I’ve been reading all the news the day after the massive Tea Party in D.C. with ferver. I wanted to see what would be written the day after since yesterday all the “reports” coming out of the MSM mentions attendees “in the thousands” or “tens of thousands.” There was just simply no way, so I initially chalked it up to on the ground reporters who didn’t see the whole picture. As expected, instead of reporting the event, they sought to minimize and excoriate the event.

On the surface, it looked like it wasn’t going to be an easy. The MSM was focused on the 4-day old fake controversy surrounding Joe Wilson when he shouted that Obama had told a “lie.” Funny that this is a controversy since the President had just called many of those in the room and a majority of Americans that they were liars.

“Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.”

Not a misunderstanding. Not an inaccurate interpretation. He called a lot of people liars right there. Right after he said that, he went to basically call those who read the bill and saw no provision preventing illegal immigrants from seeking health care under this liars as well. After being called liars twice, once specifically and once implicitly, Joe Wilson fired back and said “You lie!” And THAT is the controversy, not that the President used that EXACT same chamber where Pelosi wants to censure Wilson to call the American people and many in that rooms liars! Back to the subject.

After wading through all the main page stories on Joe Wilson, I was able to dig up the stories on the Tea Party. The press wants this buried and minimized. I’m sure their controlling triumvirate, Obama, Pelosi and Reid, does too.

CNN’s story focused on the fact that tea party movement was “angry” and without “dominant leaders.” You see, that’s where CNN is just so plainly ignorant. We that agree with the tea party movement don’t NEED leaders. This is a grassroots efforts of pissed off Americans because our constitutional freedoms and liberties are under attack. We don’t need a MoveOn.org to tell us what to do next. We know what to do. Unfortunately, we can’t do much until 2010! THAT is when the media will pay attention to our actions. CNN will see that we have millions of leaders who work tirelessly to pay off the debts of this country as well as the social services the government unconstitutionally forces down our throats. I couldn’t help but get all giddy watching this video:

ABC News’ headline stated that “thousands” marched to the capital. And they couldn’t help adding to the headline, “many chanted ‘You Lie’” in reference to the fake controversy. ABC ensured that readers knew right up front who the story was about. The first line read, “Thousands of conservative protesters from across the country converged on the Capitol Saturday morning to demonstrate against President Obama’s proposals for health care reform and voicing opposition to big government, what they say is over-the-top spending.” They must’ve missed all the Democrats in attendance that are fed up too! If the tea party was comprised of mere “thousands” then surely there were a few “hundred” fed up Democrats and independents there.

MSNBC buried the story way down in the “politics” section. Their top story was Obama’s copy-cat speech in Minnesota where he basically regurgitated his speech to Congress. MSNBC upped the anti though on the number of protesters, putting it at “tens of thousands.”

My own local paper, the Parker Griffith Times The Huntsville Times (hattip to Dale Jackson for the title) pushed the story back to page A11. Granted, it was a HUGE story, but it simply used AP writers that also put the number in the tens of thousands.

Now, you may ask why am I expending all this energy on numbers? It’s easy. There is a story about which NOT ONE media report has written. And it’s a first hand account that was sent to me yesterday.

One of my roommates is a Volunteer for the event. She was put on Pennsylvania Ave and 13 St. At 10am she got calls from the Volunteers on the lawn that the police had closed the gates and weren’t letting anyone else in. She relayed this message to the senior Coordinator, who was with her, and they happened to be next to the Chief of Police (who had briefed them only hours before.) The Chief of Police argued and said that wasn’t possible because they would only lock the gates if that part of the lawn was full – and that that area held ONE MILLION people and there was no way we had one million people. My roommate said a few seconds later the Chief of Police got a call confirming that the gate was locked. As understood by the police, by 10am there were already 1 million people on the lawn.

ABC, therefore, is totally incorrect in publishing on the Internet at 7:30pm today that there were “60,000 – 70,000.”

If you would like to contact my roommate to talk to her about this, let me know. You may know someone else in the planning of the event who can give you the same account. A guy in our group is part of Alabama News Platoon. He’s interviewing her right now and will put an article out. We’re gonna send it to Fox. They, too, have been reporting tens of thousands – rather than millions.

Thousands? Tens of Thousands? A media that listens to radio reports of the Coast Guard and spreads panic that shots were fired because someone said “bang, bang” doesn’t listen to the radio reports of Metro Police when they make the call to shut the gates at the largest public rally against the President since he took office? Reporters have had an entire evening to craft their stories about the event, cull through the YouTube videos and blog photos, and even spy on their press competition and NOT ONE of them (except Fox News, who would have said a million if there really WERE only tens of thousands) came up with a figure even close to a million?! I couldn’t even find a report that said “hundreds of thousands.”

Then again, the British media seems to be on the ball.

Up to two million people marched to the U.S. Capitol today, carrying signs with slogans such as “Obamacare makes me sick” as they protested the president’s health care plan and what they say is out-of-control spending.

The line of protesters spread across Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks, all the way to the capitol, according to the Washington Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.

Read more.

Your next question – or was it the first – is “why is CJ putting this on ASP?” I voluntarily took an oath when I joined the military that I still honor nearly 15 years later. It was an oath to the Constitution, to protect that sacred document and what it stands for. In the 18th Century, our nation was forced into a revolution to “dissolve the political bands” of repression and corruption.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

No right thinking individual can honestly say that the problems we face in this country are remotely close to the problems that forced us into a Revolutionary War. Not close. The Declaration of Indepence notes that it wasn’t until they were faced with absolute despotism that they took action. We still have our freedoms in this country, though they are under attack. We don’t have standing Armies stationed within the cities threatening the citizens. We are not faced with the “absolute tyranny” that we encountered under the king of Great Britain. But, if don’t do something, we will continue to head down that road.

The tea parties are the civilian manifestation of that same oath I took as a Soldier to protect the Constitution from “absolute tyranny.” They recognize that the government is usurping way too much control over its citizens in the forms of taxation, petty laws that restrict liberties, and the consolidation of power among the few elected officials. They have created a chasm between the citizen and those who serve them in the government. The Executive and Legislative branches have morphed into an untouchable class to which no laws apply. They seek to force us – yes, FORCE us – into doing things that they are not willing to do themselves. They hail those that agree with their own agendas (on both sides) while denigrating and calling names those that disagree with them. They have forgotten that they serve the WHOLE of the United States, not a small percentage that is confined within their individual districts.

Are we angry? Yes, we are. Are we marching towards Socialism and tyranny? Yes, we are. Though we have a long way yet to go, we’ve already gone quite a distance in that direction. The two-party system is destroying this country. All we do is flip flop between two parties in power so long they have lost their commitment to the people and directed their focus instead at gaining or retaining power through devious means. Their mandate is no longer to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Instead, one could argue the preamble they subscribe to goes more like this:

“We the Elected People of the United States, in Order to maintin more control over the Union, establish Justice through coercion and force, destroy domestic Tranquility through partisan fighting and power grabs, provide for the common defence of those that agree with us, promote Welfare as a means of dependence upon the government, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves only and to our Posterity be damned, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

THAT is why the tea party is so successful and THAT is why there were more than a million patriots marching across the country and in our nation’s capital yesterday.