FINAL UPDATE: Something Happened There
This is a follow-up to my post from yesterday regarding the Tea Party protest march in Washington, DC.
Bob Ellis at Dakota Voice does a great job rounding-up the events that took place in our nation’s capital. In his post Bob links to Constitutionally Speaking which has a great collection of photos from the event. I strongly encourage you to visit both sites.
The following picture stood out the most to me.
Purported aerial view of the 9-12-2009 Tea Party protest in Washington, DC
As this photo shows, the protest in Washington yesterday was anything but low-key. This is further proof that Americans are getting fed up with the growing threat of a growing government.
Update:
Check out the following graphic from USA Today. It was produced in anticipation of the Obama inauguration to help readers gauge the size of the anticipated record turnout.
Now, look at the aerial photo from the top of this post and take into account the graphic I added immediately above. How many people do you think actually turned out to voice their concerns in Washington yesterday? First one to make a guess within 5 people gets a new car! No, not really.
Update 2:
At the suggestion of commenter, JL, I took a closer look at the image I included at the top of the post. It does not appear that this image is from the rally on 9/12. I will continue to look for an actual aerial photo of the event and post it when and if I find it. I have updated the caption to reflect the uncertainty of the source of this image.
Final Update:
The following photo posted at iOWNTHEWORLD.com was taken by DC rally organizers, FreedomWorks.org. How many people actually attended the rally? You be the judge (click image for full view):
6 Comments, Comment or Ping
JL
13 September 2009, 21:25, UTC
Doublecheck this. A few things seem wrong: a bandstand in front of the mall, when there wasn’t one. Sunshine on a cloudy day. The green circle in front of the capitol was empty, when that’s where the real rally took place. Is this accurate?
Michael
14 September 2009, 9:46, UTC
JL,
Read down to Steve’s comment below. Thanks for pointing out the discrepancies.
MK
14 September 2009, 1:53, UTC
Good, excellent, love it. High time Americans woke up to the lying weasel in the white house and held him to account. He is their servant, not their master.
Steve Hickey
14 September 2009, 9:27, UTC
The pic of the mall is from the Promise Keepers Stand in the Gap event in DC in 1997. I was there and have the same pic hanging on my office wall and noticed the teepees and it’s the same pic. This is the only link I could find to it.
http://throughtheveil.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/stand-in-the-gap.jpg [link shortened by editor]
But your point is good – there were far in excess of a million and something indeed happened there.
caheidelberger
14 September 2009, 18:27, UTC
million? I’m waiting for the evidence. Thank you, Michael, for acknowledging that the photographic “evidence” was bogus. Now who would have circulated that bogus photo in the first place? It’s not like 70,000 is a number of party guests to be ashamed of or that anyone needs to exaggerate up from that number.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/sep/14/tea-party-photo-shows-large-crowd-different-event/
Michael
14 September 2009, 19:39, UTC
CAH,
No, 70k would be nothing to be ashamed of, but the numbers were far greater than that as evidenced by analysis such can be found at http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=21884
As anyone would know who reads this blog, I regularly underestimate the number of attendees at political events I physically observe–one might even suppose that I make conservative estimates on purpose.
However, neither of us attended this event, so were dependent on others. The mistake was corrected as soon as it was brought to our attention.
We all understand a desire on the part of political boosters to claim that their particular crowd was larger than the opponents’. Nonetheless, we do each other a disservice to immediately select the lowest number for the opposition and assume that it is correct. To do so merely attempts to conform reality to our biases.