The guests for the rally for Glenn Beck at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington over the weekend are disputed. Beck and the minions are claiming up to half a million people went to his so-called “Restoring Honor” rally. Up to a million was the declaration by certain Republican political figures. Crowd size is a metric used to either validate or repudiate the legitimacy of major political events. Believers within the cause could be counted on to inflate the number. Critics are predictably skeptical of the totals. But an accurate count of the huge crowd of angry white people summoned by Beck to the site of Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream speech” on the 47th anniversary of that event is probably impossible.
Glenn Beck rally attendance is determined by who is looking at it
Glenn Beck rally attendance numbers reached heights upwards of 500,000, said Beck and conservative commentators for instance Joe Scarborough at MSNBC. That’s not surprising, as outlined by coverage of Glenn Beck rally attendance by the Christian Science Monitor. The Monitor said that numbers are influenced by the estimator’s self interest. Rally organizers always say crowds were huge and bigger than expected. Those who are not in favor of the cause can be counted on to dismiss their assertions. There is always controversy. Following the “Million Man March” in October 1995, an official estimate of presence by the National Park Service was about 400,000. The park service estimate angered the event’s promoters enough to threaten it with legal action, an occurrence that helped the government decide it was not worth it to be part of such stories.
CBS News seeks out the real truth
Rally attendance for Glenn Beck was substantial. Individuals travelling to and from the Washington Mall overwhelmed the subway. But rather than guess, Columbia Broadcasting System News really hired a company called AirPhotosLive.com to get a view from above. Aerial photos were taken over the crowd, extending from the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument . Based on the images, AirPhotosLive gave an estimate of 87,000 people in attendance. The business gave its estimate a 9,000-person margin of error, so anywhere from 78,000 to 96,000 people were there.
Facts and evidence do not matter in politics
The day following the event Beck preened. He said the number of the group was someplace between 300,000 and 500,000. Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachman, seeking to be seen and heard, announced “we’re not going to let any person get away with saying there were less than a million here today — because we were witnesses”. However, Southern Fried Science inserted some common sense. Its argument is fairly simple. However many people were in the group doesn’t matter, because the individuals who were will believe what they desire to believe. To illustrate, he referred to a Pew Research Center poll. It determined the statement “President Obama is a Muslim” is considered true by 18 percent of Americans. The moral of the story: simple fact has no place in national politics or religion.
Additional reading
Christian Science Monitor
csmonitor.com
CBS
cbsnews.com
Southern Fried Science
southernfriedscience.com
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