So what was the attendence like? CBS says the rally drew 87,000, (with a stated margin of error of 9,000 either way). Attendees were tweeting 300,000, which was - coincidentally? - the number on the rally permit. Glenn Beck claimed 450,000, which will, no doubt, quickly become “up to half a million”, followed by “some say close to a million people." ...Oops! It’s already happened! The NY Times reports that “event organizers put the number of attendees at 500,000." And from the Washington Post we get this nugget of nuttiness, straight from the mouth of the Queen of Crazy herself:Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), speaking soon after the Beck rally at her own impromptu event nearby, said: "We're not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today.”
More fun with numbers.
5 comments:
Well remember, given that the average teabagger BMI is about 40, each one probably counts for at least 3 regular-sized people. That could explain the discrepancies.
Yeah, JJ, I've read variants on that observation at various sites. And, of course, one can easily verify it by looking *shiver* at the photos.
lol JJ.
It was the same story for Beck the Buffoon's 9/12 festivities last year; no exact head count and depending what you were reading; the figures changed. I don't think we'll ever know.
However, I get the feeling that the American tea-bagger hit parade may be a passing fancy. That's not to say they're fading away into the night and every mainstream American can sleep easy at night; that'll never happen. And to underestimate this sub-culture would be a big mistake to put it mildly, but I get the feeling they're lacking the raison d'etre they had this time last year. I also get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, Beck and Palin may be at the beginning stages of being has beens. Those two have made their money keeping Americans paranoid and uneducated and are yucking it up to the bank anyway. Hell, where's Ann Coulter these days?
As I said, this motley bunch is disturbing and while they shouldn't be ignored, they're fading, for now, until the next 'crisis'.
It would be interesting to see retail activity charts for the local (within waddling distance of Whitestock) McDonalds and KFCs and see if there was an inexplicable spike in sales yesterday.
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