Yesterday on his radio program, while discussing the crowds at this weekend's 9/12 protests, Glenn Beck claimed that the
London Telegraph "quote(d) a source from the Park Service, the National Park Service, saying that it is the largest march on Washington ever." This led to a good deal of confusion here, as the
Telegraph article contains no such quote. Just another case of Beck making things up? Actually, the story behind this turns out to be much funnier than we could have anticipated.
Several conservative blogs have been quoting National Park Service spokesman "Dan Bana" as saying the 9/12 protest was "the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever." This appears to be a repurposing of this
quote from
David Barna (who, unlike Dan Bana, appears to be a real person):
David Barna, a Park Service spokesman, said the agency did not conduct its own count. Instead, it will use a Washington Post account that said 1.8 million people gathered on the US Capitol grounds, National Mall, and parade route.
"It is a record," Barna said. "We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."
Very impressive! Unfortunately, as Little Green Footballs
pointed out, that quote was actually about the inauguration:
Pam Geller quoted "Dan Bana" as saying this on
Saturday. She cited
Thomas Lifson at American "Thinker," who also calls him "Dan Bana." In keeping with his fellow conservatives, Lifson doesn't feel the need to provide
a link for his outlandish crowd estimates:
Despite mainstream media attempts to characterize turnout as
in the thousands, a spokesman for the National Park Service, Dan Bana, is quoted as saying "It is a record.... We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."
True, "Dan Bana" definitely "is quoted" as saying this. By whom? Well, Thomas Lifson.
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http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909150013