Disgraceful Coverage by MSM of Saturday's DC Tea Party

[Chris Grieb]

I am disgusted by the low balling of the size of the Tea Party here in Washington.

There were 100's of thousands in attendance but the MSM has been making the figure only 10's of thousands. I should not be surprised but I am outraged.

The Tea Party left the Mall a lot cleaner than it was Obama's inauguration.

[Selene]

I am disgusted by the low balling of the size of the Tea Party here in Washington.

There were 100's of thousands in attendance but the MSM has been making the figure only 10's of thousands. I should not be surprised but I am outraged.

The Tea Party left the Mall a lot cleaner than it was Obama's inauguration.

Chris:

I have been to several marches on Washington. The crowd size was clearly under estimated. The National Parks Service [don't you just love the names of these governmental entities] has a policy not to give out crowd estimates. I wonder when that policy went into effect. Additionally, I have yet to see the automatic helicopter or blimp shot of the crowd.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html

<<<< this time lapse u-tube is impressive and I think I could get a solid estimate of the total crowd from this. My gut estimate is between 850,000 and 1.2 million which is extraordinary.

Another problem they have is that there is no national leadership that they can take down. Screws up their typical attack paradigm.

Also, there is more ACORN videos on a NY sting being released today.

Adam

[Ed Hudgins]

My eye-ball estimate, looking towards the Capitol building from down the Mall, was that the crowd was in the hundreds of thousands range. Also driving to the Mall one could see lots more people coming and going in the streets. A very impressive turnout!

[jriggenbach]

I am disgusted by the low balling of the size of the Tea Party here in Washington.

There were 100's of thousands in attendance but the MSM has been making the figure only 10's of thousands. I should not be surprised but I am outraged.

The Tea Party left the Mall a lot cleaner than it was Obama's inauguration.

So there were hundreds of thousands instead of tens of thousands of hypocritical Republicans who thought Big Government was fine when George W. Bush was running it but are now outraged because Barack Obama is running it? BFD.

JR

[Chris Grieb]

Thanks Ed & Adam for confirming my views.

[Selene]

I am disgusted by the low balling of the size of the Tea Party here in Washington.

There were 100's of thousands in attendance but the MSM has been making the figure only 10's of thousands. I should not be surprised but I am outraged.

The Tea Party left the Mall a lot cleaner than it was Obama's inauguration.

So there were hundreds of thousands instead of tens of thousands of hypocritical Republicans who thought Big Government was fine when George W. Bush was running it but are now outraged because Barack Obama is running it? BFD.

JR

My! My!

Is this the clairvoyant hour?

I would believe that there were a lot of conservatives and born again patriots in that crowd. A lot of Reagan democrats.

I seem to get a waft of over categorizing the make up of that crowd which is quite promising. I would suggest you take a fresh look at this movement my friend.

Anyone remember how this started?

Change is a comin!

Adam

[Philip Coates]

wall street journal--> A spokesman for D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services estimated the crowd at "in excess of 75,000" people.

british paper with no domestic politics axe to grind or reason to distort the size of a crowd: the dailymail--> "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.

Have the conservative media being making an issue of this yet?

Fox? Weekly Standard? NRO Online? News Max? Or have they -very stupidly- been letting this pass, when they could be saying "Anti-health care plan grassroots Americans had their own **Million Man March on Washigton** this weekend? Showing dishonesty about a simply matter of numbers, the mainstream press tried to hide the massive size of this rally, the largest in Washington since...."

This is something you simply don't let slip by.

You trumpet it. You elaborate upon it. You have people from the rally appear on your program. You challenge the other media to do the same. The liberals surely would have made hay of this if they had a 'million man' march in favor of the health care plan. They would be talking about the people having spoken, would be saying the debate is over, congress should vote the will of the people, etc.

[anonrobt]

I am disgusted by the low balling of the size of the Tea Party here in Washington.

There were 100's of thousands in attendance but the MSM has been making the figure only 10's of thousands. I should not be surprised but I am outraged.

The Tea Party left the Mall a lot cleaner than it was Obama's inauguration.

So there were hundreds of thousands instead of tens of thousands of hypocritical Republicans who thought Big Government was fine when George W. Bush was running it but are now outraged because Barack Obama is running it? BFD.

JR

My! My!

Is this the clairvoyant hour?

I would believe that there were a lot of conservatives and born again patriots in that crowd. A lot of Reagan democrats.

I seem to get a waft of over categorizing the make up of that crowd which is quite promising. I would suggest you take a fresh look at this movement my friend.

Anyone remember how this started?

Change is a comin!

Adam

Actually, there were almost two million, and it is now considered the largest civilian gathering EVER in the capitol...

[Philip Coates]

> Actually, there were almost two million, and it is now considered the largest civilian gathering EVER in the capitol...

Robert, considered by whom? This would be big and historic news, if true! Can you give us a link?

Since the estimates vary from fifty thousand to two million, it's very important to be able to -prove- that the AP, the New York Times, and the Washington Post are actually lying to favor their political side. Not merely vaguely guessing. Counting a crowd is not an art form, a 'subjective' or amorphous thing, but in a common place for marches and gatherings it's something that journalists are practices at from a century or more of experience.

[anonrobt]

> Actually, there were almost two million, and it is now considered the largest civilian gathering EVER in the capitol...

Robert, considered by whom? This would be big and historic news, if true! Can you give us a link?

Since the estimates vary from fifty thousand to two million, it's very important to be able to -prove- that the AP, the New York Times, and the Washington Post are actually lying to favor their political side. Not merely vaguely guessing. Counting a crowd is not an art form, a 'subjective' or amorphous thing, but in a common place for marches and gatherings it's something that journalists are practices at from a century or more of experience.

I have been trying to refind that source which i chanced on yesterday, about the Park Service making the statement - unfortunately so far without success [ there have been SO many bits online in various sites on this, it has been hard to locate them all]

[edit]- did come across this -

http://pajamasmedia.com/vodkapundit/2009/09/12/marching-by-extrapolated-numbers/

Edited September 14, 2009 by anonrobt

[Brant Gaede]

I am disgusted by the low balling of the size of the Tea Party here in Washington.

There were 100's of thousands in attendance but the MSM has been making the figure only 10's of thousands. I should not be surprised but I am outraged.

The Tea Party left the Mall a lot cleaner than it was Obama's inauguration.

So there were hundreds of thousands instead of tens of thousands of hypocritical Republicans who thought Big Government was fine when George W. Bush was running it but are now outraged because Barack Obama is running it? BFD.

JR

I would have liked factual, detailed reporting. In the 1960s seniors lobbied for Medicare. Now they are against "reform" because it threatens Medicare benefits.

Our Presidents have been so hideously incompetent and our national representatives so venal, stupid and power hungry, maybe it's time to let the whole damn edifice fall over on its face. How can it be reformed?

As soon as Obama is humiliated on health care, if he is--I hope he is because I don't want to become a medical tourist--and the seniors retire from the fray, there won't be much protest left.

Let the American state fulminate. If it's saved we're really screwed. Is it a coincidence that it's doing at home what it's doing overseas? Waging war not only against foreigners but its own citizenry?

--Brant

Edited September 14, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Reidy]

Some more overhead photos, courtesy of Tracinski

[Selene]

Some more overhead photos, courtesy of Tracinski

Reidy:

THANK YOU - perfect -

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:March_o...

I have a dream speech several hundred thousands

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

"The accepted method for estimating crowd size is to measure the size of an area, determine how much of it is occupied, then measure the density of occupation. That method, which McPhail refers to as "the gold standard" for gaining an accurate crowd count, was devised by the US Park Police during the 1960s Vietnam War protests.

But on orders from Congress, the agency has since stopped reporting crowd estimates, largely after Louis Farrakhan threatened to sue when the police reported that only 400,000 participated in the 1995 Million Man March in Washington."

[Chris Grieb]

I am disgusted by the low balling of the size of the Tea Party here in Washington.

There were 100's of thousands in attendance but the MSM has been making the figure only 10's of thousands. I should not be surprised but I am outraged.

The Tea Party left the Mall a lot cleaner than it was Obama's inauguration.

So there were hundreds of thousands instead of tens of thousands of hypocritical Republicans who thought Big Government was fine when George W. Bush was running it but are now outraged because Barack Obama is running it? BFD.

JR

My! My!

Is this the clairvoyant hour?

I would believe that there were a lot of conservatives and born again patriots in that crowd. A lot of Reagan democrats.

I seem to get a waft of over categorizing the make up of that crowd which is quite promising. I would suggest you take a fresh look at this movement my friend.

Anyone remember how this started?

Change is a comin!

Adam

Actually, there were almost two million, and it is now considered the largest civilian gathering EVER in the capitol...

There is no one who takes the two million figure seriously

It was still a huge crowd made up of people who don't march in protests. They also pick up their own messes.

Jeff; Try and get a grip.

If the MSM were serious about finding out they would ask Metro how many people rode the subway. A writer on Pajamas Media said the station she got on at was very crowded.

Edited September 15, 2009 by Chris Grieb

[Philip Coates]

> Some more overhead photos, courtesy of Tracinski [Reidy]

Once again, it would really help if people could take an extra ten or fifteen seconds to tell us if "courtesy of Tracinski" means he wrote an article, and if we can actually read it somewhere. I would very much like to read it, but don't know if it's on TIA Daily which one can't access or somewhere else out in the cloud....and I don't see an obvious link. I've already spent an order of magnitude as much time trying to find it as ten seconds it would have taken to give a source.

(Also, those photos were of a march in the 60's not of the current event which is what we're looking for hard numbers about).

[Mikee]

This IBD article includes a claim of 1.5 million:

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=337823723058571

Estimates for the 1995 "Million Man March" were as high as 1.9 million though researchers at Boston University estimated the crowd size as 850,000. It's reasonable to assert that the actual numbers for Saturdays Tea Party and the "Million Man March" were roughly the same though the difference in MSM coverage differed by 100:1. If only the Tea Party organizers could have talked Louis Farrakhan into leading their march!

Oops, crossposted with Adam. I'll go with Adam's numbers!

Edited September 15, 2009 by Mikee

[Selene]

> Some more overhead photos, courtesy of Tracinski [Reidy]

Once again, it would really help if people could take an extra ten or fifteen seconds to tell us if "courtesy of Tracinski" means he wrote an article, and if we can actually read it somewhere. I would very much like to read it, but don't know if it's on TIA Daily which one can't access or somewhere else out in the cloud....and I don't see an obvious link. I've already spent an order of magnitude as much time trying to find it as ten seconds it would have taken to give a source.

(Also, those photos were of a march in the 60's not of the current event which is what we're looking for hard numbers about).

Phil:

The sun came up in the East this morning!

I posted the 1963 photo of the MLK I have a dream speech for a perspective shot for Saturday's march - they were clearly equal in size and Saturday's appeared to be much larger.

The point was that the estimates of the crowd in 1963 was hundreds of thousands.

I am still looking for a particular shot of the "Million Man March" sponsored by that bastion of rationality, tolerance and patriotic America Calypso Louis Farrakhan, peace be upon him, because the estimates were 868,000.

I think our "million mob march" on Saturday was much larger by an order of two or three to the Million Man March.

Adam

[Philip Coates]

> So there were hundreds of thousands instead of tens of thousands of hypocritical Republicans who thought Big Government was fine when George W. Bush was running it but are now outraged because Barack Obama is running it? BFD. [Jeff R]

Jeff,

(1) Obama has already spent more and imposed more new regulations expanding government in his first *seven months* than Bush did in *eight years*.

(2) "Republicans" did not think big government was fine under Bush: other than the party hacks and politicians, at the grass roots they were least comfortable with him when he caved in to the liberals on expanding government. And there was constant outrage 'on the right' that he was too often a big government patsy or accomplice

(3) He was at least sometimes wanting to greatly reduce -some- very important areas of government such as tax cutting, and proposing to privatize social security.

(4) At the end of seven months, Obama wants to go even further, massively further: He is trying to take over health care - nearly 20% of the American economy. Bush was a piker compared to that.

(5) Obama would love to take us past the 'tipping point' - the point where the client base for government is larger than the support base and so can not be outvoted. [see: Roman Empire, history of]

There's a difference between being a waffling or ineffective non-intellectual middle of the roader, who sometimes expanded government, and couldn't hold the line on spending -and- being a firm, inexorable, self-conscious, principled leader in the push toward socialism.

Edited September 15, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Reidy]

Tracinski passed along the link in the Sept. 14 issue of TIA Daily, a subscription-only email newsletter you can sign up for at http://www.intellectualactivist.com/. I recommend it. I also recommend the Healthcare Guide and Tea Party Resources, available free at the same site.

(All those un-Americans out in plain view, and people say we don't have an illegal-immigration problem)

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Tricky Bastards!!

I've been following this 'head count' argument. It would be improper in today's context to just read the mainstream media and fail to see what the right wing media are saying in response.

If you don't already know when you are being made a fool of and when to read both sides and be ever vigilant, here is only one red herring being spun on this head count issue:

Mainstream news argument: You can measure the crowd size by seeing how far along the mall (the huge vertical grassy strip between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. Past million man protests had to fill it to be counted as close to a million. This protest didn't go much past the initial area of the mall.

Right wing media response: i) the nearby mall was blocked off. ii) instead the streets on both sides (all of Pennsylvania Avenue, for example) were *completely filled*. Look at these overhead pictures - there is a massive sea of humanity -miles- down Pennsylvania Avenue, completely filling it.

The point I'm making is that if you are intellectually lazy (or, more charitably, very, very busy) and you only read the Post or Times or watch the TV news, you will think only tens of thousands or maybe a hundred thousand showed up. And those damn right wingers are exaggerating again.

Edited September 15, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

> at http://www.intellectualactivist.com/.

Thanks, Peter.

I have a lifetime subscription, not to TIA Daily but to the magazine [free, payment for some work I did for Peter Schwartz]. I've sent them a change of address but have never received any subsequent issues. Brilliant man, articulate, intellectually precise. Lousy businessman - as are so many Oists. What was it Rand said abou tthe union of the businessman and the intellectual???

Edited September 15, 2009 by Philip Coates

[jriggenbach]

There's a difference between being a waffling or ineffective non-intellectual middle of the roader, who sometimes expanded government, and couldn't hold the line on spending -and- being a firm, inexorable, self-conscious, principled leader in the push toward socialism.

Yes - the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

JR

[Christopher]

Yes, it's true there are a multitude of hypocritical Republicans who supported Bush's big government policies but not Obama's. Still, it's a beautiful crowd, and I totally agree that government spending is way out of hand. Glad to see the pictures being posted of this great turnout! Hope we see some change... in Obama's policies!

[Selene]

How big was the Saturday...(I cannot believe I am posting this!):

http://pajamasmedia....zar-377x600.jpg

http://jimtreacher.c...ves/002121.html

Adam

[Martin Radwin]

> So there were hundreds of thousands instead of tens of thousands of hypocritical Republicans who thought Big Government was fine when George W. Bush was running it but are now outraged because Barack Obama is running it? BFD. [Jeff R]

Jeff,

(1) Obama has already spent more and imposed more new regulations expanding government in his first *seven months* than Bush did in *eight years*.

(2) "Republicans" did not think big government was fine under Bush: other than the party hacks and politicians, at the grass roots they were least comfortable with him when he caved in to the liberals on expanding government. And there was constant outrage 'on the right' that he was too often a big government patsy or accomplice

(3) He was at least sometimes wanting to greatly reduce -some- very important areas of government such as tax cutting, and proposing to privatize social security.

(4) At the end of seven months, Obama wants to go even further, massively further: He is trying to take over health care - nearly 20% of the American economy. Bush was a piker compared to that.

(5) Obama would love to take us past the 'tipping point' - the point where the client base for government is larger than the support base and so can not be outvoted. [see: Roman Empire, history of]

There's a difference between being a waffling or ineffective non-intellectual middle of the roader, who sometimes expanded government, and couldn't hold the line on spending -and- being a firm, inexorable, self-conscious, principled leader in the push toward socialism.

Phil,

Here is a partial list of some of the abominations that occurred under the presidency of "middle of the roader" George W. Bush:

1) Patriot Act

2) Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (Patriot Act 2)

3) Military Commissions Act

4) Protect America Act

5) Illegal violation of FISA law, illegal domestic wiretapping with no warrant

6) Establishment of Guantanamo Bay prison camp, creation of "enemy combatants" legal category

7) Establishment as a matter of US government policy of widespread torture and renditioning of suspects to nations practicing torture

8) Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation, based on a series of lies told to Congress, the UN, and the American people. A naked war of aggression with not even a plausible justification of self-defense. This invasion and occupation has cost over 4000 American lives, tens of thousands of American medical casualties, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and millions of Iraqis driven from their homes and turned into refugees, all to replace the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, formerly an American ally, with a possibly even more brutal dictatorship. This war has so far cost about 1 trillion dollars and is estimated to have an ultimate cost of at least 3 trillion dollars.

9) US government nationalization of airport security, via creation of the TSA, one of the most loathsome government agencies.

10) Creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Apparently, the Department of Defense, with a budget of over 500 billion dollars annually, was so busy starting foreign wars and occupations that it wasn't doing a very good job of defending the homeland, which is the ostensible purpose of the Department of Defense. So a whole new mammoth government agency, with a name reminiscent of the Gestapo, was created. The republicans who are now screaming about big government under Obama didn't seem to be at all bothered about the creation of the TSA and DHS.

11) In the economic realm, the extension of the bankrupt Medicare system to prescription drugs, an entitlement which is going to add hundreds of billions more dollars to the cost of the system.

12) Budget deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars were run each year of the Bush administration.

13) Government bailout on a massive scale of banks and other financial institutions.

I could go on, but what's the point? George W. Bush, this piece of human excrement who should be tried and executed as the war criminal that he is, who has done more than any presidents since FDR and Woodrow Wilson to turn the US into a police state, is your idea of a "waffling or ineffective non-intellectual middle of the roader"? What more could Obama do that Bush has already done to establish a police state in this country, other than arresting and incarcerating millions of Americans in concentration camps?

Martin