Glenn Beck: My Rally had "Minimum of 500,000 People"

By: Brian Montopoli
Topics: In The News ,; Tea Party

The area around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington during a rally organized by conservative commentator Glenn Beck is seen in this aerial picture taken Aug. 28, 2010.

(Credit: AirPhotosLIVE.com)

Glenn Beck said today that his "Restoring Honor" rally attracted "a minimum of 500,000 people" and complained that news outlets, including CBS News, badly underestimated the number of people who showed up for the event.

"We'll never know the exact number, but anyone with eyes can see this number was in the hundreds of thousands," Beck said on his Fox News show.

CBS News commissioned the company AirPhotosLive.com to estimate the size of the rally. Using aerial pictures taken at what it deemed the height of the rally, AirPhotosLive.com said 87,000 people attended the event. The margin of error offered by AirPhotosLive.com was plus or minus 9,000 people.

Beck mocked the specificity of that figure and showed what he called an "iconic" Associated Press image of the event he said made clear that it and other estimates were far too low. Pointing at the photo, he said the rally stretched from in front of the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument, an 8/10th of a mile stretch that he said was "almost completely filled."

Beck said the event attracted the sixth largest crowd ever to gather on the Mall, and said it resulted in hours of traffic jams and "two football field" long lines at subway stations. He said the mainstream media overestimates crowd sizes at speeches by President Obama yet underestimated the number of people who came to his event.

"The media can diminish the crowd side all they want, but the images speak for themselves," he said.

The area around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington during a rally organized by conservative commentator Glenn Beck is seen in this aerial picture taken Aug. 28, 2010.

(Credit: AirPhotosLIVE.com)

Beck spent much of his show complaining about media coverage of the event and said "nobody's telling the accurate story." He also noted that he wore a bulletproof vest at the request of his wife and showed a pair of photographs, including one he called "most beautiful photo of Sarah Palin I have ever seen."

CBS News was the only news outlet to offer an independent estimate of the size of the rally, though many figures were offered. Palin, one of the speakers at the event, said she believed there were more than 100,000 people there; Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who spoke at a separate event at the Washington Monument after the rally, suggested there were at least one million.

Palin also complained on Twitter that "insinuating MSM sheeple mustn't believe their own eyes&ears re: event's truth."

Jim McGlinchy, CBS News' Washington, D.C. Deputy Bureau Chief, said in an interview that CBS News thought it was important to get an independent estimate of the rally's size. He said he turned to AirPhotosLive.com because the company had experience making crowd estimates on the Mall.

Asked if he was surprised by the controversy over the estimate, McGlinchy said, "not really."

"I understand that every time there's a demonstration on the Mall that there's a controversy about the numbers," he said. "The park police stopped doing estimates after the Million Man March for this very reason."

Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is the senior political reporter at CBSNews.com.
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by jordanmichelle September 3, 2010 4:24 PM EDT: Funny story about Glenn Beck and crowd size estimations at http://newspile.weebly.com/; Reply to this comment


by NewDaddyDave September 2, 2010 3:04 PM EDT: The photos were excellent!! Don't really care about the specific number. But the "Sirverlight" photo montage CBS provided a link to really showed the magnitude of the crowd well.

The resolution sucks, but the guys advertise they photograph with high resolution cameras. So I would like to buy a high resolution composite poster of this event for a couple reasons. One, for may daughter since they are not going to allow this type of rally here in the future, and she was here with us. And the second reason, with a high res poster photo there are several other agencies and retired military who can confirm or deny the 87,000 esitmate.

If CBS and the balloon company are confident in their estimate, then show the evidence in full high res, not these low res pictures you cant tell a blur from a single head or multiple heads. Remeber the area is .8 miles from the Lincoln to Washington memorials, and the crows are thick all the way down the .38 mile "reflecting pool", and spurratic sparse and dense in the open field running parallel.

Also the 2 footbal fields estimate at the metro, I'm not sure about, but I do have a photo from 9:50 (10 minutes before the event) And the metro didn't get us there until 11:20, and we were towards the front of the line. Most of the back crowd opted to walk because the police said it would be an hour and 15 minute walk, and much longer wait for the metro.

http://newdaddydave.angelfire.com/RestoringHonorRally/index.album/for-other?i=2; Reply to this comment


by starving1968-3 September 1, 2010 1:03 PM EDT: Maybe Glenn can hold his breath and stomp his feet, until they change the numbers to his liking.

Better yet, why didn't he just pray for a bigger crowd to turn out in advance?; Reply to this comment


by starving1968-3 September 1, 2010 12:57 PM EDT: by beep1998 September 1, 2010 10:35 AM EDT

And by the way, those droolers as you called them, are going to send your Liberal friends home soon.

Yeah, in a nation of 306,000,000 people, 87,000 are REALLY going to swing the tide, right?; Reply to this comment

by Rajah88 September 1, 2010 3:23 AM EDT

Beck drew 500,000 and I won the lottery!

Reply to this comment


by velma179 September 1, 2010 6:04 PM EDT: Hahahahahahaha.... a perfect comment!


by Soltru September 1, 2010 2:56 AM EDT: Beck claims to be a religious man, but I seriously doubt Jesus would spend one second of his time complaining about a crowd estimate. Sorry but the only thing Beck seems to be good at doing is turning Americans against one another. A true leader looks for ways to bring people together not push them apart.; Reply to this comment

by ritamweep August 31, 2010 11:54 PM EDT

My sixteen year old daughter commented that she was not surprised that so many people came, she was surprised that so many people could actually make it to the rally. So our guess is that for every person that was at the rally, there were a hundred people there in spirit. Probably more than that.

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by slappy-jones September 1, 2010 12:00 AM EDT: I would agree. Definitely more.

There are about 1.8 million droolers as per this years' ratings.

I wonder how many were sitting at home complaining about 'socialism' at the same time they were waiting on their medicare and social security checks.


by Rajah88 September 1, 2010 3:25 AM EDT: Self delusion is the most common form of mental illness. Get help.

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by mwfcolorado August 31, 2010 11:45 PM EDT: Doesn't matter to me how many racists were at some rally. It's not like their group has increased in size over the past several years. One doesn't all of a sudden decide to 'become' a racist and they aren't really capable of 'recruiting' new ones.

And funny how they like to throw that accusation back at the accusers. But no one has once asked the question, "when specifically has any non-teabagger ever made a racist comment or photo-shopped a picture of Michael Steele?" Hasn't happened.

But the Republican State committee during their 2008 convention DID sell "Obama waffles". Another right-winger depicted First Lady Michelle Obama as a monkey. And how soon the teabaggers forget their pride and joy - a photo of the Obama White House with a watermelon patch in the foreground.

I don't think anyone is fooling anyone - the teabaggers ARE racists, as is a significant portion of the Republican party.; Reply to this comment


by slappy-jones August 31, 2010 10:32 PM EDT: by ToolMangler1
I am laughing at you right now because of the stupidity of your statement.
"Try this on", If this is all there is, then when you die, "YOU DIE!!!!" there is no later for you.
(There is for me, and I wish you well)
=======

You can believe what you like.

I believe it's a waste of this life worrying about a potential next life.

.; Reply to this comment


by myth1958 August 31, 2010 9:24 PM EDT: Montopoli puts out a sure article detailing Glenn Beck's shrill complaints about news estimates of the rally for honor on the Mall. We've moved past discussion of the propriety of holding a 'Take Back the Civil Rights Movement' event (by and large for white people) on the very anniversary of MLK's epic speech from the same spot (you didn't know it was the same date, Glenn? Really?) The petty dispute over how many bodies he had listening vs. how many MLK (or President Obama) can draw is yet another example of Beckian thinking. It ain't pretty, folks: he seeks to contend for the moral high ground with one of the most beloved leaders of our time, on the same steps, the same date, and with the same name of a movement - civil rights. Beckian thinking wants us all to retreat to the 1950's. when Howdy Doody was on tv, and Jim Crow hadn't been overthrown yet. When people had much more religion in their politics, and their doctor's offices. Before civil rights got redefined again and again, and black Americans and women began stepping into the highest offices of power. Beck don't like all this modern stuff. Like health care for all. Like progressive tax rates. Helping the poor and working class. Staying out of women's health decisions and everyone's bedrooms. Stuff like that. Maybe the Smithsonian was wrong: not all the dinosaurs are extinct.; Reply to this comment