I'm not sure what Nancy Pelosi is trying to say in
this video. Is she furthering the largely unsubstantiated claim that the American right is planning a reign of terror? Or is she trying to tell us that Owosso was just the beginning? Either way, this doesn't seem like it's adding much to the national conversation.
I assume she's talking about how someone was calling the protestors Nazis... oh wait, that was her.
I think Nancy Pelosi needs a Mental Health Break.
Or maybe she meant how someone called the insurance companies "villains" -- no, wait, her again.
Could it be when someone described protestors as unAmerican -- oops, no, that was her too.
Conspiracy theories like Trutherism have been in the news lately. Could she mean people claiming the CIA lied to Congress? No, probably not.
@TallDave
You're being disingenous at best when you say she "described protestors as un-American"
Pelosi's exact quote was "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American." Do you disagree with that statement?
That's some mighty fine hair-splitting.
And you might have had a point right up until Pelosi accused protesters of being swastika-carrying Nazi's.
I think she's made clear how she views those who would disagree with her distopian plan for America.
She's clearly referecing the murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, who she suggests were killed when heated rhetoric created a climate in which violence took place."
Which is - of course - a bunch of horsecrap.
Harvey Milk and George Moscone were killed, not by angry constituents in a heated rhetoric climate. They were killed by a fellow Democrat - City Supervisor Dan White.
White had quit as supervisor - citing low pay - and was angry with Moscone for not re-appointing him back to his city council hack job.
I don't know what world Pelosi lives in, but it's probably the world where you fear your own fellow Democrat politicians might blow your head off if they can't keep their hack jobs.
Dan White was a conservative supervisor whose admitted homophobia helped create a fear of the other, the self-serving belief that since times are changing and minorities are actually demanding equality that his supremacy will end. He took his anger about work out on Moscone. He took his homophobia out on Milk. Similar patterns are building up in the world of Beck's Right.
Yes. Look what happened in 1963. Because of virulent right wing hatred, a communist assassinated JFK.
It must be stopped. This right wing hatred and racism will cause leftists to start killing one another.
Derek
Dan White was a Democrat hack.
He didn't kill Harvey Milk because Milk was gay. He killed Milk because Milk was keeping him from his hack job. Same with Moscone.
It wasn't "his work" that he was angry about. Moscone wouldn't give him back his Democrat hack city job. So he killed him.
Had nothing to do with Milk being gay.
Yeeeeahhhh. SpeakUP, you've managed to write an entire paragraph without getting a single thing right. Not the basic point, nor any of the details. There should be some kind of award.
Too many big words? Or too much context for you?
According to the New York Times:
"Mr. White admitted to the police shortly after the shootings on Nov. 28, 1978, that he had killed the two officials because he believed they would not let him rescind a decision to resign from the Board of Supervisors."
Which facts, specifically, do you disagree with?
Cite: http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/22/us/dan-white-killer-of-san-francisco-mayor-a-suicide.html
movertyperguy: Don't get facts get in the way of SpeakUP's narratve and meta-understanding of history. What Dan White said about his own motivations are irrelevant.
What are you, homophobic in addition to racist?
The only people who deserve to get beaten more than white kids on a school bus are straight people, male and female.
To all the flyover country rubes on this board: That was a joke. I am not urging you to go assault heterosexuals wherever they may be found.
She's saying the same thing that you spent the past two days saying, that the rubes in flyover country are likely to commit violence.
We don't have the benefit of your superior education and breeding and we'll let Rush Limbaugh incite a race war.
Megan never said anything like that in the past two days. She made a regrettable comment, one she retracted, that Limbaugh's listeners weren't "known for their ability to appreciate maybe-sort-of-satire." That's not anywhere near saying they're "likely to commit violence." In fact, in her subsequent retraction she said "I think that the people who are claiming that Rush is inciting a race war or a revolution are also humorless twits".
There are plenty of morons out there who ARE talking about expected violence from rubes in flyover country, you don't need to manufacture them. But you will have to go elsewhere to find them.
There are plenty of morons out there who ARE talking about expected violence from rubes in flyover country, you don't need to manufacture them.
Yes, but the morons are all liberals. Which brings us to Megan's line above about "the largely unsubstantiated claim that the American right is planning a reign of terror"
If by "largely unsubstantiated" Megan means "made up out of whole cloth" then you have a point. Failing that, you don't.
tim, of course those particular morons are all liberals. I guess I don't understand what you disagree with. Rather than try to fill in the blanks for you and probably get your argument wrong in the process, can you elaborate?
Thank you for the facts, movertyperguy. I hope you didn't tear up typing them. Speaking as a Democrat, I have been embarrassed to have Pelosi as the Speaker since 2007. I seriously think she hurts the party's image.
Mark, I couldn't agree more.
I keep hearing from Democrats about how heated rhetoric can lead to violence and we need to be careful. Sympathetic though I am to the underlying message, I don't think many of them realize how very much of the politically-oriented violence in America comes from the left. I'm reminded of Tom Wolfe's observation that the "dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe".
Alternatively, of course, she's simply warning us.
If she's warning us, she might want to take a look at DC gun laws, which have disarmed her supporters.
Shelby, do you really mean "comes from" or do you mean "came from".
It seems to me that, compared to our past, there's little politically-oriented violence these days from either side. I'd agree that in the past the bad guys in America just as frequently came from the left as from the right, but I don't think that's true today and hasn't been true for almost three decades. Not that the bad guys are on the right, either -- other than a few isolated incidents, political violence has really waned overall. Hasn't it?
Notice she isn't afraid of the type of violence of the 60s.
Maybe she could trot out a college prof by the name of William Ayers, or his lovely brude, who could also tell us of his fear about right wing violence.
Nobody feared the violence when it was Bill Ayers and the Democrat underground doing the bombings.
I wonder why they fear the violence now?
The terrorists are all working inside the Obama Administration.
Um, Megan. You may want to take a look at how you're coming across on this point.
Nancy Pelosi strongly implies that right-wing zealots want to murder their opponents and that right-wingers are cool with that. You say that "this doesn't seem like it's adding much to the national conversation."
Rush Limbaugh suggests that black opponents want to beat up white people and the left-wingers encourage it. You compare that to "murdering boatloads of Guatamalan orphans."
Perhaps your heart is pure, and you meant to condemn them equally. But the words you choose matter. After you've gone very near the deep end on Rush Limbaugh (perhaps over), letting the Speaker of the House off with "doesn't add much" is... striking. It might just convince some of your readers that perhaps the general atmosphere of your publication has gotten to you, a wee bit.
It's all good to mount the high horse and deplore the Precipitous Decline in the Quality of Our National Discourse and Blame Both Sides Equally for that. (Even if you make a habit of suggesting that Right Wingers Bear The Sacred Responsibility Not To Enrage Left Wingers Any More Or Who Knows What Will Happen.) But I'm slowly and reluctantly warming to some of your commenter-critics, who are suggesting that your relative approaches to Rush-vs-Nancy (and their ilk) may be informed more by your class views (to spell it out: your disgust at the low-class Limbaugh) than by the actual arguments or ideas proffered. And that this perhaps colors what interpretation you place on those words - how ready you are to impute evil intent to ambiguous words.
(And don't tell us that "murdering boatloads of Guatamalan orphans" was obviously satire. You just told us yesterday that even if Limbaugh's rant was satire, that wasn't cool because all those stupid people in his audience wouldn't get the joke. Unless you want to argue that *your* readers are smart and obviously would get it, and only Rush's listeners are hicks who don't. In which case, well, I don't really need to belabor the point, do I?)
Please, back away from that edge. Don't join the bodies down there. Please.
-- perry
I've always assumed such inequities were obvious triangulation. If you want to get predominately left of center folks to even consider the possibility Ezra Klein is spouting socialist nonsense, you're going to have to butter them up with some red meat and prove your bona fides, lest you get automatically ignored.
That's not just true of buttering up lefties, of course, it's true of getting people of pretty much all stripes to re-consider their stupid beliefs.
Nonetheless, it probably comes naturally too. I consider myself a libertarian, and in terms of age and education I'm very much a contemporary of people like Megan or Will Wilkinson, and yet I don't get the visceral hatred these guys tend to throw out at Republicans - who are in practice much closer to agreeing with them, and general naivete they tend to embrace many Democratic proclamations with, even when they're antithetical to a sensible and pragmatic libertarian position.
I've always assumed such inequities were obvious triangulation. If you want to get predominately left of center folks to even consider the possibility Ezra Klein is spouting socialist nonsense, you're going to have to butter them up with some red meat and prove your bona fides, lest you get automatically ignored.
That's a good point. I'm a Christian conservative in a blue state with a family of secular liberal elites. When I get into political arguments I pretty much have to throw Rush and the National Review under the bus too. I think Megan does a good job of sticking to her guns despite being vastly outnumbered. I haven't seen any sign of her conceding vast swaths of the debate in order to remain a Member of Good Standing in the liberal establishment. Of course, she is smarter and more broadly knowledgeable than pseudo-intellectuals like David Brooks so maybe she doesn't have to.
Those aren't tears. It's a botox leak.
Limbaugh had it right when he said she always looks surprised.
I think she's trying to draw a parallel between contemporary times and historical occurrences. But, gun owners are law abiding so she's obviously just make up the past.
I have to admit, her saying "We should curb our enthusiasm" is pretty ridiculous. I don't know where she gets the wild ideas that some people are inciting violence. I haven't heard anyone talk about revolution or anything like that.
God! What a loon! Just like Limbaugh, only without the hyperbole, sarcasm, and pulling crap out of her ass.
"I don't know where she gets the wild ideas that some people are inciting violence."
The only violence that has been reported is Democrat union violence against the senior citizens protesting ObamaCare at town hall meetings.
So, maybe that's what has her spooked. She cited the San Francsico violence ... which was a Democrat politician killing his enemies.
So, she's probably worried about Democrats killing more people, I guess.
Bill Ayers may be giving people ideas, since you know, his solution was to just bomb people he had political disagreements with.
Hey, maybe that's where her fear stems from. It's all those people she's surrounded by who are Democrats who don't seem all that upset about killing people they disagree with.
Just remember:
Guns don't kill San Francisco Democrats.
San Francisco Democrats kill San Francisco Democrats.
"It's a terrible thing to say, and it's unfortunate... There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that; there never is." -Ari Fleischer
“This kind of rhetoric is just, is really frightening and it created a climate in which we, violence took place and … I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made." -Nancy Pelosi
Ari Fleischer was the first thing I thought of when I saw this too. I thought the Dems had a problem with that sort of statement.
I have to concede, she's right about the present period looking a lot like the late 70s.
I'm kinda young, but I remember political violence in the 70s as mostly committed by people of the Left: the SLA, the Panthers, and Our President's terrorist pals.
I think you could argue that groups like the Panthers were conservative. They stressed self responsibility and the right to bare arms to defend oneself. It bothered those in power that the people with those arms had dark skin.
More recent terrorsim within our own borders was from the Right: Timmothy McVeigh, Branch Davidian cult in Waco and the mormon cult from I believe 2008.
The Black Panthers are alive and well right here in 2009.
Some got arrested with weapons at a polling place on November 4, 2008.
But our Attorney General, Eric Holder dropped the charges, after the guys pleaded guilty to intimidating voters.
Gotta protect their enforcers.
The SLA and Panthers had largely gone dormant by the late 70s. I was thinking how much the current times look like the heyday, so to speak, of the Carter administration. Maybe we should call this one the Czarter administration.
"I think you could argue that groups like the Panthers were conservative"
You could argue that gravity is an oppressive patriarchal social construct. You'd be wrong.
I agree they were a couple of freak shows, but remind me again what terrorist acts the Branch Davidians or the FLDS (I assume that's who you're talking about) committed? Or what they have to do with "the right", for that matter.
I think that's she's saying that if the grassroots center-right continues scoring points on healthcare issues, ACORN etc. the SEIU thugs will do more Kenneth Gladney-type stuff on them.
As George W. Bush once said: Bring It On.
I find myself recalling the quote from Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, who said his father always told him to never trust the far left because they'll bankrupt you and never trust the far right because they'll kill you. The question for today is when the Right will also bankrupt you, why would anyone listen to anything the party of Limbaugh and Beck has to say?
"More recent terrorsim within our own borders was from the Right: Timmothy McVeigh, Branch Davidian cult in Waco and the mormon cult from I believe 2008." - SpeakUP
What terrorist acts were performed by the Branch Davidians or the Mormons?
"More recent terrorsim within our own borders was from the Right: Timmothy McVeigh, Branch Davidian cult in Waco and the mormon cult"
Holy crist. The Branch Davidians? Are now labelled "right terrorists?"
Other than pray to Jesus and purchase weapons to defend their property, exactly what terrorist acts did the Branch Davidians conduct before your government - Democrat Janet Reno - murdered 76 people by burning them to death, including 20 innocent children?
Wow. This wins as the most uninformed comment I've ever read.
Mormons are "right wing terrorists?" Really?
When you see someone post something like
You know he's not living in the same reality as the rest of us.
Here's video of the armed Black Panthers outside the Philadelphia housing development that was serving as a polling place:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU
Yea, they look like the country club Republican types.
Oh, yeah, I can definitely see SpeakUP's point. Obviously conservatives. Real law 'n' order types. Well, it helps to be taking mind altering substances, I suppose.
Wouldn't call where you are reality. And certainly would not want to join you there.
Nancy Pelosi didn't just see this kind of rhetoric back in the 1970's she was one of the ones using the rhetoric. Now that she is on the receiving end she doesn't like it.
@ SpeakUP
The Panthers were a Marxist Socialist organization. Don't believe me Google it.
They still are.
They're enforcers for Democrats in Philadelphia. Some of them were arrested with weapons at a polling place in the Obama election.
But after pleading guilty to voter intimidation, your Attorney General, Eric Holder, had the charges against them quietly dropped.
So much for justice in Barack Obama's America.
She may have teared up over the lost 1970' ... (don't we all)
but I think her current concern is for people like the black guy distributing the "Don't Tread On Me Flags" that got beat up by the three SEIU thugs ;->
If Nancy Pelosi was concerned about SEIU thugs, she could hold a press conference and wag her finger at the SEIU.
That's not what she is doing.
She's worried about the 500,000 people who marched on Washington last Saturday carrying signs. They could easily have been carrying pitchforks and torches (and might be next time). That's what's got her panties in a twist.
500,000? That's rich my friend. You are more out of it than Nancy Pelosi. Try 70,000 tops. Dude you are the biggest whiner I have seen in a while. Kenneth Gladney got shoved to the ground along with an SEIU person. You are making a mountain out of a molehill. That's one less the right has learned from the left, whiny victim politics.
Here's a high-resolution photo for you showing protestors stretched from the Capital to the Lincoln Memorial.
Count them yourself.
http://iowntheworld.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/capitol-view-lo-res.jpg
It's a lot of voters, all out for Nancy Pelosi's hide.
She probably should be crying.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch report of Kenneth Gladney's attack is more believeable. They interviewed him at the hospital ... not on the ground where he was pushed, as you put it.
Their report seems more believeable than your attempt to minimize his severe beating at the hands of SEIU union thugs providing "protection" for Democrats at this town hall meeting.
Reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
"Kenneth Gladney, 38, a conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with "Don't tread on me" printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room at St. John's Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was awaiting treatment for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack.
"It just seems there's no freedom of speech without being attacked," he said.
Brian-
500,000? That's rich my friend. You are more out of it than Nancy Pelosi. Try 70,000 tops.
Here's the video.
Looks like more than 70K to me...
It might have topped 100,000- certainly an impressive number for conservatives who don't enjoy collectivization. But it wasn't anywhere near the number that came to the mall in February 2003 to protest the impending Iraq war, and we all know how influential those protests were.
500,000? Who dreamed that up?
The Capital Police estimated 275,000 people, but the pictures and the video sure seem like twice that amount.
opps - That's one lesson . ..
Remember preview is your friend.
How many people do you think that is? I got pretty good at estimating crowd size from going to the Rose Parade. That doesn't change my estimate.
What are you talking about? Back during the Obama's inauguration that there was a million people.
I don't know how many it is, frankly, but tsotha certainly remembers how many similar crowds were estimated to be when it suited Democrats.
I know this: If I looked out my Speaker's window and saw that many angry voters coming at me with pitchforks and torches, I reckon I'd be a might puckered.
Nancy Pelosi is smart to be concerned.
Wasn't Megan joining in the left-wing chorus earlier today with her slamming of Rush? Make up your mind which side of the fence you are on Megan.
Uh oh, Megan, you need to trot out your right-wing creds. The natives are getting restless.
You better believe it! I'd rather she simply burnish some common sense though.
Why should she be on either side of the fence? I've been a libertarian since 1964, and I've called myself a libertarian since, I think, 1969, when I encountered the word, and I've never been favorably impressed by either the right or the left. I considered the right a lesser evil for a while, up until Reagan got in and sold out to the theocrats; then I gradually came to consider the left a lesser evil; now the left is looking pretty ugly too. They're just two different schools of repressive authoritarianism. I take someone's libertarianism seriously when they hold their noses equally at both.
Per my comment above, this is exactly the sort of thing I don't understand about my fellow libertarians. They seem to consistently and dramatically overestimate the "threat" they believe comes from the religious right. I mean, to whatever extent Reagan actually sold out to them, it's affected my life absolutely zero. No one forces me to pray to anything or anyone. I can say what I want. I can get someone an abortion if I knock them up and they agree to it. And so forth. I don't see how anyone would seriously look at this group as a threat.
On the other hand, the left has always expressly threatened, with somewhat more likelihood of success, to take away all sorts of rights, most recently even more of my right to choose the manner in which I obtain health care and seek a long and healthy life.
I can't see anything more repressive, actually, than that. On the other hand, not in Jerry Fallwell's wettest dreams, would he ever imagine he could do much to persecute all the non-believers in the country.
Mike,
You're exactly right. I would have a number of problems if the far right were able to attain its goals. But in today's political environment virtually all freedoms actually at risk are in danger from the left.
Mike, here's where I think the mistake is in your argument. The religious right comprise and are led mostly by folks who were formerly Southern Democrats. They began breaking with the Democratic party over civil rights, and migrated to the Republican party around the same time the Rockefeller Republicans were doing the same but in reverse.
They may have learned the rhetoric of fiscal conservatism, but their actions over the past 30 years have shown that they don't really believe it. Do you really think they've shown restraint in spending? I don't. I trust the Dems more with my money than the Republicans -- at least there's an opposition to spending when the Dems try and do it.
Troy,
So you're arguing that the true threat from the religious right is their libertine spending habits? I don't think I can buy that.
First, I'm not trying to say you aren't a libertarian, but I think that for me, being a libertarian means protecting my rights more than being a fiscal conservative. I'm a fiscal conservative too, but I guess if I had to chose between a bunch of big spenders that don't grossly interfere with my personal autonomy and a bunch of big spenders who do, I'll take the former.
Second, I don't see any rationale for thinking the Dems are more or less fiscally responsible than Repubs. Why do you trust them more with your money? It's certainly true I'd prefer less spending proposals from both parties, but generally speaking Republicans have favored less spending at the margin than Democrats. Because our only choice is D or R, it's not enough, to me, to say "R's want to spend too much". Because they do, but compared to Ds, they generally want to spend less.
But yeah, the big issue is that R fiscal nuttiness comes attached to a set of policies that haven't, over the last 30 years, repeatedly attempted to cement such fiscal nuttiness in place, or further take away meaningful rights I have (like the basic sort of right we ought to have to personal choice in our matters of health, life and death). The Democrats have attempted this every time they had a smidgen of a chance of getting it passed.
Well, lately I've been trying on the new term "liberaltarian". But generally I just call myself a moderate or a "persuadable Democrat".
But yes, that's exactly what I'm saying about spending. I'm glad you "don't see any rationale for thinking the Dems are more or less fiscally responsible than Repubs." I'd agree with that. The problem is that when Republicans spend no one opposes them or seems to care much, at least not enough people to make a difference. Whereas when Dems spend, they see tremendous opposition. Which ultimately moderates their proposals more, and makes them the more fiscally responsible party. The opposition matters, and when the opposition lacks credibility (like now) or when it is non-existent (like in 2005), then politicians do what they do.
I focused on spending because you cited healthcare, which has primarily been a debate about how to pay for it. But how is the Republicans' general desire for a more interventionist foreign policy libertarian? That may not affect you, but with family in the military it sure affects me. How about the outcry from the Right for intervention in the Terry Schiavo case -- how is that libertarian? What about the Patriot Act, or locking up U.S. citizens in Guantanomo? Do these things not make you uneasy from a libertarian point of view? Abortion, the death penalty, and on and on and on. Just like on spending, the ledgers on which party more "grossly interferes with your personal autonomy" are a lot closer to balanced than you're admitting.
Bottom line: aligned with the Dems, I think libertarians can make reasonable "this far and no farther" compromises. I don't see that happening with the Repubs.
"I'm glad you "don't see any rationale for thinking the Dems are more or less fiscally responsible than Repubs." I'd agree with that."
This is just bizarre. Bush was the most profligate Republican president of my lifetime. Obama's beat him by 300% already, and is trying to add additional boondoggles as fast as he can. And someone concludes there isn't a difference?
Be serious.
Most of the spending for the last 8 months -- TARP, the stimulus, etc. -- has been to counteract an extraordinary economic event. It's fair to be skeptical that it won't continue, but I honestly don't think it will. The Blue Dogs have real pull with the Dems, in a way that the fiscal conservatives don't with the Repubs. And remember what Clinton's record was on spending and deficits before the "profligate" Bush came to power.
I don't think it's at all unserious to say it's about a wash between Rs and Ds on this issue.
"Most of the spending for the last 8 months -- TARP, the stimulus, etc. -- has been to counteract an extraordinary economic event"
Somewhat for TARP (they managed to quickly subvert the program and are now using it to fund political constituencies, as per Democratic SOP), total horseshit on the "stimulus", which is a grab bag of liberal spending programs from the last three decades.
"The Blue Dogs have real pull with the Dems, in a way that the fiscal conservatives don't with the Repubs."
One wonders what planet you're on. First, Blue Dogs have little influence, and they're much further left on spending that similar Rs anyway. That's why they're Democrats. Second, Republican fiscal conservatives had no pull with Bush, who ran for President on spending money. They have vastly more pull within their party generally.
"I don't think it's at all unserious to say it's about a wash between Rs and Ds on this issue."
Right. The worst Republican on spending ever can't touch an average Dem, but you can't tell which which is worse on spending. Well, maybe you can't.
mj, the facts are that fiscal conservatives within the Republican party are only powerful when the party is in the minority, but then are marginalized when the Repubs are in power. Conversely, the fiscally conservative Dems become more powerful when the Dems control the reins of government. This ends up dictating outcomes that are roughly equivalent, present extraordinary circumstances excepted.
Some leftist jackasss says in part "You are making a mountain out of a molehill [about Kenneth Gladney].
Which is hysterical on a post pointing out that leftists are whining 1,000 times more about people talking.
Some things are just too goddamn funny.
Really I am "leftist jackass"? What make you think I am leftist at all? I was merely pointing out that Mover's post where all Kenneth Gladney all the time and it was a shoving incident. I am really tired of the victim politics from the right and the left. The left invented it and the right took to it like a dick to water.
Brian Despain wants to know what makes me think he's a leftist.
1. Leftists claim people voicing dissent is dangerous, which Brian has no objection to. Rightists claim physical intimidation is dangerous, and he calls it whining. It's unreasonable to conclude dissent is more dangerous than physical intimidation, although I suppose if he wants to simply make that assertion it can speak for itself. So it's something about the circumstances where each tactic was used that drives his dismissive attitude over the clearly more problematic issue. And what is the difference in the circumstances? One was committed by the left, and the other by the right.
2. Estimates of the 9/12 crowd are from 240k - 500k. His response is "Try 70,000 tops." So without evidence he cites figures not even in the ballpark both to minimize the political effect of the march and to attack commentators on the right.
C. When all your stupidities come from the same direction, that's where you are.
MJ what on earth are talking about? Please stop putting words in my mouth and asserting I believe this and that. I have seen plenty of protests that have shoving matches in them on both the left and the right. I just don't start fainting over them.
2. 75,000 was the TOP end from the Capitol Police.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/marching-down-pennsylvania-avenue/comments/page/2/
Human being are notoriously bad at estimating large crowd sizes. Unless you have regularly seen a crowd of more than a million people you really have no idea how mammoth a figure that is. A crowd of 75,000 people looks really really huge if you have no experience. Given that many people like Glenn Back have repeatedly lied about the number of people at the rally, I find them less than credible. Mover has changed his figures in this thread alone.
The 70K estimate has been sourced to an unoffical estimate by Pete Piringer, public affairs officer for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Department.
[Piringer] said the local government no longer provides official crowd estimates because they can become politicized. But the day of the rally, Piringer unofficially told one reporter that he thought between 60,000 and 75,000 people had shown up.
Here's another discussion of crowd size estimates
Brian,
You think those pointing out physical intimidation are whiners, but have no negative comment to other people who have expressed far greater fear of talking. This is simply a fact. I didn't put words in your mouth. I merely pointed out your priorities. If you don't like your priorities feel free to change them.
Second, you say people are notoriously bad at counting crowds, but you assert definitively that the 70k amount is "tops". So which is it? Are you really going to stick with your current position that both (a) crowd estimates are notoriously difficult, and (b) nevertheless you know the upper bound with such certainty it's appropriate to attack others based on it?
Pelosi is a nitwit. The First amendment guarantee's you the right to say whatever you want to (with very minor exceptions...not in the realm of politics). Nancy took the oath...to support and defend the Constitution. Did she have her fingers crossed?
"The First amendment guarantee's you the right to say whatever you want to ..."
Not in our august houses of Congress, where free speech has been rescinded. Nancy Pelosi has ended free speech where she works.
If the President lies to the American People, you cannot inform the public of his perfidy in Nancy Pelosi's House of Representatives.
Cite: http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/house_comm_dec.htm
"Manual § 370; 5 Hinds § 5094. For example, it is out of order to call the President a ‘‘liar’’ or a ‘‘hypocrite’’ or to refer to accusations of sexual misconduct."
She's probably tearing up because she remembers when her brother-in-law was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and the mayor and another member of the Board (George Moscone and Harvey Milk) were shot to death inside City Hall by another politician. Whether or not there is any analogy to be drawn, if you think it's hilarious that she's upset, it says a lot more about you than it does about her.
It's richly ironic that Pelosi would use Milk and Moscone's murders as an example of the type of political violence that she claims to fear.
They were, after all, killed by their own fellow Democrat Party politician - angry with them because he couldn't get his hack job back and pissed off about his low government paycheck.
What exactly is the lesson to be drawn there? That you can't trust Democrats? That members of the Democrat Party are the source of political violence in America? That guns don't kill people, Democrats kill people?
Are those the lessons to be drawn?
What's a "Democrat Party"? There isn't any such thing.
Megan,
I think your first and most fundamental mistake was assuming that Pelosi was even capable of having a coherent thought, let alone having the ability to express one. The more I watch her, the more convinced I am that her IQ is less than 90.
You forgot to insert the minus sign in front of 90.
im sorry, what do you do for a living?
snarkiness begets what?
Living off my investments.
All us high IQ people know she's wrong, but maybe Pelosi thinks stuff like this is racist:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/17/obama.witchdoctor.teaparty/index.html
Or maybe it's racist for Barack Obama to allege that the nation's doctors would rather cut off people's feet than to treat their diabetes because they get a bigger Medicare reimbursement if they chop off people's feet.
Maybe that's racist.
It's not racist, it's factual. Or maybe I'm just being sarcastic, I don't know anymore.
I truly love reading all of your comments, because they are essentially a bad summary of every recent fanatical right-wing blog entry out there. How much Limbaugh, Beck and Savage do you consume in an average day?
None of my links cites Limbaugh, Beck or Savage.
Only CNN, the New York Times, the House of Representatives.
You know, the fringe media.
Haha, it's pretty easy to offer a biting retort when you make no effort to defend any of the original allegations. Look at my words carefully - did I once say that you cited Limbaugh, Beck or Savage as sources? Nope, sure didn't. But you certainly can fool some people with this kind of spin, implying that I did.
It's your obvious bias and conclusions, silly. They would feel right at home on any far right radio or cable television program.
It is time to start treating the national problem as a dementia rather than as a moral problem.
Treatment for dementia is needed, not punishment.
really? you can't tell? or that you don't want to acknowledge it?
can you honestly tell me the level of rhetoric, sniping and near outright craziness of participants in the public conversation doesn't make some part of your psyche wonder where the tipping point is?
really?
damn. then that freedomworks kool-aid must be good, pass some over.
Almost as good as the MoveOn stuff.
im sorry yancey. i went to moveon's website, and looked for where they had something regarding what pelosi said on the video. i can't find it?
could you provide me with the link?
thanks.
Nancy forgot that Dan White was a Democrat.
but thats the point. this isn't about party, though the lines are being drawn as such. its about we as a body politic going overboard, getting so heated that discourse stops being civil.
but then that may entirely be a naive thought.
My position on crowd estimates is that yes they are difficult unless you have spent a significant amount of time doing. If you read my original point, that's what I have maintained the whole time. That's why I would trust some one who has done it before over a bunch of bloggers trying to analyze fish eye lens photos. Numbers have varied from 60-70K to 2 Million. It's very easy to mistake a crowd of 70k for a number 6 to 8 times that. Why? Because most people have never seen that many people gathered together in one place.
Yet for some reason the left is quick to say there were no more then 2,000 people.
@ Brian Despain: My position on crowd size
Have you spent a lot of time doing positions ?
There are multiple estimates on the Web which
start with photographs or other hard data
(Train ridership, etc.) and proceed by specified
mathematical operations to arrive at numerical
estimates (small medium and large :)
These estimates start noticeably higher than
your number, and go up by at least a factor of 10.
Can you fault the methodology ?
At 70K, one could claim the crowd was an unusually
large collection of extremists; At 700K, one needs
to admit (particularly to oneself) that The People
have spoken, and that any electorally vulnerable
Democrats who don't listen are likely to be returned
to the status of private citizen in 2010.
That is why Denial is not just a river of tears
cried by Nancy Pelosi.