There were less than 80,000 people there. Period. That’s a lot of people, but you just can’t lie it higher.

Hmmm, were you saying that about protest in 1968 - 1972? Or maybe you were just too young.

Heh - I was saying back then how grand it was to protest the war. I was a radical lefty until the age of 23. Then I grew up.

ed.

“Small moves, Ellie. Small moves…” was the advice that Elenore Arroway’s dad gave to the youngster as she fiddled with the dial of her ham radio in the film Contact. By moving the dial in small increments, she was much more likely to be rewarded by making contact with another ham radio enthusiast.

Hundreds of thousands of people at the Capitol yesterday gave President Obama the same message.

To take you movie analogy further, in Contact we were faced with a radio message, an historic even and one that required a response of some nuance and precision with some question as to the worth of the final result.

Unfortunately the movie that Obama found himself in upon taking office was Armageddon, with a giant financial asteroid heading towards the Earth and not much time to respond. (Lehman collapse, AIG)

During the time the scientists worked on their solution smaller, quite devastating impacts were felt. (GM collapse)

Failing to stop the rock was not an option, so the government threw the most outlandish and highly expensive solution they could at the problem, and it worked.

There’s still a big mess to clean up from the other collisions (Foreclosure mess), but it appears the worst has been avoided.

And that was what happened in movie terms.

It’s unclear whether the second half of this double feature is Land of the Lost or Iron Man 2.

Time will tell.

Hundreds of thousands of people at the Capitol…

When did you pull that number from?
Can’t be ABC. So..who says hundreds of thousands?

I agree with you about the GOP. Based on what is happening in Florida, I’ve come to the conclusion of many. GOP leadership is rendering the party dem-lite. I do not believe the protests indicate support for a GOP platform because at the moment I do not see a GOP platform or a clear statesman/stateswoman speaking for the party.

Frankly I believe the current political climate provides great opportunity for the Libertarians.

AT LEAST NOT SINCE THE CIVIL WAR!!!

This is about a party of ME against a party of WE - WE will alway win.

Surabaya Stew, to equate this to the Code Pink protesters during the Bush administration is wrong. This is a movement in numbers that can only be equated to the late 60’s-early 70’s anti-war protesters and to think that they should be dismissed is to not understand that protests CAN change the policies of the government, for had not young university students, backed by the CPA, taken to the streets with speakers like Jane Fonda and John Kerry, we would not have withdrawn from Vietnam when we did.

retire05: You and I must have different sets of facts when it comes to the Iraq War protests, as I seem to recall a large number of hundred thousand plus demonstrations and barely seem to recall Code Pink at all. At any rate, comparing the Tea Party movement to the Anti-Iraq War movement seems pretty relevant when comparing Obama with Bush Jr.

To be sure, I was born after the Vietnam war so I can’t personally compare Saturdays protest to the John and Jane show…but didn’t those demonstrations take YEARS to have an effect on national policy? (And haven’t a number of historians concluded that the protests actually caused more deaths by encouraging Johnson and Nixon to intensify the bombing campaign?) Every president gets a number of opportunities to impose his platform upon the nation and Obama is just carrying out what he promised to do, protests be damned. I understand the anger behind much of this, because once Obamacare passes it won’t ever be repealed…but the Iraq War can’t be undone either!