The Argument Over Whose Is Larger

While reading an article in The Weekly Standard a few minutes ago, I had a refreshing thought (for a change). After spending some hours in the woods cutting firewood today, my brain is returning to civil thoughts.

The article reported on an pro-Obamacare rally held on the day after the huge 9-12 DC rally. The reporter, relinquishing a huge benefit of the doubt, gave the organizers credit for a count of about 300 people, based on his own counting effort.

The article continued on saying the rally speaker was having trouble with his "cause" rhetoric in hyping up the crowd. The tactic necessarily shifted to demonizing the marchers from the day before.

What else would you expect from a) a crowd of mostly-uninformed professional demonstrators, and b) the speakers and organizers who have only the party talking points to use in making a cogent argument.

The shift to berating the 9-12 marchers essentially came down to who had the most successful march, based on the "quality" of the marchers.

"A young professional said the Tea Party protesters were misinformed and being used by demagogues because they don't understand "complex" issues like health care, while one protester was more blunt in her signage: 'Gun-slinging racist crazies hurt our country.'"

But my refreshing thought from the report was the 9-13 marchers had no earthly CLUE about what this debate is all about. Their "march" was not about principle, ethics in government, or preserving the institutions that made America great, but merely to show they could turn out people too. But given the better than 4000-to-1 ratio between the results, I can only conclude that the 9-12 marchers "get it" and the 9-13'ers just have no clue.

Oh, buy the way, I was one of those actually there on 9-12. I was one of the extra 475,000 riders of the DC Metro that day. The National Park Service, whose responsibility includes the protection and supervision of the National Mall estimated the crowd at 1.4 million people, using the same estimating technique they did for the Obama inauguration. I have no doubt in my mind over "whose is larger." You know, its a "guy thing."


Read the entire article here