Up To 2 Million March On DC

Heh! Here ya go. More links below.

Up to two million people marched to the U.S. Capitol today, carrying signs with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick" as they protested the president's health care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending.
The line of protesters spread across Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks, all the way to the capitol, according to the Washington Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

People were chanting "enough, enough" and "We the People." Others yelled "You lie, you lie!" and "Pelosi has to go," referring to California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

Michelle Malkin - celebrating 912 - Yes, the picture is real.

Matt Welch - Impressions from DC.

Tons of links here via Memeorandum.

An open thread at Hot Air.

Freedom Works

Comments

[Bob]

"Up To 2 Million March On DC"

Only off by over a factor of ten, Dan.

"Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally that ABC News was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people were in attendance.

At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as "tens of thousands."

The Washington Post also reported the crowds as "Tens of thousands."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/12/AR2009091200971.html?hpid%3Dartslot&sub=AR

Of course we all know what sticklers wing nuts are for FACTS.

[Rich K]

Hehe.poor bob is still sticking to his delusions and wont let his eyes see reality. Try taking a math class genius.

[WBestPresidentEver]

Well, I hope that Obama & Congress got the message today. Love it.
http://bit.ly/ccHol

http://theundergroundconservative.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/a-message-for-congress-and-obama/

[mark l.]

"Only off by over a factor of ten, Dan."

so it was 200k or 20 million?

argue about the precise number, but history was made.

while it may fail to eclipse the inauguration, it remains the largest protest in the history of the Capitol. It as much an 'accomplishment' for obama, as it is for the people who attended.

Remember growing up, or looking at film footage, where there were people as far as the eye could see?

August 28, 1963 - March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. March at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have A Dream speech. 250,000 march.

November 15, 1969 - National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Vietnam Moratorium.600,000 demonstrate against the war in Vietnam.

April 24, 1971 - Vietnam War Out Now rally. 500,000 call for end to Vietnam War.

September 19, 1981, Solidarity Day march. AFL-CIO organized march to protest Reagan Administration labor and domestic policies. 260,000 march.

October 11, 1987 - Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The second such march on Washington drew 500,000 gay men and women to protest for equal civil rights and to demand government action in the fight against AIDS.
{I'm actually astounded by the number. I'm not going to dig for the actual count, but if the person who made that projection wants to assess the tea partiers, I'd consider...}

Sorry bob. It is now part of US history. It's not like the left dreamed of this during the bush years. I'm detecting some underlying bitterness in those who want to define the number down.

Those who attended, are now figures in history. Tiny smurf size figures, but together, they made the largest protest in DC history.

hint:
If the above protests help, you need to argue that the crowd size was smaller than 600k number for the vietnam war.
(found them on wiki)

[mark l.]

woodstock...
'just' 500k.

these weren't hippies, today. these people were conservative of mind. it is stunning, kinda like watching a boulder beat a ferrari in a sprint.

[mark l.]

I have a fallback plan for you, bob.

If you can't get the number below 600k, then you can mitigate the size by the elements of racism.

Prepare for the counterpoint that the organizers of the Vietnam protests were also running a side business of blowing up buildings. For this many people to gather peacefully without the derivative violence that characterized the anti-war movement of the 60's and 70's, would suggest a moral superiority over the left.

[Mark Turner]

Compare the footage with that from inaugurations or demonstrations from the past, from which actual crowd figures are known -- you can get a reasonable estimate of the size of this crowd from such comparisons. If the west lawn and the National Mall were filled, that is easily over 1 million people.

[Jaime]

2 million people:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/obamainaug-blog.jpg

That little brown road aaaaaallllll the way up by the Capitol is where the "tens of thousands" were. How pathetic do you have to be to inflate your numbers like that? You see, the big lie doesn't work too well when there's video cameras all
over the place.

[Mike]

Cracked open the National Edition of the NYT today (Sunday). It got a picture below the fold with a caption pointing to page 37 for a story. The story was on page 34 and a half-page long. Just glancing at that, the thought that went through my mind was: if you read only the NYT, you are woefully ill-informed.

Above the fold photo and story went to some research piece on water cleanliness. I'm sure it's very nice and the reporter(s) worked very hard on it, but it hardly compares in newsworthiness.

[Mark Turner]

Jaime:

Sort of like the video camera which took the YouTube video posted at:

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/12/yes-the-picture-is-real-nutroots/

You will notice at about 30 seconds or so, the line of people is stretching aaaaalllll the way up to the Capitol.

[Sir]

9-12 crowd http://johnbatchelorshow.com/schedules/images/29374554.jpg

Interactive national mall crowd calculator http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-19-crowd_N.htm

[joyMc]

Re M. Malkin's comments: Fake picture? And the holocaust never really happened either. Couple million peeps show up in DC, and nobody got shot, beat up, killed, stomped or molested. No break-ins, no cars overturned or burned, no monuments defaced, no storming of the Bastille. Just fed up Americans. I said AMERICANS,You monumental parasites in Congress. AMERICANS you socialist worm in the white house. Thats right, the real deal. Come on Barry, take a clue. You don't have a snow ball's chance of getting re-elected anyway dude, especially now that ACORN got fired. I anticipate substantial back peddling from both houses of our legislature as well. All in all it't been a pretty good past few days.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

Well, well the NYT and ABC (boy there are sources) said, said it could only be "tens of thousands", no where near two million. See you lie.....

For Petey's sake it's an estimate derived by taking the length (900 feet avg city block) times width (guessing 50+/- DC street) to get the square foot and then using 2.5-3 SF per person.......Can't help but be a bit off when people are shoulder to shoulder or all alone in ten square feet. No matter how inaccurate the estimate may have been there was one humongus representation there.

[rrpjr]

I was at the Los Angeles rally. 5,000 people united in peaceful, joyful, robust civic protest. The speakers even enjoined the people to be civil to interlopers and "reporters." I grew up on the Left and saw their hateful, juvenile and profanity-laced rallies. I have perspective.

Forget the cockroaches on the left trying to deride and discredit. Know this: everytime they open their mouths or put fingers to keypads they're moved only by fear and loathing. They're terrified of this movement, and their hatred rises to meet their fear. Their chief cockroach, smart enough to be afraid of exposing his own hate, scuttled out of town.

[joyMc]

I noticed that Barry was out of town. He likely chose a place to go where he knew a lot of the local conservatives would be busy in DC. He went out preaching to the choir again, that's all. No real net effect except that people notice he was not there. Trust is lost. Barry can talk all day and that will not change.

[nina]

Time to stop explaining there were 2 mil. U have to Alinsky them. How about prove that there were only tens of thousands????
BO ran out of town like a p**sy. When you confront them they run.

[Bob]

Hilarious. So now it's a conspiracy by the evil liberal media to lie about the true size of the "Million Moron March." But typically, since they're morons, the actual size only turns out to be tens of thousands. And where were these deficit protesters during the entire Bush administration, as his policies turned a budget surplus into trillions of dollars of deficits? People this clueless and this disingenuous deserve to be laughed at.

[rrpjr]

"Hilarious."

Glad you still have a sense of humor. You're going to need it.

[Bob]

"Glad you still have a sense of humor. You're going to need it."

Really? Is Joe Wilson giving a press conference? Is Glenn Beck going to accuse Sonia Sotomayor of being an illegal alien? I can't wait for the next wing-nut antics.

[Jim Eley]

I am a lawyer and concerned citizen. I marched 9/12/2009 along with 40+ other tour buses from Ohio. I also marched on 4/24/1971 and there were more yesterday than then. There were a lot of people on the right and left sides of the Capital lawns on either side of the tree lines and under the trees that don't show in most photographs and in the inaugural calculator. If I had to bet, I'd say 1Million+. Park service guy I talked to during the march said that there were 3600 per minute passing the spot where he was counting. And if you compare it to the time lapse movie, that adds up to big numbers. BTW the liberal media referred to us marchers as "lower, middle class" "conservative activists". I don't recall seeing any activists on this trip, and NO mobile homes. I ran into more doctors and lawyers than I did steel workers.

[rrpjr]

"I can't wait for the next wing-nut antics."

Neither can I. Those antics have exposed a presidential czar as a communist conspiratorialist, exposed the NEA as rank propagandists for the state, and exposed ACORN as felonious enablers of fraud on behalf of pimps and prostitutes. That and humiliating the national media. All in three weeks.

[Bob]

"... czar as a communist conspiratorialist, exposed the NEA as rank propagandists for the state, and exposed ACORN as felonious enablers of fraud on behalf of pimps and prostitutes."

Thanks, rrpjr, that was good for a chuckle too. You ARE just kidding, right?

[rrpjr]

You betcha, Bob. Anytime.