Thousands of protestors gathered over the weekend in Washington, D.C., to protest the Obama Administration’s agenda for the country. However, controversy over the number of protestors attending the rally ensued after several exaggerated estimates were perpetuated either negligently or purposefully by Michelle Malkin, Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks, and careless Twitters.

The promoters of disinformation claimed the number of protestors in Washington D.C., were at 1 million to 1.5 million people, though other outrageous estimates were also declared. According to the D.C. Fire & EMS Department, ”unofficial crowds [numbered] 60,000-75,000.” To further delegitimize their cause, “tea party protesters trying to tout the size of their march on Washington last weekend . . . pass[ed] around a photo of a packed National Mall. But the picture is years old.” More from the Los Angeles Times:

As our colleague in Washington, Joe Markman, writes today, several conservative groups behind the march say that as many as 2 million people turned out to protest everything from Obama’s proposed healthcare overhaul to the legitimacy of his election.

Others, however, say the crowd was much smaller. A spokesman for the District of Columbia Fire Department made an unofficial estimate of 60,000 to 70,000 people.

Arguments about crowd estimates are, as Markman writes, “as much a part of Washington as its granite monuments.”
This one took a rather scandalous turn, however, when a photo circulated among conservatives as proof of a larger crowd was revealed to be a fake.

As a comparison to the 9/12 tea party protests, President Barack Obama’s inauguration had some 1.8 million attendees. Here’s what almost 2 million people looks like:

Image Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh. Via The Big Picture at Boston.com

Image Credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images. Via The Big Picture at Boston.com

Image Credit: AP Photo/GeoEye Satellite Image. Via The Big Picture at Boston.com

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