Bigness ensmallened

Tim Blair: Using ridership data from the Washington DC Metrorail service, LGF’s Charles Johnson seeks a reliable means of judging attendance at September 12’s anti-Obama rally:  September 12, 2009: Metrorail: 437,624 Comparable Metrorail Ridership 1 Year Ago: 362,773     As Charles notes: The difference between these two figures is — 74,851. Oddly enough, this almost exactly matches the unofficial estimate given by a Washington DC Fire Department spokesman, who estimated the crowd at 60,000 to 70,000 people. Two things: first, that unofficial estimate was apparently made at 9.43am, some hours prior to the rally’s peak. And second, comparing September 12, 2008, to September 12, 2009, won’t yield reliable information – because the first date fell on a working day (Friday), while the second was a Saturday. The Heritage Foundation’s Mark Kelly digs further into DC’s rail stats: For a fair comparison, we looked at the Saturday after Labor Day in 2008, which is when September 12 fell in 2009. On September 12, 2009, 437,624 rode metro rail. By comparison, on the Saturday after Labor Day in 2008, 202,528 rode. The difference is 235,096. Considering various other factors, Kelly arrives at a tentative estimate of 313,000 to 433,000 – much lower than the extreme high-end figures (two million) Johnson dismisses, but far more believable than 70,000, which anyone who’s both familiar with Washington and spent considerable time at sports events among 70,000+ crowds (me) knows is ridiculously inaccurate.   UPDATE. Andrew Sulivan in today’s Australian: After months of simmering right-wing dissent against the Obama administration and a protest march by about 70,000 conservatives in Washington …

Posted via email from Garth's posterous