Love or loathe their politics, the Tea Party knows how to create a spectacle. In probably the most ambitious yet, tens of thousands of Tea Party members and other conservatives swarmed to Washington on August 28 for a “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial.
In a move that certainly qualifies as audacious (critics have used less charitable words), Fox News celebrity Glenn Beck chose the 47th anniversary of the famous March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech to convene his “Restoring Honor” rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (albeit two flights down and about 100 yards from the spot MLK stood to deliver his speech).
Beck has insisted repeatedly that the date was purely coincidental, but there was a clear effort throughout the event to claim MLK’s imprimatur, including by inviting Alveda King, MLK’s niece and anti-abortion activist, to be a featured speaker. Another featured speaker was Tea Party favorite and former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Organizers had asked attendees to treat the event as non-political and to minimize signs and placards, but a few from all over the spectrum turned up anyway. The vast majority were pro-, a few anti-, and a few were, well, who knows.
By steering clear of any explicit political discussion, it was often unclear what the central message was supposed to be beyond a grab bag of standard conservative values, a general dissatisfaction with the Obama White House, and a carefully calibrated cynicism about the governance of America. Apart from some occasional spot flare-ups, the tone was notably relaxed with more people enjoying the comfort of their lawn chairs than agitating. And probably because the message was too nebulous to present much of a target, counterprotesters were few and far between, most of the probably keeping their powder dry for Al Sharpton’s rally later in the day.
PS. Yes, technically this wasn’t a Tea Party event–it was convened and sponsored by Glenn Beck and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF), but it doesn’t take much digging to find that the Tea Party provided the vocal and organizational core.
PPS. Crowd estimates for these events is always a subject of much argument and political posturing and the National Park Service hasn’t provided counts since a political outcry in 1995 over the count for the “Million Man March.” At one point during the rally, Beck estimated the crowd to number around 300,000, but less giddy analysis pegs the number at around 87,000. There’s a very good explanation here (and another here) how crowds are estimated at such events.
PPPS. Still no word of any casualties on Metro’s Green line.
Px4S. Check out these great portraits of some of the rally’s attendees by DC photojournalist Jay Westcott.
More Photos of the Tea Party Rally at the Lincoln Memorial
Tea Party Rally – Images by David Coleman. Click on the arrow icon at the bottom right corner of the slideshow to see in full-screen.
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