Tea Party Attendance Numbers

Apparently, the Left can't handle the reality of the throngs of people that marched on Washington yesterday for the Tea Party rally.

The Leftists are denying the magnitude of the turnout and spinning the rally as a "victory for Obama."

Crowd estimates are difficult to make, but to call the turnout disappointing is ridiculous. For Leftists to suggest that aerial views of the crowd are fake is loony.

Michelle Malkin reveals the lunacy.

I think it's clear that the Leftists feel threatened and are trying to play down the enormity of the march.

The Washington Post and The New York Times both acknowledge that the turnout was huge.

The Post reports:

Authorities in the District do not give official crowd estimates, but Saturday's throng appeared to number in the many tens of thousands. A sea of people surrounded the Capitol reflecting pool, spilling across Third Street and along the Mall. The sound system did not reach far enough for people at the edges of the rally to hear the speakers onstage.

...The huge turnout indicated the growing frustration with Obama among conservative activists and showed that his nationally televised speech Wednesday did little to move his political opponents on health care.

Although it is unclear whether the demonstrators represent a large segment of voters or even of Republicans, Saturday's march illustrated that activists, some of whom are not enthusiastic about the GOP, have been galvanized.

The Times reports:

The demonstrators numbered well into the tens of thousands, though the police declined to estimate the size of the crowd. Many came on their own and were not part of an organization or group. But the magnitude of the rally took the authorities by surprise, with throngs of people streaming from the White House to Capitol Hill for more than three hours.

The lib media did their share of cherry picking, highlighting some of the more angry signs to marginalize protesters as extremists, something they didn't do when covering protests while President Bush was in office.

The atmosphere was rowdy at times, with signs and images casting Mr. Obama in a demeaning light. One sign called him the “parasite in chief.” Others likened him to Hitler. Several people held up preprinted signs saying, “Bury Obama Care with Kennedy,” a reference to the Massachusetts senator whose body passed by the Capitol two weeks earlier to be memorialized.

However, the lib media did tread somewhat carefully, attempting to rein in their bias a bit and be somewhat balanced in their coverage.

Other signs did not focus on Mr. Obama, but rather on the government at large, promoting gun rights, tallying the national deficit and deploring illegal immigrants living in the United States.

Still, many demonstrators expressed their views without a hint of rage. They said the size of the crowd illustrated that their views were shared by a broader audience.

Bottom line: Sane Leftists cannot deny the sheer force of the Tea Party movement and the incredible success of the rallies.

For every person who marched, there were many more at home marching in spirit.

The fact is the opposition to the Washington power elite is real and it's strong.

The people are speaking out. Failing to listen or acknowledge the discontent of millions of Americans won't change the reality.

The turnout and the energy of the protesters had to be painful for those on the Left and some of the spineless Right to witness, but sometimes the truth hurts.
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Jillian Bandes writes:

Five hundred thousand. Eight hundred thousand. One and a half million.

The numbers of conservative protesters at the March on D.C. on Saturday, September 12 wasn't entirely clear. But if numbers for the inauguration were around 2 million, eyeball estimates for the crowd would have been about half that.

Foot traffic down Pennsylvania Avenue slowed to a crawl. Car traffic was stopped all together. The crowd filled the West side of the Capitol and flooded several city blocks. It was clearly the largest gathering to materialize out of the conservative summer protests that caught fire in early August and have continued into the fall session of Congress.

...Jenny Beth Martin, one of the organizers of the 9/12 march and the head of TeaPartyPatriots.org, played off Obama's recent speech as well. Obama claimed that "the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed."

"Are you playing games?" asked Martin, over the loudspeaker.

Hundreds of thousands of people yelled back a definitive "no."