Quote: Original post by BeanDog
Melodramatic coverage from the right

Now, I don't really think this one rally was a watershed moment in American history (as this guy does), but those are some pretty impressive photos of the crowd from above. It looks to me like way more than 75,000 people, and that's a moving crowd with more in front and behind. If his text is to be believed at all, that 1,500,000 number came from the police crowd control.

Do you think that maybe that picture was photoshopped? That text doesn't cite Washington DC police, it cites a rumor. "At the rally, at noon on Saturday, we began hearing that DC police estimates were 1.2 million." So he spoke with a retired NYPD instead (who was there presumably as a protester) and a later report from the Daily Mail. He didn't bother to check with ABC news. Tea Party Protesters March on Washington "... approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people flooded Pennsylvania Ave, according to the Washington DC Fire Department." For an account of how the attendance figures became grossly exaggerated see Michelle Malkin and the anatomy of the 2 million protester lie. For an idea of just how outlandish the 2 million protester number is see How Time magazine enables Glenn Beck's lies (for the purposes of this discussion ignore the criticism of Time Magazine's Beck hagiography).

Quote:
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Look: The difference between 70,000 people on the National Mall for a protest and 2 million is huge. Seventy thousand people is a good-sized crowd. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's almost as many as the 85,000 people who attended last Saturday's college football game in Lincoln, Nebraska. But 2 million people? There probably weren't 2 million people in the entire state of Nebraska (population: 1.8 million) last Saturday.

Houston, Texas, is the fourth-largest city in America, with just over 2 million residents. Do you know what happens when you drop the population of Houston, Texas, in the middle of Washington, D.C.? Hotels for miles and miles around are booked far in advance. The Metro system is stretched to the breaking point. Thousands of people get trapped in tunnels. It is, in short, unmistakably different from what happens when Missouri plays Bowling Green.

I dwell on this because the difference between 70,000 and 2 million people is simply not something about which reasonable people of honest motives can disagree. It is not something that can be an innocent mistake. Dishonest people who wanted to misinform you told lies in order to exaggerate the crowd size. There really can be no doubt about that.
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Well, no. What we can say with confidence is that nowhere near 2 million, or 1 million, or 500,000 people were there, and anyone who says otherwise is either lying or has fallen prey to those who are lying. One of many ways we know this is the case is that if it took two buses to get 100 protesters into the city, it would take 40,000 buses to get 2 million there. Anyone see any evidence of 40,000 buses (or their plane, train, and automobile equivalents) last weekend? Yeah, I didn't think so.
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These bears repeating: Dishonest people who wanted to misinform you told lies in order to exaggerate the crowd size.

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds
"constitutional revolution"? I think the number of people that attended was higher than reported.. probably in the 100 thousands. But my god, some of the signs that people were carrying were just shamefully retarded.

Like the signs complaining about "Communist Czars"?

Quote: Original post by Rycross
Sadly, I don't think that snubbing Fox News is going to end well. Fox News viewers are just going to think of it as evidence of "liberal bias" and that Obama doesn't care about what they think. After all, Fox News viewers still don't realize that Fox has no problem with lying to them, why should they start caring now?

edit: Changed conservatives to Fox News viewers, because I highly doubt that real conservatives seriously watch Fox News.

I don't think any amount of evidence will convince Fox News viewers. I think their allegiance to FoxNews is based on faith and emotion, not faith in a religious sense, but more like rooting for your favorite sports team when they're having a bad year (or several bad years in a row).

Here's a scenario where the FoxNews snub might hurt Obama. FoxNews makes an issue of the snub and spins it as censorship (or some other nefarious behavior attributed to tyrants). The other channels run with that spin (possibly based on the notion that journalists must stand together in defense of freedom of the press). The White House relents and grants them an interview. Now instead of the FoxNews interview being one of six, it's one of one. It's been hyped and promoted by all six news outlets. It's seen as "the big showdown" and whatever happens during that interview will be replayed over and over by all six outlets (consider Bill O'Reilly's interview of Obama during the campaign). And since it's FoxNews, with a chip on it's shoulder from the original snub, the interview is likely to be hostile, questions likely to be loaded, Obama is likely to get sand bagged. A situation like this could turn out bad for the President.

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds
"constitutional revolution"? I think the number of people that attended was higher than reported.. probably in the 100 thousands. But my god, some of the signs that people were carrying were just shamefully retarded.

Like the signs complaining about "Communist Czars"?

Well it depends on what they are referring to.

Yea the communists didn't have czars. But do some of these appointed, nearly appointed, and formerly appointed czars have socialist/communist beliefs? I believe so

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds
Well it depends on what they are referring to.

Yea the communists didn't have czars. But do some of these appointed, nearly appointed, and formerly appointed czars have socialist beliefs? I believe so

Except socialism isn't the same thing as communism, although people like to lump them together. Some of us feel a little socialism, conservatively applied, is a good thing. Like myself: I tend to favor some degree of welfare, and think social universal health care is a good idea. However, I think that most of the power thereof should be concentrated at a state-level, and only pushed to the federal level (via the amendment process) if it doesn't work there. I tend to favor pragmatism over idealism.

My concern with all the Csars is whether we're keeping the executive branch at the correct size and power. Using the work "Csar" doesn't inspire confidence. At the very least, I feel that its a poor choice to name a position.

I wasn't lumping the two together; That Green czar that resigned had communist connections (admittedly communist), and that climate czar-to-be lady had socialist ties (led a socialist group).

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds
I wasn't lumping the two together; That Green czar that resigned had communist connections (admittedly communist), and that climate czar-to-be lady had socialist ties (led a socialist group).

And what is wrong with this?

Quote: Original post by SticksandStones

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds
I wasn't lumping the two together; That Green czar that resigned had communist connections (admittedly communist), and that climate czar-to-be lady had socialist ties (led a socialist group).

And what is wrong with this?

To many, nothing is wrong with it. Associations are associations though.

To me, I'd rather not have people with great political influence, who advise directly to the president, support ideals such as a global government and consumption redistribution at the level that they were.

It's not a big deal to me, just addressing the previous point. Don't want to get off topic.

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by Chris Reynolds
"constitutional revolution"? I think the number of people that attended was higher than reported.. probably in the 100 thousands. But my god, some of the signs that people were carrying were just shamefully retarded.

Like the signs complaining about "Communist Czars"?

Well it depends on what they are referring to.

Yea the communists didn't have czars. But do some of these appointed, nearly appointed, and formerly appointed czars have socialist/communist beliefs? I believe so

The communists had commissars. There are no czars in the government. The whole "czar" thing was a short hand the press latched onto back in the 1980's because it was easier to write "Drug Czar" rather than Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Ironically, the first person to fill that spot was Bill Bennett, CNN contributor and gambling addict. The right's fixation on "czars" these days is a highly questionable turnabout considering the practice began with Nixon and was extended through Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43. Moreover, Obama downgraded the "Drug Czar" from a cabinet position [1]. If anything the right should be praising Obama for diluting the power of the "czars". I think the outrage over "czars" is ginned up distraction meant to disguise the authoritarian nature of the conservative movement.

Quote: Original post by LessBread
Moreover, Obama downgraded the "Drug Czar" from a cabinet position [1]. If anything the right should be praising Obama for diluting the power of the "czars". I think the outrage over "czars" is ginned up distraction meant to disguise the authoritarian nature of the conservative movement.

Interesting. Looks like I fell for it hook-line-and-sinker. :(