UPDATED: My cousin said there were 4 million people there
September 15, 2009 1:14 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
Trust me, I don't want to keep writing about the hilarious right-wing attempts to inflate Saturday's crowd, and how bloggers pushing the fake facts appear to occupy a Bizarro-type parallel universe, but given what's going on online, I don't really have a choice.
I'll try to make this quick playing off Ben's post below which noted that right-wingers were excitedly quoting a National Parks spokesman claiming Saturday's rally was the biggest every. Wrong, the Parks Service quote in question came from Jan. and it was about Obama's inauguration.
Got it? Ok. Now, how did bloggers who first floated the phony Parks Service quote deal with the embarrassing revelation that they were quoting statistic for a Democratic event? If you're blog at American Thinker you do this:
[Note to readers: in my haste, I misread the Globe report forwarded to me as referring to the 9/12 deminstrations. I apologize. TL]
See, simple explanation. Lifson even provided a link to the Boston Globe article that he confesses he read too quickly, and which lead to his bogus post. Slight problem, though.
Here's the Globe headline [emphasis added]:
Inaugural crowd size reportedly D.C. record
WASHINGTON - The National Park Service says it will rely on a media report that says 1.8 million people attended President Obama's inauguration.
Simple question for Lifson: How could anybody with a fourth grade education or beyond read that ("Inaugural") headline and that ("inauguration") lede and not know the article was about....Obama's inauguration? It makes no sense that somehow a rushed blogger could be confused about the context. What does make a bit more sense though, is that some bloggers knew the Parks Service quote was bogus (i.e. it wasn't about 9/12 rally) and posted it anyway, and are only now playing dumb because they've been caught.
Mr. News
;0)
Less than 100,000 if you ask me... and that includes all the little gatherings across America who showed up to be part of exploiting the 9/11 tragedy with the aptly named 9/12 Project!
Yes, you read that right! I say the 9/12 Project is exploiting the 9/11 terrorist attacks!
This little but really sick concept takes the obvious anger and fear we all felt from that day and turns it toward taxes, big government, and that scary black man in the White House!
This turned into something that maybe, just maybe Glenn Beck and the other right-wing clowns did not expect it to turn into... but it did! And these idiots have done nothing to slow it down, but they have all been happy to pure fuel on an already hot fire!
Geez, "American Thinker" doesn't think too much, especially since he spelled the word right in his previous article entry.
I don't think we're idiotic in understanding there is a movement going on. It is just not this earth-shattering massive jaw-dropping "MOVEMENT!" movement. It's more like a..."movement?" movement.
Then again, how much does it deserve? I mean, the 1.8 million number is old news, now - already established as fact. Time to move on...
These are some sick individuals out there protesting.
Make bombs not love? That's so incredible that I want to think it was mocking some of these protesters, but when she scribbles in "Obama = white slavery" at the bottom I know this lady is serious.
If you are even remotely sane and attending one of these events, just looking at who is on your side in this issue should be enough to sober you up and make you realize that there are some seriously messed up people who are full of fear and hate protesting this bit of "change." It should be cause for reflection on yourself. Instead it's just a mob like mentality of yelling "You lie!!!" and "Obama's a Nazi!!!"
I would guess that none of the "2 Million" club was there that day, but spent it instead in front of computer screens, as often as not in their mother's basements. And this begs another point--why weren't these people there? They cheerleaded the event, obviously. If they felt that strongly about it, they could have made the effort. What's more, they could have taken their laptops and done some live blogging from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, as that was evidently the only place left to sit. (Hee-hee)