What's in a Number?

CJ at A Soldier's Perspective alerted me to this fine commentary yesterday, on the crowd numbers at the anti-war rallies over the weekend.

Because it's 1am and I want to go to bed, I'll just cut-and-paste part of my comment from there, here:

It's something that I subconsciously knew, and thought of, but didn't formulate it into any concrete terms [I'm referring to the touted numbers who showed]. Thank you!

I was at a protest rally this past saturday in downtown Los Angeles. And there were all sorts of fringe groups out there sporting all sorts of signs that had nothing to do with the Iraq war.

And if someone is out there counting heads, not all of us standing around were there to support their cause(s). Some of us were just passersby....some of us were counter-protesting....and others, like myself, were just pointing and taking pictures of the moonbats all gathered in one place.


The numbers never really concerned me, as the media and liberal supporters seemed to fluff up the number of moonbats who showed up to answer the call of their nature,
while conservative scoffers seemed to reject and minimize those numbers as inflated. I could care less.

Liberals seem to make the most noise, all the time. Their numbers don't worry me. They are always out protesting this or that, and their numbers came out before the war as well as this past weekend, post-war, in large numbers. And they were patting themselves on the back, back then as well. That show of presence, and the bashing from the media on television and in print, make total strangers I run into in Los Angeles assume they can denigrate OUR President, in my presence, and I'd be ok with that. So when they encounter someone who actually supports the President, they look at me as if I'm some sort of myth; that Bush supporters are only something they've read about but never met before. Here in LA, there's almost an assumption that the whole world hates Bush, creating an environment in which LA liberals think they can trash the President, and you'd be in total agreement and not challenge them on it. This happens quite frequently.

So it's with this mentality, that it's no wonder that November 5th, two thousand-and-four, half the country was floored when President Bush was given political capital to spend in a 2nd term of leadership to set the agenda and steer our course. You see, our numbers showed up when numbers really counted: at the ballot box. 59 million votes makes a louder noise, louder impact than all the anti-war protests combined. So let the liberal Bush-bashers continue to rant and rave, expending energy and straining their vocal chords until they turn blue in the face.....or red.


More Cindy Shenanigans, splotched all over the blogosphere....eeny, meeny, miney.......moe!

[Update] More from Christopher Hitchens also noting the varied agenda of those at these protest marches. Hat tip: California Conservative.

[Update II] Upon further reflection, I'd like to add that even though many of the protestors out there had other agendas, I do admit that most are probably united under the umbrella of being opposed to this war and this Administration which backs it. So yes, those numbers, however many actually showed up, were out there protesting against the war. They might have been out there taking the opportunity to push their own individual causes, but it would seem unlikely that if you went up to any of them and asked, "do you support the war?" that any of them would say "yes".

[Update III] My friend Mark refuses to allow himself to associate and keep company with chopped liver, so I link you now to his post on the topic at hand, posing the question: "has allowing the fringe elements to swell the ranks fo their anti-war cause hurt or helped Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war movement?"