Michelle Malkin is saying 2 million

http://michellemalkin.com/

ABC News says "thousands"

http://abcnews.go.com/



:rofl:

Stay classy, Michelle.

Police, not so much...

Shuster: "Freedomworks says their dc demonstration attracted 30,000 people. Park police official says that is being 'generous.' "

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6533963

Yeah, I know, brain bleach.

she is so obviously a right-wing shill it's almost like listening to Hannity and taking it as gospel

:D

2,000,000?

I live in the DC area, I was in the city today, and it was a madhouse. There were easily a million plus. Two million might be stretching it, but "thousands" is way way off the mark.

However, I wasn't there and you were. I would like to get a really unbiased estimate.

I am not surprised in the least that people here only want to believe what confirms their own biases.

I was an unbiased observer, and I saw the entire front lawn of Congress packed wall to wall with bodies, leading out all the way down to Freedom Square and spilling over significantly onto every side street all along the way.

The DC police agree with my evaluation, by the way - maybe you take their word for it.

I spoke with the police directly to ask, and I was told the preliminary estimate was about 1.5 million but that they were still working on it.

What more can you ask for?

that's total bullshit.

Years ago, the police stopped giving out estimates.

Everyone knows that.................................

round off 100,000 to 1,000,000, and then
round off 1,000,000 to 2,000,000, and
there you are. You just have to be comfortable
around numbers and remember that numbers were
made to be counted, nor vice versa.

Fail.

you counted, right? I will bet my next paycheck that it did not approach 100,000, let alone 1 million. But 2 million? I don't want to buy any bridges, thanks.

I'm sorry, I'd like some context for this estimate of a million plus, please.

it was comparable, that's what I saw. Larger or smaller, probably not a big difference on either side, and of course the weather was different (summer vs. winter) so that probably had some impact on the distribution of people. I've been around million-plus crowds more than once before and this was in that ballpark.

Excuse me if I don't believe you in any way, shape, or form.

But congratulations on trying hard.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6533963

I notice that you don't demand of Shuster any numbers to back his claim (which aren't provided), which is typical of the circle-the-wagons denial phenomenon which has become all the rage here recently.

Believe what you wish; it doesn't much matter to me either way. What I say is the truth, I was there in person and saw it with my own eyes. Why you have such difficulty with the truth is your issue to sort out.

I've got your number now.

They estimate crowds in DC all the time.

Shuster was just reporting the story; he wasn't the one estimating the figures.



Have a nice day.

Shuster doesn't even tell you where he got his number. I'll give this a day or two to see if there is anyone here actually independent-thinking and intelligent enough to figure out what his source is (I found it in about 3 minutes) and what the number he gave was actually a count of.

You need to try a little harder. The on-line sign-up number was never mentioned by him.

Me? I take David Shuster's opinion over your silly nonsense, any day of the week.

Bravo on doing at least the minimum due diligence to figure out which orifice he pulled that number out of. One of dozens of groups involved claimed 30k online signups for the event. Well, the rest of those groups must have brought a hell of a lot more people, because there was a shit ton more than 30k on site. But hey, you weren't there, neither was he, and between the two of you, you know better than someone who was. I congratulate you on this amazing feat of mental acuity.

Stick to your guns.

they stopped doing that after the infamous Million Man March - and that was HOW long ago?

Anyone tells you the Park Police gave a number, you can be sure they're lying..........................

They only responded to the figure given as 'generous', but declined to offer one of their own.

I'm not going to be the one calling Shuster a liar, I assume he has sources and just didn't make it up.

Seems to be 70K + or - 10K by various other estimates, but nowhere near approaching one million.

aerials and stills - I'd say 40,000 would be a generous estimate.

But a million? Or a million-and-a-half?

Laughable.

I'm sure Shuster got his information from a good inside source, but if he credited it to the Park Police, he screwed up. They're not allowed to do that.................

I could see 65-70K as an actual number, but a million, let alone two?

Nah.

you were able to estimate the numbers.

Pretty nifty trick, since you "were there."

How did you manage to pull that off while being "there"?

Or did you fly your helicopter above the crowd and count one by one?

That's more believable................

wow, you people really don't confirm a damn thing if it fits your preconceptions, do you?

Let's have a contest and see who here has two brain cells to rub together vigorously enough to figure out where that 30K number came from and what it applies to.

10 kudos points and some genuine respect for the first person who can figure it out, and a LOL at the rest of you.

And why would anyone "LOL" at something like this, unless there's some big joke that we aren't aware of. Yet.

Feeling any revelatory inclinations?

:shrug:

Decent photos, an official spokesperson of some kind, anything. You haven't even said what part of DC you were in or anything like that. Sorry, I don't find your estimate convincing.

The Metropolitan Police Department has announced that there will be several events taking place in the District of Columbia that will necessitate street closings during the weekend of Saturday, September 12 through Sunday, September 13, 2009. The specific information with respect to these individual events is listed below.

National Press Club 5K:
This event is scheduled for Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 9 am. The street closure will begin at 8:30 am and may last until approximately 11 am. The streets along this route will remain closed for the duration of this race. A turn by turn route is as follow:

• Beginning in the 1300 block of F Street, NW
• South on 13th Street, NW
• East on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
• East on to Constitution Avenue, NW
• Northeast on to Louisiana Avenue, NW
• East on to D Street, NW
• Loop u-turn at D and 1st Streets, NE heading West on D Street, NE
• Southwest on to Louisiana Avenue, NE
• West on to Constitution Avenue, NW
• West on to Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
• North on to 13th Street, NW
• West on to F Street, NW where the race will conclude.

Tea Party Express Rally and March:
This event is scheduled for Saturday, September 12, 2009 at approximately 11 am. As the march proceeds from Freedom Plaza, there will be temporary street closures on Pennsylvania Avenue between 14th and 3rd Street, NW. The march will end with a rally on the National Mall.

SEE:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6532028&mesg_id=6532092

Seriesly?

all roads leading into DC were closed down.

The DUer claiming he was there today had no trouble getting there.

See how that works?

It was just another Saturday in DC - nothing stopped, visitors visited the museums, friends met for lunch, people went shopping, joggers on the Mall, tourists all over, and a gathering of lunatics.

Just another Saturday here........................................

So you don't have a clue what the fuck you're talking about.

numbers anymore, but from what i saw i would say it was a hell of a lot of people, a lot more than some guestimates, i just wish the park police would be allowed to officially tally numbers again.

what you saw with your own eyes didn't really happen, all these big shots on the message board here have their own opinion from behind their computers, and clearly that is more valid than first hand accounts from people on the ground.

If two trolls on a message borad say something, we will believe that rather than police and fire departments.

you were in the city today?

Where?

It was all downtown, on the Mall. Where were you - upper Northwest?

There were maybe 25,000. No more.

A million?

Yeah, and you were there. Right.............

there was still a hell of a lot of idiots wandering around, i honestly think they need to start actually tallying the numbers of marches again, instead of this hodgepodge from all the different agencies.. I got no idea if this was as big as the inaugauration as i spent that freezing my ass off in front of the IRS building on the parade route.

to the Inauguration. This was a blip. Maybe 30,000, tops.

The cops have absolutely no skill at crowd estimation - even the Park Police gave it up, and, with all due respect to you, my friend, the DC cops aren't Number One on the Brightness Scale, so their words have to be taken with a grain of salt.

It was, by DC standards, a crowd. Not a big crowd, not a record-breaking crowd, not even a memorable crowd. Just a crowd.

But, given all the crowing about it beforehand, the 2,000,000 that were predicted to show up makes those flapping mouths look even dumber than usual.......................

and i didnt know there was another event on, thankfully it all went by peaceably and we did nothing all day but still got paid. One thing though i was so glad to cross the river back to some sanity...

Maybe you were the DC cop he spoke with.

from Mr. Jefferson's Commonwealth, eh, dawg?

Thank god you're back where you belong. I feel safer already.................

is an annual event, and was on the other end of the Mall. This was the 24th annual one. It's always a good show.

Just as long as you got paid - that's all that matters -:)

And, honestly, dawg, I know the DC cops from LONG before you ever joined up..............................

this helps explain it, i guess i should attend the briefing next time :)

You kill me, dawg. You kill me.

Don't start going to briefings now. You hear that "overtime," and you sign up.

Keep it simple, my friend. :hi:

i dont feel so guilty now for taking the money :) though by the time 4am comes ill be regretting working last night today and tonight...

doing some touristy stuff with my girlfriend, we went to the archives, to the Smithsonian Air & Space museum (which is right next to Freedom Square), strolled down the Mall, and we buzzed by the Capitol (as close as we could make it without actually entering the crowd).

This is really amusing how you all are so convinced that it didn't happen. Why don't some of you try actually witnessing things yourself? You really get much better information that way.

The only other person on this thread who was there says the same thing as I. Are we both lying to you? What's our motive? If I did lie and gave you a figure that met your expectations, would you be happier savoring false information?

If you don't want to know the truth about something, people, don't read comments on the topic.

none of the museums would have been open, roads leading into the city would have been closed, all in the name of security.

And imagine the PortaPotties that would have been needed.

Not even close, my friend. Not even close.

You're funny, but hang in there. Your crowd estimating skills should get you a job offer from Fox News any minute now............................

Although I was not there, I did see extensive footage from it on TV this afternoon, and no way did it look like a crowd of hundreds of thousands, let alone a million or more. So you've seen some big crowds before and we should just trust your judgment? Well, so have I and this didn't look like anything like the size you are claiming. I'll rely more on a helicopter shot, thanks. My seat of the pants guess was 75-125,000.

Even Fox news is describing it as 'tens of thousands': http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/12/tea-party-express-arrives-march-washington-protest-government-spending/ But I guess they're trying to play down the numbers because they are lockstep liberals.

I agree that people tend to believe what they want to believe. Of course we want their numbers to be as low as possible, to make their Hatriot March as much of a failure as possible and to marginalize their angry and ignorant movement. So people are going to jump on the lowest possible figures.

My guess, just from reading the various unofficial estimates, is that it was well short of 100k, but probably also well north of 30k.

However, I don't quite get how you, being pretty close to being in the crowd, can estimate the size? I've also been in some huge crowds, and there's no way to tell how far it goes or how big it is when you're right there. Standing across the street from a huge crowd, there may be people as far as the eye can see, but even that is not likely to be more than a view of several thousand people. Unless you are ABOVE the crowd, there's no way to tell just how large it is.

So I get your point, but pardon my skepticism about your estimates.

I bet you didn't think of that. :*

You're right, he's probably very very tall!

I don't actually doubt that he was there, with his girlfriend, and that there were a lot of people around. But suggesting that it was anything like the Inauguration is just nonsense.

I don't think you have any way of estimating, from the number of people you saw, how many were there. You couldn't have counted them. 60,000 is a big, or should I say BIG, crowd, it's just not the same as 2 million.

the human mind is a very strange and interesting minefield of various behavioral and perceptual problems. There is, unequivocally, no way for a person to estimate the size of a crowd while being on level ground with them. You HAVE to get above them, and as has been noted with great consternation here, there are no aerial shots for some reason.

-"This is really amusing how you all are so convinced that it didn't happen."

Attempting to demonstrate your superiority by laughing at other people doesn't work very well over the internet, and most of the time you come off like a dick. Plus, no one is pretending "it didn't happen," we just have good reason for being skeptical of large attendance numbers.

-"Why don't some of you try actually witnessing things yourself? You really get much better information that way."

Let me answer that with an old quote: "Your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them."

-"The only other person on this thread who was there says the same thing as I."

How's that? There's a HUGE difference between 1 million+ (as you claim) and "a hell of a lot of idiots."

As my final thought in this post, why are you so intent on helping to legitimize a protest organized by the absolute right fringe of this country? I am not advocating that we ignore reality, but I will laugh my ass off at numbers claiming ANY more than 50,000 people until we can get real evidence, like aerial pictures.

I'm relaying my own first hand account.

If people prefer to minimize it, that's their issue.

I can tell you for absolute certain that if Shuster is claiming the total attendance figure is 30k, it is demonstrably false. I checked where that number came from, and if anyone here really cared about facts they could find out where it came from too, in just a few minutes.

I'm no master crowd estimator, but I've been in various sizes of crowds before and I'm pretty sure the figure I estimate is the correct order of magnitude. It was definitely far larger than any concert crowd I've seen, excepting one particular outdoor concert in Central Park in NYC a number of years back; there were also many more people than any stadium crowd I've seen, and I've been to several sold-out NFL games.

The only other crowds of that order of magnitude that I have personally witnessed were the aforementioned outdoor concert and the inaugural.

If I'm coming off like a dick, it's proportional response to the dickish and ignorant pile-on stupidity that's being served to me here, which particularly gets my goat because this is the same behavior that the Bush crowd exhibited for years and I expect Democrats to know better and behave better and do their homework better. Perhaps that is an unrealistic expectation that requires adjustment.

1. Why is your account of the conversation with the DC Police officer SO different from DC Fire estimates? One would think both departments would have an interest in not only getting the estimates correct, but also in sharing information.

2. How many people were at that concert in NYC?

BTW: I don't think your attitude is a proportional response. You were asked to back up an unsubstantiated claim of 1 million+ people, and you answered with such winning posts as #27, #31, and #41. I think you should read those posts again, and then decide for yourself if you were being disproportionately dickish.

I'm sorry for the minor rant, but it burns me up to see DU'ers flat out mock other DU'ers...:rant:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

You can't estimate for shit.

Another three months & it'll top a million.
(Please check my maths, because I'm at work and
can't take my shoes and socks off.)

ugh...

:rofl:

Really, Michelle? Too busy to show up for your country? Well, nobody wants to be seen tying themselves too closely to a embarrassing failure, blogging about it and inflating the attendance figures by a factor of ~100 is a lot safer from a career point of view.

:rofl:

On rare occsions, she's right as in "The sun is shining today".

Anything else is suspect.

She lies with such ease. I guess she knows she has a gullible audience.

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0909/658690.html

Interestingly, no pictures anywhere on the local DC television stations websites of the mass of the crowd. No aerial shots, whatsoever.

:crazy:


:crazy:


:crazy:

said that ABC reported it, and ABC denies ever reporting anything like that.

But I say let them all think they have all this support behind them. It isn't out there, and I for one am looking forward to the giant balloon busting that is coming.

growing, you want to have a low number on your party card. that giant balloon might no burst but instead might morph into something more rigorous and frightening..

who got their two million figure from Malkin.

:rofl:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/Up-million-march-US-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html

Remember when he gave a story to the NYT and then went on MTP and quoted the NYT?

:boring: