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 |
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.