F I R E D O G L A K E

By: Blue Texan

Sunday September 13, 2009

Here’s a fascinating little case study in wingnut BS transmitting.

The Anchor Baby got the ball rolling.

Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million — tweets Tabitha Hale from D.C.

Teeny, tiny fringe, huh?

Wingnut bloggers from Glenn Reynolds to the Pajamas putzen to Newsbustards start jerking off excitedly link to the Anchor Baby.

Estimates for crowd sizes are starting to come in. We’re talking at least a million people, folks.

Wingnut “experts” confirm the Anchor Baby’s “reporting” with super-scientific analyses.

I did a back-of-envelope based on the photos and reports. A pretty dense crowd is about 1.8 people per square meter, and the National Mall alone is about 125 hectares, 1.25 million square meters. So that would be 2.3 million people.

Wingnut BS is then, rather predictably, exposed as total BS.

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.”

Wingnuts, with egg on their faces, blame media.

I’ve been talking all night to people who are there and involved. The 2 million number was generated by the media, but truly seems to be a gross inflation of what is there.

Damn liberal media. Always exaggerating the size of right-wing protests, just to discredit wingnuts.

Thers has more.