Althouse: "Yes, the picture is real, nutroots," says Michelle Malkin.

September 13, 2009

"Yes, the picture is real, nutroots," says Michelle Malkin.

Okay.

But when I looked at that photograph, I got a flashback to that day about a year ago, when that other Michelle, Michelle Obama, bestowed a visit on my little town.

52 comments:

miller said...: I like how counting the numbers is used to distract from the discontent.

Remember, Democrats, there's nothing to see here, so keep doing exactly as you're doing. In fact, step on the gas.; 9/13/09, 5:25 PM
victoria said...: Talk about voice in your head. Michelle Malkin hears voices, not all rational ones.; 9/13/09, 5:28 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Its real and they are spectacular ;); 9/13/09, 5:37 PM
rcocean said...: Reminds me of the pro-life marches of the 1980s that would draw hundreds of thousands, and no media coverage.

If a million men marched against Obama would it make a sound?; 9/13/09, 5:39 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: It's pretty funny to see ABC call out someone by name; normally they wouldn't do that. The TPers don't really have much of a defense for various reasons I won't spell out, but it's related to their habit of following leaders whose proposals would raise their taxes and give more power to the Democrats.; 9/13/09, 5:40 PM
Wince said...: Pelosi put out the 2 million figure to inflate expectations. That figure bounced off the Brit press back home. According to plan, the Left thought they could deflate the impact of the demonstration by questioning the numbers aginst both "expectations" and estimates.

People, more importantly, elected officials, nevertheless took note of the crowd, whatever the actual numbers were, and the composition of that crowd, largely nonactivists with lives and jobs.

That's why a second front of attack needs to be opened-up on the composition of the protesters, not just their numbers.

They know they are losing, big time.; 9/13/09, 5:44 PM
JAL said...: It is instructive to scroll down past the web traffic cam shots on Malkin's page to the shots of the huge, and let me repeat that -- huge, crowd around and beyond the pool. And they are not near the Capitol. Then there is the shot near the Capitol.

That's a *whole* bunch of people.

And like the first Tea Parties -- keep pretending these people don't matter? Someone's in trouble.; 9/13/09, 5:49 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: What is interesting is to watch the first video on Malkin's site. It shows time lapsed photos of the protesters from 8:30 until 11:00. At the beginning, there were only a moderate number of people, and by 11, most had gone. But somewhere around 9:30-10:00 or so, you cannot see pavement anywhere, from 14th and E all the way to the Capital.; 9/13/09, 6:03 PM
Kirby Olson said...: Communists always think they speak for the People.

Then, when 200,000 show up to claim otherwise, all you can do is claim that it's a hallucination, or that they were all paid their travel expenses and lunch by Fox News.; 9/13/09, 6:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Of course, for any of these photos to have impact, somebody has to see them. My local Sunday newspaper, The Bradenton Herald (A McClatchy paper), printed NO articles or pictures from the Washington demonstrations, only a page 1 article (with pictures) about Obama's Minnesota speech, just like the new York Times. The only tiny mention of DC was buried late in that article, on page 13. It was as if it never happened.; 9/13/09, 6:26 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Obama is on Sixty Minutes.

Watch him play softball.; 9/13/09, 6:31 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Crowd schmoud, that's nuth'n. You ought'a see the crowd celebrating Mexican Independence (the El Grito 15 y 16 de septiembre, the real one, from Spain, taking place just a block from my apartment. The thing is, as I said before, the crowd is coming and going. They're not standing around waiting to be counted nor waiting around for a specific event like a speech from The Won™.

Look, you knew what you were doing when you hired these people, or when you protested by staying at home and refused to vote and created this lop-sided situation. Now, live with it.

Dadgumit.

))) stomps foot (((

I had the white balance wrongly set on fluorescent so the crowd pictures are bollox and blue. Caught that before the pics of the little kids who are all adorable and well-behaved. Wanna see? OK, here.; 9/13/09, 6:32 PM
Invisible Man said...: Communists always think they speak for the People.

Good one. I'm with Kirby on these Communist Tee-baggers.; 9/13/09, 6:36 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: The first thing out of his mouth is the terrible 'republicans are stopping health care reform'.

No follow up on the fact that his party control both houses.; 9/13/09, 6:42 PM
BJM said...: I still don't get why the left cares about the marchers or tea partiers. No matter the numbers in DC, they have no political power.

If anything the nutroots and left should be formenting all this agitprop against the Dems for not passing the legislation they were promised months ago.

Looks to me like the nutroots been pwned.; 9/13/09, 6:43 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: God, that was an hilarious photo shop of Michele Obama's visit to Madison.

I miss Palladian. What did you do, Althouse, to scare him away?; 9/13/09, 6:50 PM
BJM said...: @JAL -keep pretending these people don't matter

That's what they did in April, how'd that work out for them?

Another thing the left fails to mention, there were hundreds of tea parties across the country, many in blue cities and states. The DC marchers may be the tip of a Titanic sized iceberg. No one knows at this point, but the anger in the country is real and it's not all on the right.

That's why the Dems are sending the Kossacks out for scapegoat pelts and siccing the media on opponents, if they thought they were safe next year they would have rammed health care and cap & tax through.; 9/13/09, 6:58 PM
kathleen said...: If you think it's fake, why don't you say so? why so sly?

btw, I was there. I can tell you, it's not fake.; 9/13/09, 7:01 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Bruce:

how many blocks is that? From 14th & E to the Capitol?; 9/13/09, 7:11 PM
blake said...: It's like I keep saying: Obama being elected may be the best thing that has happened to this country in decades.; 9/13/09, 7:19 PM
rcocean said...: I just want to thank Chip for not slamming the door.; 9/13/09, 7:23 PM
Penny said...: "I just want to thank Chip for not slamming the door."

I think Althouse had Meade install a doggie door.; 9/13/09, 7:44 PM
Anonymous said...: how many blocks is that? From 14th & E to the Capitol?

On Google Earth it looks like 11 blocks.; 9/13/09, 8:03 PM
Bart DePalma said...: The truly illustrative post at Malkin's blog is the time lapsed traffic cam video of the Tea Party crowd forming and then the sea of humanity marching on the Capitol for three hours. The photo to which Ann referred was just one instant of this march and did not show everyone still pouring in from side streets.

When considering the size of this crowd, which appears to be between 800,000 and a million strong, one must note the fact that this is exponentially the largest conservative/libertarian demonstration in American history. Conservatives and libertarians do not have a professional protest class and usually save their political expression for the ballot box. The last time these folks took to the streets in substantial numbers, they started the American Revolution.

There was nothing remotely similar to the Tea Party movement prior to the 1980 and 1994 elections. We are witnessing a new political movement that I believe is largely a response to the new socialism openly practiced in Washington. The next 14 months are going to be exceedingly interesting.; 9/13/09, 8:22 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: So if 11 blocks is about one mile and it takes the average person 15 minutes to walk a mile, this means what roughly?

That every fifteen minutes, the entire group in this photo is replaced by the next group.

And, in three hours, if the pace was steady, the area accomodated 11 different groups.

If that 11 block area can hold an average of 40,000 to 60,000 people which sounds sorta reasonable, a rough calculation is that the attendance derived from this access route alone was at 440,000-660,000.

But what do I know? And isn't it the media's job to be figuring this out?; 9/13/09, 8:23 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I made at least one error above.

The number of groups should be 12 not 11 [3 hours divided by 15 minute intervals = 12 intervals].

So the attendance should be estimated at 480,000 to 720,000 from this access route [12 x 40k = 40,000; 12 x 60k = 720,000].; 9/13/09, 8:27 PM
Penny said...: "There was nothing remotely similar to the Tea Party movement prior to the 1980 and 1994 elections."

Except for those dirty hippies that got LBJ to turn in his "President" shingle.

Is it "fair" to talk about populace movements that don't correspond with our current thinking?; 9/13/09, 8:30 PM
Bart DePalma said...: Penny:

BD: "There was nothing remotely similar to the Tea Party movement prior to the 1980 and 1994 elections."

Except for those dirty hippies that got LBJ to turn in his "President" shingle.

I am speaking of similar movements of libertarians and conservatives prior to libertarian conservative political realignments. In stark contrast, as I noted above, the left has a large and permanent protest class.; 9/13/09, 8:39 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Populist thinking tends to replaces the current thinking. That is why Obama and the Congress are in deep doo doo.; 9/13/09, 8:41 PM
chickelit said...: OT but Norman Borlaug R.I.P.; 9/13/09, 9:23 PM
Penny said...: Bart, you're right, and point well made.; 9/13/09, 9:44 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: BJM et al:

Here's my tea party coverage. I haven't updated the summary to reflect yesterday's universe-shattering event, but see the three links after "all those small rallies do is reassure the Democratic representative from that district just how weak their opposition is".

It's to be expected that the tea partiers would think that a turnout of less than 1% is going to force a Dem rep to change their ways; after all, they've fallen for leaders who are pushing plans that would raise their taxes and give the Dems more power.; 9/13/09, 9:44 PM
Big Mike said...: How many blocks is that? From 14th & E to the Capitol?

Roughly 12. In Washington, DC, streets that run north-south are numbered up from the Capitol (North Capitol street runs due north from the Capitol and is basically "zero street") and streets that run east-west receive a letter. So that should be 19 blocks, but they are marching down a diagonal street (named after a state). But we can apply the Pythagorean Theorem to calculate a hypotenuse slightly more than 12 blocks long.

I've left out a lot of fine points in how streets are identified in the District, but one thing to always remember is that it's never enough to know the intersection -- you have to know whether it's northwest, northeast, southwest, or southeast of the Capitol.; 9/13/09, 9:48 PM
JAL said...: First picture here is interesting.

That's a large number of people in front of the Capitol.

As noted -- who needs actual numbers.

The administration does not care.

We do.; 9/13/09, 9:57 PM
Penny said...: Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.

Whether 200,000 or 2 million, that's a lot of acorns, of the lower case variety.

Let the Washington DC squirrels do their thing, and let's see what comes naturally.; 9/13/09, 10:18 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I measured the visible part of the trip on a satellite map, and then did the conversions, and it is closer to a mile and a half (about 7500 feet) as the crow flies. But that really doesn't change the results of the calculations, since it takes 3/2 as long to walk the distance, BUT, you can fit 3/2 as many people in the area.

I should also add that the route shown was down Penn. Ave. apparently from just east of the White House to the capital. Penn. Ave. appears to be about 100 feet wide through this section (again, measuring on a satellite map. At 10 square feet per person, the result is about 75,000 people at 1.5 miles, and 50,000 people at 1 mile.

As I compute it, it looks like there may have been several hundred thousand march down Penn. Ave. to the Capital. Not the two million, but clearly a lot more than the 10,000 or so suggested by some.

On the other hand, we have pictures of large crowds on the Mall, and there is a possibility that not everyone at the protest marched down Penn. Ave., but just showed up at the Mall.

As a note, for anyone who is interested, the way I did my work was to blow up both the traffic map and a Google map of the area - the latter until just before I lost the satellite imagery. I then used Fireshot to copy the images, cropped them and scaled them if necessary in Gimp, and then pasted them into Visio, where I have drawing tools that dynamically measure distances (actually, it took almost as much time to explain than to do it).; 9/13/09, 10:28 PM
BJM said...: @Bruce

Ha! Now that's what I call fact checkin'; 9/13/09, 10:38 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Let me add that you can find the location of that camera on the TrafficLand site by clicking on the 14th and E st. NW camera on the bottom of the page, and then zooming in around the White House. The selected camera shows up as a red dot, and the rest as blue dots. Today, the top camera is this one, so is the top left cam shot on the bottom.; 9/13/09, 10:40 PM
Methadras said...: Dear 5th columnist leftists in America. The cliff is that way <--->.; 9/13/09, 11:10 PM
Alex said...: Keep calling us "tea baggers" and other names. It's whistling past the graveyard.; 9/14/09, 12:29 AM
KCFleming said...: How many roads must tens of thousands of men walk down, before they call him a man?; 9/14/09, 6:19 AM
Roger J. said...: Once again the libtards and nutroots are questioning the numbers--there were enough people to impress the only people that count: elected representatives--drooling libtards posting on blogs have no impact on the congress critters. but please--drool on. The congress critters know what the numbers are.; 9/14/09, 8:24 AM
former law student said...: Pelosi put out the 2 million figure to inflate expectations.

And yet I can't find Pelosi's claim on the New York Times website. Why would the mainstream media suppress this tale of Pelosian iniquity? Or has that particular article been shoved down the memory hole?; 9/14/09, 9:37 AM
phosphorious said...: Finally, thousands of people get to criticize the president.

Bush was beyond criticism for the right. He could spend like a drunken sailor, screw am endless series of pooches in Afghanistan and Iraq, drop the ball on Katrina, and so on. . . and yet conservatives could not speak out.

Conservatives simply do not criticize conservatives, so it's a god thing there isfinally a liberal president.

Otherwise you would have ruptured something.; 9/14/09, 11:26 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: The Million Mom March for gun control had more people.

Whether it's 100k or 2 million doesn't matter much. In a polarized country of 300 million in a time of war and depression you can get a big crowd for anything.

Street protest in our time is debased and pointless. This isn't the civil rights era where there was no other recourse. We have free elections. Inevitably someone loses. Then they go block traffic and start the apocalyptic rhetoric (growing up is was Nuclear Winter. Now it's Climate Change.)

Every election is contested as if there will never be another. That's not rational. If who controls the government for four years is that important, perhaps the government is too powerful...

Protest is about feeling good, not about changing anything. I suppose rubbing against fellow conservatives and libertarians may make people feel less alone and more powerful, but it doesn't change the government one whit.

Worse, the protest mentality tends to radicalize people. The most extreme views are overrepresented and the moderates are almost by definition not even present. We saw this with Bush-hatred and Clinton-hatred. People hear more and more extreme rhetoric and accept more and more bizarre ideas as true, without the check of normal discourse.

I don't like it, and I don't think Obama is really that far out (compared to FDR? LBJ? really?); 9/14/09, 11:27 AM
Unknown said...: While there may have been a lot of people on the mall, it is incorrect to assume that they were all there for the teabag protest.

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/09/the_other_912_rally.php; 9/14/09, 11:55 AM
JAL said...: Phos phos -- you must not have been paying attention. Republican support for Bush was there, but was mixed as many conservatives (all?) thought Bush was spending too much money. One of the $$ programs -- a favorite of the Dems (Bush could be bi-partisan!) -- being the Medicare drug program.

Don't re-write history.

WV = confated
What lefties say conservatives did with Tea Party attendance numbers.; 9/14/09, 12:35 PM
phosphorious said...: "Phos phos -- you must not have been paying attention. Republican support for Bush was there, but was mixed as many conservatives (all?) thought Bush was spending too much money. One of the $$ programs -- a favorite of the Dems (Bush could be bi-partisan!) -- being the Medicare drug program.

Don't re-write history."

Ahhh, yes. . . it's liberals who are rewriting history.

So conservatives gave grudging support to Bush, holding their nose as they voted for him in 2004, because he violated their fiscal principles.

there was no blind enthusiasm and hero worship. . . no,no,no.

Sane, sober calculation was the very bedrock of the GOP and conservatism lo these many years.

How could I have missed it?; 9/14/09, 2:11 PM
Caroline said...: John Lynch said:
"Worse, the protest mentality tends to radicalize people."

I agree. I would also add the following:

People can become radical when they feel they are given no other option.

I believe the more O and his supporters mock and marginalize the protesters, the bigger, and more radical, the crowds will become. Just compare the crowds from the spring tea parties to Saturday. And yet, even though Saturday's turnout surprised almost everyone, the mocking and accusations of racism continue.

Conspiracists think this is the plan all along; stir up unrest, radicalize the opposition so that O can usher in Marshall law. I'm not willing to go there. I think the administration's flawed response is due to the incompetence and hubris of O and the Dem leaders in congress.

Those who inhabit the self-approving, "reality-based" world can't believe that so-called racist red-necks could possibly have any legitimate complaints about the great and powerful O. They are out of touch and it shows.; 9/14/09, 5:38 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Phosphorious said...

How could I have missed it?

Could it be because you head is up your ass?

I didn't like Bush supporting the prescription drug benefit, but I didn't protest because the alternative being pushed by the democrates was far worse.; 9/14/09, 10:01 PM
Noah Boddie said...: A close-up of the fauxtograph.; 9/15/09, 4:24 PM
Noah Boddie said...: Daniel sez:

>While there may have been a lot of people on the mall, it is incorrect to assume that they were all there for the teabag protest.

>http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/09/the_other_912_rally.php

But, geez, please read your own links, dude. That "family reunion" was the day AFTER the tea party rally:

>On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters thronged to the U.S. Capitol to angrily accuse President Obama of taking the country in the wrong direction.

>A day later, in the shadow of the Washington Monument, many participants at a much smaller gathering -- the 24th annual Black Family Reunion

Unless they showed up a day early, they were NOT there for a separate rally.; 9/15/09, 4:34 PM