[video=youtube;AJkxBLgd5Hs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJkxBLgd5Hs&feature=player_embedded[/video] haha
300,000 to 500,000 showed up. It was about religion, not about politics. At least that's what I read. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41548.html Beck, a fiery conservative populist, had urged his followers to leave political signs at home. He said that he wanted to celebrate America’s military personnel and accounted that the rally raised $5.5 million, which would go to the veterans' charity Special Operations Warrior Foundation after defraying event costs. The crowd remained civil and listened attentively through 200 minutes of speeches, prayers, songs and the awarding of medals. Indeed, President Barack Obama was not referred to by name on stage once during the three-and-a-half hour program. The focus of the rally was more explicitly religious than political, with many speakers openly professing their Christian faith, including Beck.
its funny how my facebook wall was filled with democrat/libs bashing this thing. talking about 300 people at the rally or whatever. never really saw this shit though. I was at the mall and some hippie dude was selling bumper stickers...he had some "no tea party" signs on his table. pretty funny shit. they're scurred.
I like how your source for how many people were there was Beck saying he heard that there were 300-500,000 people there. Because you know, it's not like Beck would over estimate how many people showed up. but here's an actual report about how many people were there (still an impressive # if you ask me.). http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20014993-503544.html 87,000 By Monday, Palin and others will say that there were over a million people there.
Denny, every day you cite Politico, a right-wing source like the Drudge Report. It would be as if I put up a couple of Huffington articles every day. How about more variety, like maybe the Dan Smoot report.
Videos can be deceptive (as can photographs). While 87K might be a low estimate, the only reference I've seen so far to the 300-500K numbers, is coming from Beck himself. The thing is, if it was 87,000 people, it doesn't take away from the rally, and if it was 500,000 people, it doesn't give it anymore credibility. It reminds of that march that conservatives had on Washington a few years ago, that they kept insisting drew a HUGE number, and it turned out it wasn't nearly as big as they thought.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/us/politics/29beck.html I look forward to jlprk claiming the NY Times is a right wing source like the Drudge Report. Or NBC News for that matter.
Citing the organizers is a silly way to quote the estimate of the rally. They're going to embellish their #'s (just as I'm sure if you asked the organizers of the Sharpton rally, their #'s would be inflated).
NBC News didn't organize the rally. NBC News said it was closer to 300,000, but by any measure it was a large turnout.
I'm talking about how they also cited the organizers (and you did to start out). Bias inflates #'s. And I'm not discounting the large turnout, but I wonder if the Decembrists played there.
I think the organizers are biased and want to overestimate the turnout. I think NBC is biased and wants to underestimate the turnout. So I figure it's somewhere in between.
