lolglennbeckFollow

You know what I'm talking about. The better question is why CNN decided to devote so much time to covering the insane egomaniac. Thoughts?

I was saying almost the same thing this weekend. His "rally" really wasn't worth the news coverage it got. It was exactly what he was looking for.

Controversy sells, so stir up controversy? It's not that hard to figure out. What I did find interesting was the lousy estimates of attendance. A company that was hired said around 70,000. Beck said 450-600k. Palin said more than a million. No one's really sure how large or small it was, it seems.

Not sure why that's interesting at all. It happens every time there's a controversial and/or politically charged event. One side estimates high, the other low. Happens every single time. The event was pretty packed for the venue, so regardless of the actual numbers, it's similarly "large" as other similarly packed events at the same venue.

Whatever weight that you might place due to attendance should be based on that relative comparison, and not number estimates. And to answer the OP: They covered it because it's the largest event that's been held at that location in some time. Are you suggesting that the news should cover rallies based solely on whether or not you like the people there or what they are saying?

No, I still find it interesting. Again, the theme was truth and honesty; taking back God and country. But it seems like outright lies on many of the numbers. It's just another show of hypocrisy. Facts are nice, data is nice. And saying "70,000 showed up" is a far cry from "Let no one say less than a million people were here for today!"

One "side" used multiple high resolution aerial photos examined by three different independent firms to arrive at their number. The other "side" hosts the TV show who promoted the event.

Gee, one side always says high and one side always says low! Let's treat both numbers as if they're equally valid!

Hey Gbaji... maybe there's some Freeper numbers you can link for us to fight the liberal power!


The National Mall? Well, it was only about 720,000 people short of the population there on Jan 20, 2009 ;)

Edit: Here's one of the guys who did the estimating to arrive at 80,000

Edited, Aug 30th 2010 3:59pm by Jophiel

When did xsarus become admin'ish?

Yeah the mathematical approximations, based on the square footage of the mall itself and the dimension of it, puts it at 87,000, give or take 10K. Another 15,000 or so were at counter-rallies and protests in various locations in DC.

The largest gathering of people at the mall in DC wasn't that long ago at all. It was the 4th of July, for the fireworks, in which approximatively half a million to one million people were on the Mall and in other locations in DC. There were 3,000 at the Iwojima Memorial park alone, where we watched the show from across the river. (Absolutely perfect viewing, and much easier to deal with the family and picnic crowds there than the crowds in the Mall proper itself.)

Sure. And if we count all the people who watched on TV, what estimate do we get then? The 87k estimate is based on the number of people physically present in the mall. Not the people in surrounding parks listening in. Or those who might be watching one of the dozens of big screen TVs they set up. Or those who might have just stayed home and caught the new coverage instead.

The question is about the impact of the event. Given that Sharpton's event drew a whopping 3000 people, I think it's safe to say that Beck's event was "bigger", right?

That's kinda the point Joph. Did any conservatives post big numbers about Beck's event? No. They didn't. But that didn't stop Locke from bringing it up and then making a point that the numbers estimated by those who ran the event were grossly larger than the CBS numbers.

My point is that the same sort of exaggeration occurred during the Obama inauguration. No one posted about it because it wasn't "interesting", was it? So why did Locke make a point about it here? How about actually waiting to see if anyone makes a big deal about the "official" numbers before jumping on it?



I'm not defending Beck's numbers, just as you aren't defending Obama's numbers. The difference is that I'm not making a big deal about it either way. See how that works?



And who was the "other group" during the Obama inauguration Joph? Let me point out again that no one posted about how big the numbers were and how that meant anything significant at all. Locke brought it up purely so he could bash the numbers. Which is kinda silly, don't you agree?


Did Locke find it "interesting" that the claims of attendance during Obama's inauguration were similarly exaggerated? Why not? It's the same thing, right?





Yes. And everyone does this. Some of us are aware of this and don't make a big deal out of it either way. And some of us seem to make a big deal out of it, but only when they don't like or agree with the people doing it. Thus, we can safely conclude that the issue it not about the exaggeration, but about the people. Locke doesn't care about a group exaggerating their attendance. He cares about attacking groups he doesn't like, and will use anything that crops up to do it.

If it was actually about the principle of honestly reporting attendance, he'd care about it in every case. But he clearly doesn't. You get this, right? You get that it undermines a claim to care about something when you clearly only care about it some of the time? As I said before, it's not like it's hard to noodle out why he said that. And it has nothing at all to do with the exaggerated estimates.

That's hardly a useful approximation.

"The rate of acceleration due to gravity is approximately 6 to 15 m/s^2."

Your frenzied response?

If it really made "no difference", you wouldn't have been hurrying to let us all know that "this happens all the time" and demanding to know how come we weren't discussing Obama's crowd numbers. But keep letting us know how little difference it makes.

Damnit, I'm all out of popcorn.