From the Columbia Independent Examiner:
Saturday's "Tea Party" rally in Washington, D.C. may have far exceeded almost all expectations. According to individual reports on the internet late Saturday The National Park Service had reportedly estimated around 1.2 million people attended the rally. There is no mention of the rally on the Park Service website and I have been unable to confirm that they have released any official estimate.
Some websites citing the 1.2 million number have claimed to be quoting Park Service employees, but I can find no direct quotes from anyone connected to the Park Service that can be confirmed at this time. Phone calls to the NPS went unanswered on Sunday.
There were also several reports Saturday saying that ABC and Fox News had reported that the crowd was estimated to be as high as 2 million. ABC News is now saying they never reported that number. According to ABC they were misquoted by a rally speaker. At this time there is no report on the Fox News website that includes an estimated attendance figure.
Some liberal websites and blogs are putting the number much lower, with estimates ranging anywhere from 20,000 to 70,000. Based on photographs and video footage of the event the numbers would appear to be much larger than those estimates. The ticketed area of the National Mall alone has a capacity of 240,000 and the crowd clearly filled that area and beyond. The public access area of the Mall holds nearly 950,000 and photographs of that area show it to be at or near capacity, although it has been reported that other groups were holding events in that area.There was also this gem of a paragraph in the article:
On Friday the White House claimed they had no idea the rally was even planned. A ridiculous assertion that shows how dismissive the Obama administration and the Democrat-led Congress are of those who oppose their agenda. It is impossible to believe that President Obama knew nothing of the event. The denial is a perfect example of why the President is losing the trust of many Americans. He stretches his credibility to its limits, and beyond.
2 comments:
I love your site. After getting beaten down by the liberals, I get refreshed and refueled by The River.
Regarding the Taxpayer March, the host of the morning radio show I listen to actually said that was just an example of the lunatic fringe taking over the Republican Party. I was shocked, as this is the same station that hosts Rush Limbaugh.
Those politicians who delegate us to the fringe do so at their own political peril.
I agree. I really think that they do not know what to make of it and actually believe their own lies about their opposition.
If you think about it, nothing like this has ever happened in our lifetime. The right doesn't protest. They don't have time. They work for a living. They have families. They live life. They don't go on protest marches. If you had told me at any other point in my life that they were planning a taxpayer march on Washington, my mouth would have dropped open.
But it just happened and it happened on the second Saturday of college football season too. That may not be as significant to you as it is to me, but college football is the second most popular sport in the country after the NFL and there were more than fifty major universities on Saturday that hosted football games attended by anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 fans each, and these were in small town middle America, not to mention the significant television audience.
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