–updated below–
… Beck has voiced support for the marches and will broadcast from Washington Saturday afternoon. He even recorded a two-minute video welcoming marchers to the city though it’s unclear whether FreedomWorks will play it before the march. But he has downplayed characterizations that he’s leading the marches or the movement. Some activists, however, look to him more than any national conservative leader or group. “Glenn is probably the unofficial leader of the group – he doesn’t want to be, but he is – more than any national group,” said Brian Britton, who heads the Greeley, Colo. 9/12 group, which he estimates has an email list with about 400 members. …- Politico
From tea party town brawls to march on Washington, the party of Joe “You Lie” Wilson offered all kinds of over the top signs for their political carnival, with estimated crowd numbers all over the map. Michelle Malkin manufacturing a 2 million number, with a shot that doesn’t seem quite right, but is being picked up by all the conservative blogs. Flags haven’t been at half-staff for a few days now. In fact, the picture shows the same vantage point and clearly illustrates that the flag is flying full. I’ve been in and around D.C. all last week, not seeing flags flying at half-staff any longer, with Obama ordering them to fly at half-staff until Aug. 30. (To add, here’s a verified shot from Mary Katharine Ham.) So, I don’t know when the shot Malkin, Instapundit and a slew of other conservative blogs are showing was taken. Question is, was it taken today? –See update below–
For reality, ABC is reporting a crowd of 60-70,000, while the Washington Post has it at “tens of thousands.” A memo that TPM has says they were expecting “hundreds of thousands to 2 million” people. They didn’t get even close.
Huffington Post has some of the outrageous signs, from Obama saying “Woah boys! I’ll take it from here” as he waves off what are clearly terrorists, to Speaker Pelosi with a Hitler moustache, and “Impeach the Muslim Marxist”, as well as wingnuts taking pictures of an Obama sign placed under police horse excrement.
Politico’s main page headline remakes them into “Freedom Fighters.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen: Welcome to Waterloo!” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said to the cheering crowd, referencing his July remark that health care reform could be Obama’s Waterloo.
Jennifer Rubin offers the sanitized version:
Conservative activists from around the country are gathering in Washington on Saturday, seeking to continue their momentum in shaping the national debate on everything from health care to White House staffing. …
Hahahahahahahahaha………….. That’s a full throated cackled, just in case you didn’t recognize it.
I’m always amused when the Republicans try to use “populism” to explain their, what was it Republican Mark McKinnon called them? Oh right, “wack jobs” and “crackpots.”
Their plan? To stop Democrats and Pres. Obama from enacting health care legislation, while hoping to take down his presidency.
Meanwhile, we have Speaker Pelosi, who clearly favors a public option, telegraphing what I’ve been expecting for a very long time, as she begins to back off of her a bill without public option can’t pass the House declaration, to deal with what she’s obviously been told from the White House is the new reality. Everything seemed to shift after Reid and Pelosi met with Pres. Obama, after his speech.
Why you want to throw in before you have to, if you believe in the public option, is beyond me, except that pressure is building from above, as the word has come down: Get it done. Now. From CNN:
“This is about a goal. It’s not about provisions,” Pelosi said, adding that as long as legislation meets goals of “affordability and accessibility and quality … then we will go forward with that bill.”
A goal, but what goal? Any health care legislation at all, which the White House and some Democrats will call victory.
Whatever the Democrats eventually settle for on health care, the noise of Joe “You Lie!” Wilson and the “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy” town hall tea party birthers is not going away. In fact, all signs point to them getting louder, especially when Democrats are willing to cave upon hearing their shouts.
UPDATE: Answering the question about the photo, MSNBC has a video showing the flag at half-staff, unlike the capture above, which is also a capture of the flag today. MSNBC estimates the crowd from “tens of thousands” according to one anchor, to “hundreds of thousands” from Tom Costello.
ABC is not happy at all about the rumors spawned from Freedom Works president, quoting their news organization about totals of the crowd today being “2 million.” Here’s a late story, where ABC also mentions that bloggers repeated the Freedom Works erroneous report and then repeats the numbers I have quoted above:
Conservative activists, who organized a march on the U.S. Capitol today in protest of the Obama administration’s health care agenda and government spending, erroneously attributed reports on the size of the crowds to ABC News.
Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally that ABC News was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people were in attendance.
At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as “tens of thousands.”
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