Media Watch
Glenn Beck’s anti-Obama 9/12 march in Washington is over, but the fakery continues. During the event, an executive for Freedomworks, the DC-based lobbying firm headed by former GOP House leader Dick Armey that was hired to astroturf the event, took to the stage and, citing ABC News as his source, flatly lied about the crowd size, saying it was about 25 times the D.C. Fire Department’s estimates.
Then, in a move that is atypical of a “liberal media” outlet, ABC struck back:
Conservative activists … erroneously attributed reports on the size of the crowds to ABC News.
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.”
Brendan Steinhauser, spokesman for FreedomWorks, said he did not know why Kibbe cited ABC News as a source.
As a result of Kibbe’s erroneous attribution, several bloggers and commenters repeated the misinformation.
It goes without saying — or at least ABC assumes so — that the “bloggers and commenters” repeating Kibbe’s lie were right-wingers. Their ring leader appears to have been Michelle Malkin, who was caught, as GOP Facebook blogger Sarah Palin would say, “makin’ stuff up“:
Malkin plucked out of thin air the bogus claim that ABC News reported the 9/12 protest crowd was 2 million strong. False. Nobody at ABC News ever made that claim, and no sane observer of the D.C. event today would claim with a straight face that somehow 2 million people overtook the nation’s capitol.
It’s pure fantasy.
But did that stop anybody on the right from repeating the hollow claim? Please. Did Newsbusters link to Malkin’s phony claim? Check. Wizbang. Check. Gay Patriot? Check. Examiner.com? Check. Right Pundits? Check.
…Malkin should have just claimed 12 million protesters showed up. Because every one of her willingly gullible followers would have linked to her anyway.
Surprisingly, however, Malkin’s lie proved to be more than Fox News, the leading right-wing propaganda outlet, felt it could get away with. Fox reported that “tens of thousands of protesters” attended the march.
But even if there were 100,000 Tea Baggers at the anti-Obama rally, that was still be less than half the 250,000 at the march where Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech and one-fifth the size of both the anti-Vietnam War march 1971 and the gay rights march in 1987. If there’d been 100,000 people at Beck’s march, it would still be dwarfed by the 1.8 million who attended the president’s inauguration in January.
But at 60,000 or so, the crowd size of Saturday’s Tea Bagger march probably did beat one long-standing record in the capitol, however. It was likely the biggest whites-only rally in the district since 1925, when 35,000 people marched in support of the Ku Klux Klan.
Comparison of Washington Crowd Sizes
By comparison, here are crowd sizes in Washington for previous marches as well as this year’s presidential inauguration:
| Pro Ku Klux Klan march | Aug. 8, 1925 | 35,000 |
| Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” march | Aug. 28, 1963 | 250,000 |
| Anti-Vietnam War march | Oct. 15, 1969 | 200,000 |
| Anti-Vietnam War march | Nov. 15, 1969 | 600,000 |
| Anti-Vietnam War march | April 21, 1971 | 500,000 |
| Pro Gay Rights march | Oct. 11, 1987 | 500,000 |
| Million Man march | Oct. 16, 1995 | 400,000 |
| Inauguration of Pres. Obama | Jan. 21, 2009 | 1,800,000 |
| Glenn Beck’s anti-Obama 9/12 march | Sept. 12, 2009 | 60,000 |
If we combine the Teabaggers, KKK, and Glen Becks “Million Moron”
(as coined by Bill Maher) marchers, they still represent almost 50% less peoplethan the MLK “dream” march or the anti-war marches of the 60’s. My point is that we must stop letting the right wing lunatic fringe claims dominate main stream media…and we also have to stop making them seem important in every day discourse. While it is good to expose them, I wish there was a way that blogs like this which I personally consider to be important, simply make room for their outrages in some form of daily List – rather then spend time on your reporting….you all have SO much more to cover, like Health Insurance reform, Financial Industry reform, Gay Rights, etc…
The coverage I saw from the air, the crowd was small, in comparison to some marches the capital has seen. These are just a minority of people, even in the republican party. We can’t let a VERY small fringe of lunatics ruin this country. The republicans ran this country in the ground for 8 years. These are the people who voted him in office TWICE, so that goes to show you the mentality of these people.
Not sure of the solution to a minority of crazies dictating to the rest of us. When you try to logically confront their lies, they either yell you down (or try to) and/or become physical. I’m afraid the old adage “fight fire with fire” may be what is truly needed if we are to stand up for what we believe, and the “working within the system” isn’t going too well either, especially when the system’s deck is stacked against us. Make no mistake, it’s civil war, it’s just not a shooting war… yet.
Well, after looking at the photos and having witnessed the rally. I can tell you that the ABC estimates of 60000 – 70000 are off the mark as well. Let the independent people have a say. Last I read, the capital police put it at 1.2 million. Another point to make, both our current parties are to blame for our current situation. Both parties are greedy, corrupt and self-serving.
One last thing, this wasn’t a small group. If you don’t take an objective look at the photos, you are ignorant and can be called a lunatic as well..
Have u seen the footage? There’s more than there was at the corrination.
State controled media is a joke. A little iran twitter action going on here in usa
Obama changed nothing about the war, torture, wiretap, warcrime invest. Only change here was the red/blue package on the one party gov.
In response to “Zooco:” Perhaps you can provide a link to your claim that the DC police put the crowd at 1.2 million.
And a link to Fox, Malkin, WorldNutDaily, Newsmax, or Beck is not reliable.
I was in DC early in the morning, left by 1100. My daughter was there from 0900 until 1800. Both of us have been in DC for inaugurations and various marches and gatherings. The “tea party” was small by comparison.
Zooco: This is problem. People like you are easily duped, and your thought-masters on Fox and hate radio know you’ll spread their propaganda without checking to see if it’s true.
But in this case, even Fox refused to report the lie about the crowd size. Fox will lie about anything and everything to promote the right-wing agenda, so the fact that it described the crowd as merely “tens of thousands” speaks volumes.
The fact is, the DC Park Police stopped providing crowd estimates in 1996 when the Republican Congress cut their funding. The DC Fire Dept. — which would have been the first responders if one of the nutbags in the crowd had opened fire on the Capitol Building or whatever — said the crowd was about 60,000.
Later, the park police said unofficially that the fire dept.’s estimate of 60,000 was “generous.”
For the sake of our great country, please start thinking for yourself. You tea baggers are becoming worse than an embarrassment — with your threats of civil war and violence against the president, you’re making yourselves a danger to national security.
Madison: you are obviously an avid supporter of President Barack Hussein Obama (no relation to Sadam Hussein or Mohamed Hussein or King Hussein of Jordan) and ABC (American Broadcasters of Communism). You probably also support CNN (Communist National Network) and CBS (Communist Broadcasting System). Remember, Nikita Khrushev General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party and Leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic said to the citizens of the United States of America ” Your children will live under Communism”. I wonder, repeat I wonder, if you are not one of the first examples
I knew as soon as anyone gave a crowd estimate that the arguing would start. That’s because every time there’s been a tea bag event in my area, it’s followed by days of back-and-forth over how many people there were. When the local paper reported “more than 200″ showed up for the original April event, letters to the editor claimed 1,000, plus cars riding by and honking their support. One comment noted that the paper probably deducted those under 16 or those with an IQ over 30. When they held an event on July 5, same story. Whatever number the paper said, the tea baggers said it was wrong by two or three times over. I don’t know why it’s so important for these folks to feel they are part of some huge groundswell and are in a safe majority but the fact is, they aren’t. They are fringe and no amount of quibbling over crowd estimates will change that.
The crowd size doesn’t matter. Lets get to the real story. Liberals want you to believe that the tea party crowd was smaller than expected ,that their influence is waning and that these are just a bunch of fringe element. This is not true. They are, in actuality, mortified that this could derail the lib agenda and President O’bamas’ administration.
Tea party people who were there, have only an estimate at best of the crowd size. They hope for larger numbers to support their cause. It’s democracy in action, and it’s good. Same with the anti-Vietnam war protests. There is change in the wind, and it’s not good for The President.
According to the park service method of counting people it was at least 850K.
See: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/how-big-was-the-crowd/
“The crowd size of Saturday’s Tea Bagger march probably did beat a long-standing record, however. It was likely the biggest whites-only rally in the capitol since 1925, when 35,000 people marched in support of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Here you go (directed at the author of the piece) insinuating that these people are racists again! Your side of this debate is the one that refers to people using a sexually derogatory phrase (tea bagger), you’re the one talking about it being “whites only”, which it wasn’t, and you’re the one creating some imaginary connection to the KKK.
It was the left who were constantly upset when they were called “unpatriotic” for disagreeing with the Bush administration–and I agree that they shouldn’t have been called that.
But how is it better when the left is in power to call anyone who disagrees with them a racist? There is absolutely nothing racist about the opposition to this administration. I’m sure there are a few fringe wackos out there who hold those beliefs, but the people you’re seeing at these demonstrations don’t. The opposition is based on opposing points of view that we are all entitled to have.
I respect the 1st amendment rights of those who disagree with me, all I ask is that they respect mine as well. Anyone who doesn’t show respect for those rights–regardless of which side of the political spectrum–is a tyrant.
Everything involved with this group of people, the GOP, the conservative extreme right, and the mass media outlets has been extremely misleading and confusing to the actual main stream Americans and that is by design. The media has made this group larger than they are in actuality. We need to start looking at who sponsors these media outlets that have influence over what gets reported.
Don Johnson, Pajamas Media is a right-wing media outlet that has no credibility. Anyone who would take their word over the word of American first responders like the D.C. Fire Dept. — many of whom spent 9/11/01 battling flames and saving lives at the Pentagon — is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Its too bad you’ve had a need to throw race into the picture like that. I’m not a huge fan of the right wing, or left, but you’re comments are inflamatory and don’t help two sides come together. As an African-American I’m set off by your tone that this is a racial issue; regardless of where I stand, people have the right to protest for and against what their government is contemplating.
Whites Only? I was there with my African American friend, and met up with antoehr small group of African Americans – All had a grand old time!
Not to mention, there are at least 2 or 3 vids of the event that SHOW African Americans all intermingling just fine!
So where did you get your lies..Errrr… I mean Facts from?
The capitol police never gave any estimate of 1.2 million or any other number. Zooco, you’re a blatant liar.
Simple question. If there were really close to a million people there, why did the DC Fire Dept estimate there were 60-75,000 people there? It’s one thing to be off, but to be off by 10+ orders of magnitude? Give me a fucking break.
As John Adams said, ‘Facts are stubborn things….”
You may wish to try and ignor the facts, but there is a large push back against B.O.’s Marxist/Leninist philosophy. This protest, no matter what the numbers, was just the tip of the iceberg. If I had the time, I would have come up there to lend my support. However I have to work to pay my taxes supporting the deadbeats and undocumented aliens that reside here!
The British media have no dog in this fight and they went with 1.3 million initially and upped it to 2 million later. If you look at the picture of the crowd stacked from the capital all the way down Pennsylvania Ave it is clearly more than 75,000, fox news estimate. I believe my own eyes. The pictures don’t lie.
So, Bryan, you’re putting the word of foreigners — Brits who live under the jackboot of government-run socialism, but who ironically work for a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch, a native of Australia — over the word of American first responders, the D.C. Fire Department, many of whom were there at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, putting out the fires and saving lives?
The American first responders said the crowd was 60,000 to 70,000. All the real, non-faked photos of the event make that number look generous. But you are so invested in your slavish worship of Glenn Beck that you’re calling these American experts in crowd sizes liars.
Shame on you!
The crowd-counting finbally becomes a distraction. As in other areas, size matters. But it shrinks in importance compared to the conspiratorial fear-mongering fomented by Glenn Beck.
Yes, he’s a wingnut, but his gullible audience, stoked with hatred by Beck, represents a danger to the nation. It’s right-wing extremism disguised as populism, and the potential for violence is exacerbated when the president happens to be African-American. For some people, that’s bad enough; but it really gets scary when he’s branded a Marxist, a Fascist, and a white-hating racist who wasn’t even born in the United States and so has usurped the presidency.
Many of these marchers are doubtless good citizens disturbed by policies they oppose; many others are decent folks duped by the Becks, Hannitys, and Malkins of the media circus. Still others are Know-Nothings whose disgruntlement and wild talk about civil war is being dangerously fed by rabble-rousers, the buffoonish Glenn Beck chief among them.
I was there.
It was massive and astounding. When you say “tens of thousands” you must be talking about the lines to the portapotties. Access to high places and air traffic was restricted, but you can bet the White House knows how many and the genuineness of this spontaneous movement.
Just Google “9/12 aerial view” and watch hundreds of thousands march in a time lapse photo – 7 lanes wide, tightly packed and passing for hours. You had to be there to experience all ages from all places. Grassroots citizens are recognizing the rapid move toward collectivism that is indenturing children not even born yet to inflation and trickle up poverty. For them it is taxation without representation.
Be afraid, liberals – be very afraid. The people are coming.
Correction Phil…
The crowd size doesn’t matter. Lets get to the real story. Conservatives want you to believe that the tea party crowd was larger than expected ,that their influence is growing and that these are not just a bunch of fringe elements. This is not true. They are, in actuality, mortified that the truth could derail the conservative agenda and Beck/Hannity/O’Reilly’s influence.
Tea party people who were there, have only an estimate at best of the crowd size. They hope for larger numbers to support their cause. It’s democracy in action, and it’s good. Same with the anti-Vietnam war protests. There is change in the wind, and it’s not good for the conservatives.
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Did anyone see the sign the wrinkled old person couldn’t even spell “infromed” for “informed” and she thanked FOX NEWS. I think the liberals should be very afraid the stupid people are coming to town.
Your afraid of the stupid people coming to town? Look what the so called smart people in Washington DC have done to wreck this country.
Smart people didn’t ruin this country, Chris — Republicans did. It was George Bush and his enablers in the Republican Congress and the Republican appointees to the federal judiciary who took this once-great country down.
And now it’s Republicans and their half-witted Tea Bagging Birther/Deathers who are standing in the way of fixing what they broke.
It really doesn’t matter how many people showed up at this point. The real facts are known and this time next year around election time the Democrats will be worried and rightfully so. A good house cleaning is in order and they know it! In the meantime, Obama will appoint a dozen more socialist czars to his left wing circle of loons to “reshape America from a capitalist country to a Socialist, entitlement country. Not good!
Wrong, Van. It is important that there was such a tiny crowd at the the rally on Saturday — it’s a sign that the right wing’s bloodthirsty push for violence in the streets is dissipating. More importantly, however, the visuals from Saturday have revealed the Tea Baggers for what they are: rage-filled racist fringe-dwellers.
Normal Americans are repelled by what they saw throughout August and especially last weekend and they are fleeing your party in droves, as they did last year and will continue to do from now on. And despite your constant lies, regular people know that Pres. Obama is a regulatory capitalist, just like every president in the past century.
There are scientific methods for crowd counting, and we use the same type of programs and analytical tools in the military in satellite and aerial photo recon troop counts and crowd estimates…and they are close enough to get a good idea of just the numbers…..
I wonder when some of you will stop wrapping yourselves in the flag, or the blood of fallen firemen and just get the point that people are pissed off at each other and there really is NO dialog taking place here. The shrill voices from either extreme are silly in their accusations against the other. Deal with this fact…there HAD to have been well over 500,000 people involved in this demonstration just to fill the streets to the discernable edges of the crowd…even if the demonstrators used known tactics of spacing people and spreading the crowd for impact there would have to have been at least that many. I don’t have to believe either side…my experience shows me that the 60K number is politically influenced. The 2M number is stretching as well…but the body count is (assuming no tactical crowd management was employed) was probably north of 1M people…FACTS are stubborn things. Get all bent out of shape on either side of the issue, but facts are facts. What they mean is a different argument, but the current administration felt this demonstration enought to perry in defense with the race card yesterday….watch the play on the field, it is so much more interesting that the spin on this blog. The Right Wing acted and the Left Wing countered…I am interested to see what’s next. It got the President’s attention regardless.
I was at all of the anti-war marches in the 1970’s. I was at the original woodstock. I happened to be in D.C. on 9/12. Pull the wool off that is covering your eyes. I have always been an independant voter and I recommend that it is best that the members of the Democratic Party become very worried. Unless you were in D.C. on 9/12, the estimates of the number of people who were at that march are simply estimates made by people who were not there. Open your eyes, words can not argue with reality. The number was, without question, larger than the anti-war marches and, in actuality, very close to the woodstock number.
There is zero – 0 – evidence that the DC Fire Dept was incorrect in its estimate of 60,000, and, Chris, while you sneer at their role in fighting the flames at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, you fail to say why these first responders would lie for political reasons about this.
The underlying point is that, unlike anti-war marches or pro-civil rights marches, or anti-abortion marches or pro-cancer research marches, Glenn Beck’s march last Saturday had no single, central organizing theme. Instead, what normal Americans saw was a cacophonous horde of overweight half-wits with dozens of grievances and outrages, most of which had nothing to do with each other, and all of which were generated by Republican corporatist propaganda, via Fox and hate radio, that had absolutely no grounding in fact or reality.
In this way, it was a true reflection of its organizer, Glenn Beck — and it speaks volumes, btw, that Beck himself wouldn’t show his face at the rally, but rather chose to stay at home and watch it from the comfort of his luxurious digs in Manhattan. What this says is that he and Dick Armey and the rest knew ahead of time the event was going to fail.
If he had known 1 million people were coming — or 500,000 or even 150,000 — Beck would have been there. (You can lie to the rest of us, but you know in your hearts this is true.)
Taken together, all the rage and hatred did project a sub rosa focus, however: Unbridled hatred of a black man who had the audacity to get himself elected president. That message was heard loud and clear.
Chris Tate: When you said “Your afraid of the stupid people…”, did you mean You’re, as in You are? Obvioulsy, stupid people aren’t only “coming to town.” Some are on this blog.
I have done my own study base on a devised stationary methodology and calculation which you can find here:
http://deathbymedia.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/912-washington-dc-tea-party-rally-crowd-estimation/
It’s backed by visual evidence (pictures and clips) all available in the same entry, plus determining the boundaries of the rally and calculation of the final tally derived from the density of the crowd at each given block. My calculus puts the figures around 130k up to 160k.
I was there and I can tell you that there is no way the crowd was only in the 10’s of thousands. Typical of left-leaning MSM. (even Obama has admitted that the majority of the media voted for him). One thing I would like to know is whether the DCFD is associated with SEIU. It was very strange that they kept sending fire trucks into the crowd near the capitol building with siirens blaring for no apparent reason, they’d leave, then do it again. We thought ut was very strange because there were no unruly people and no emergencies – we were walking along the area where they were and they were driving right at us as if to intimidate. It was interesting that their estimate is the one quoted. The DC police, on the other hand, were very respectful and seemed to be enjoying mingling with the protestors. I’m sure they were not used to the peaceful people of all ages, races, and income levels who were there to speak up for the values this country was founded on, and to protest the congress and administration that is ruining this country that we love. There were no arrests and no littering – contrast that with leftists and even the crowd from Obama’s inauguration, who left DC looking like a trash heap. The people at the rally were responsible people who don’t expect others to take care of them – even when it comes to picking up after them. A BIG difference from the Obama worshipers who think everything should be given to them and have an entitlement mentality. I am so ready to return to DC with those who were there and those who couldn’t make it the first time. To those who doubt the magnitude of the DC event, I would just suggest they watch the next few elections. That should get their attention & when the voters speak, the doubters will become believers.
Mari, it’s just awful how right wingers are trashing the DC Fire Dept. who were first responders on 9/11. As Bush said, you’re either with us or against us, and if you are against the DCFD, then you must be with al Qaeda and the terrorists. Shame on you.