of those somebodies finally does commit a stupid act.
Isn't he the guy Robert Urich played in Vega$?
70,000=pushing 100,000
pushing 100,000=close to 250,000
close to 250,000= nearly 1/2 million
nearly to 1/2 million=approaching 2 million
Thus by simple trickle up mathematics and solid political accounting theories 70,000=2 million.
I rest my case ;-p
They had 100 people march around in a circle while they counted them, over and over and over and....
That's how Fox does their polling too. Well that, and have people text in their views.
Very scientific.
And I'm not upset because they are advocating their cause...though I vehemently disagree with it....my issue is the blatant LIES, the overlooking of FACTS and the outright refusal to admit it. Yet Obama is blasted on a daily basis by these folks for lying. They posted pictures from another rally for pete's sake....it's sheer hypocrisy and insanity.
Oh, of course they'll all tell you that "Obama's a bad President", but that's not the unifier. Glenn beck says it was because of the "9/12" unity, while Fox claimed it was both an "anti-tax tea party" and a "healthcare tea party". Others just went in to protest things from the "birth certificate" phoniness to the "czar" crap.
There was no common thread. It was a crowd of wrestling fans wanting to get their poster seen on TV so they could TiVo it later on.
But that's not what we saw in the protest, wasn't it?
The message somehow got distorted to focus just on Obama, the Dems, and HC reform.
Why were all those Republican politicians in the crowd, like they're blameless in all this? They've been part of the problem (and yes, along with the Dems) for the past 8+ years.
So, what was that message supposed to be again?
I'm not sure the tea partiers really knew.
They were conned by the Republicans.
Over 17 million attended this massive rally!
Or was it so small they didn't even bother with it?
At the end of the event, the US Park Police estimated the crowd size to be 400,000. Up to this march, their estimates were generally accepted by the public.
This time the estimate was strongly rejected for obvious reasons such as the moniker of the march, so Farrakhan threaten to sue the National Park Service. To calm everything down, "experts" were called in to revise the numbers. The numbers were revised to about 640,000 to 1 million, so all were kept happy.
However, after this episode, the US Park Police made it policy not to release estimates in the future, but rest assured that they still know about how many people are there. So, as things stand, every side should feel free to make whatever crowd size estimate they want.
Funny that at that time it seemed so inaccurate to see the number double with a more precise estimate, seems like a trivial difference with some in the media now reporting thirty times the more accepted attendance number at the 9/12 event.
No matter what actual evidence or numbers come out proving Glenn Beck's crazy crowd to be wrong, they will never believe it. They are trained to believe the rest of the media is against them, so no real evidence will ever pierce their thick skulls.
Just look at the other Right Wing conspiracies like Obama's Birth Certificate. You can bring the real birth certificate to them, staple it to their forehead, while showing them a video of the actual birth with Don Ho playing in the background... and they still wouldn't believe you.
What I find funny is that the vast majority of Tea Baggers called themselves something else during the last 8 years. They called themselves Republicans.
Here is the best photo overview of 9/12 I have seen.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2633/3914299074_28fdec29a2_b.jpg
See those two buses on either side of General Grant? They are on 3rd St. You can see bare grass behind them and cars beyond that on 4th St. After that is more grass until you get to the white tents set up for another event. Now take a look at Google maps here:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=reflecting%20pool%20washington%20DC
Out of view on both sides of this photo are more people but look at the map to see where they fit in. This is NOT a million people, nowhere close.