«
»




Mar

18

The Eagles Gathered – 30,000 Strong — No Film At Eleven!

Posted By: 'Okie' | 12:26 pm — 3/18/2007 | 1 Comment See comments below:

Here’s a question for you. What happens when the Gathering of Eagles counter-protesters outnumbered anti-war protesters 3-to-1 on the 40th anniversary of the anti-America, anti-war movements greatest event, the March on Washington in ’67? Well, if you’re a moonbat and get your news only from the likes of the Los Angeles Times and other MSM outlets, this is what you believe happened:

They started turning out before daybreak in the bitter cold. The antiwar demonstrators amassed on the north side of the Lincoln Memorial chanting demands for peace now. The counterprotesters, fewer in number but no less vocal, gathered on the east side of the Vietnam Wall and shouted political taunts — many laced with obscenities.

“I got called a commie. A lot of middle fingers are going up. I try to respond with a peace sign,” said Bethany Louisos, 19, who had caravaned from the University of Massachusetts with 10 friends in three cars through a snowstorm to join Saturday’s march at the Pentagon.

“The last thing our troops need to see is the silliness going on here,” Bob Chaney, 57, said, emotion in his voice. An ex-Marine who served in Vietnam, he had flown from Indianapolis to join the counterprotest.

On the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as many as 20,000 people spilled into the heart of the nation’s capital in a sometimes tense demonstration.

You also get an image gallery of the D.C. protest and one for the International protest. What you won’t see is anything like the image shown upper right, which was sent to Michelle Malkin by college student Leslie Grainger, who traveled 12 hours to get to the counter-protest by The Gathering of Eagles. Check out Michelle’s post for a full-size version, plus lots more pics and info. Of course the LAT wasn’t the only MSMer to slant the story, as per Michelle the Washington Post had to look long and hard to find the angry-faced counter protester that illustrates their story, and she ought to know as she was there.

And, about that LAT statement of how many on each side showed up? Well, according to our wonderful chronicler of record out here in the West it totaled about 20,000 overall, with more anti then counter protesters present. But, according to the Gathering of Eagles website, that story is off — just a bit!

30,000!

That figure may be adjusted upward as more figure are tallied during the week. Fox News reported today that the anti-war protesters had significantly less than they expected. However, they are erroneously reporting that the Eagles were there in “equal numbers”. The truth is that we outnumbered them by at least three to one!

Consider…ANSWER had a year to plan their well-publicized event and were hoping for around 100,000. They actually drew about 5,000-10,000, according to various news reports today. The Gathering of Eagles, on the other hand, had about six weeks to plan an unprecedented response – and with no advertising, no publicity, no celebrity or political endorsement, no news coverage, and no big money, we had about 30,000 boots on the ground!

Biased you say, these “Eagles”? Possibly. But we know that the Leftist MainStream Media is biased beyond reason. As Michelle notes about the NYT’s protest coverage in her post, “Yup, the journalistic standard-bearers of the NYTimes relied on “several veterans of the antiwar movement” to give them crowd estimates of the Gathering of Eagles. It’s the domestic equivalent of MSMers relying on dubious Iraqi stringers to provide them with war coverage while they sit in their comfy Green Zone offices in D.C. and Manhattan.”

Newsbusters has even more evidence of rampant MSM bias. Commenting on the impact of the Gathering of Eagles numbers and attitudes in comparison with the worn-out images and rhetoric of the anti-war groups, Judi McLeoud writes in the Canada Free Press:

Yesterday’s sea change was bound to usher in a new chapter in history. The anti-war protesters were in Washington trying to sustain a 40-year-old memory with tired, old chants like the standby “Impeach Bush” one.

The Gathering of Eagles was in Washington to protect war memorials erected to honor the fallen and in a symbolic show of love for all living troops in harm’s way.

One thing for anti-war protesters to hint at desecrating war memorials. One thing for a media to remain silent when soldiers are spit upon. Quite another to meet from the distance of right across the street, the steely-eyed glint of the veterans of real wars.

I’ll let Brian Preston at Hot Air give you one more personal I-was-there view:

Check out that eagle. He looks annoyed. I probably looked alot like him today, watching thousands of Soros-funded astroturfed moonbats in their parade of scum and villainy across Washington.

But seeing thousands of patriots, some barely able to walk, many still scarred outside and inside from their heroic efforts to defend our country during conflicts past, took a little of the edge off. Those patriots found out about the Gathering of Eagles through emails, word of mouth, on Free Republic, on Move America Forward, here on Hot Air and michellemalkin.com, all over the place. There was no Soros Santa on our side marketing the march and bussing people in from all over the country. People drove through ice storms to get there, because they believed it was their duty to support the troops who are putting their lives on the line every single day to defend us. And they were noticed. If you were there, you were noticed. March 17, 2007 was a day that will go down as the first day that patriots decided to answer ANSWER man for man and woman for woman. Cindy Sheehan and Jane Fonda and the anti-America chorus didn’t monopolize the day. Veterans, bikers, and moms and dads and kids wouldn’t let them. Not anymore. It was a historic day.

I was worried the other day when I wrote this: “They’re certainly entitled to their opinions, but something tells me that a bit o’ vandalism, a bit o’ violence and a lot of shouting and screaming are going to be coming out of all these “peaceful” folk. You can meet one of these adorable little anarchists in training over at Michelle Malkin’s blog.

If you can’t go to DC to be a part of the Gathering of Eagles but want to help, you can donate to their effort from their home page. Keep your eye on the news this weekend. This could be a seminal event in the war — hopefully not like what happened in ‘67.”

Looks like my hope was not in vain. Thank you, you magnificent Eagles.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Sphere It
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 12:26 pm and is filed under A Post 9/11 World, Iraq War, Media Bias, When Right is Right. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |  Print This Post Print This Post  |  Email This Post Email This Post

Recently Posted:


  • http://www.the-trainer.com trainer

    It was a great (cold) day that seemed a dream for old vets. Where ever the moonbats gathered, they were surrounded by larger numbers of vets.

    I walked from our gathering point, to the Answer gathering point, to each of the memorials, to the gauntlet…and everywhere I went there were thousands of vets covering all points at the western end of the mall.

    If Answer and Pink were planning to capture the memorials, you would never have known it yesterday. I guess 10,000 vets are not the counter-protesters they are used to. They huddled together in their pathetic little groups until they straggled off to the Pentagon.

    It would not surprise me a bit if we had them outnumbered 3 to one, altho I think our numbers were more like 10,000 or so. Ten Thousand men and women who made a committed choice in their youth to put their bodies between America and it’s enemies.

    The socialist Answer protesters were a weak lot. Their biggest commitment seemed to be cutting Sosh 101 and beat a drum made out of a 5 gallon pail.

    Eagles Up!