Glenn Beck's rally: The war over crowd numbers

Three days after Beck's 'Restoring Honor' rally, the debate rages on: Just how many Tea Partiers flooded the National Mall?

Spectators fill the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the World War II Memorial during the 'Restoring Honor' event.
(Image credit: Getty)

Days after Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally, there is still active sparring in the blogosphere over how many people were in attendance. That's no surprise, says Peter Grier at the Christian Science Monitor. "Rally organizers usually say crowds were huge, bigger than expected. Critics will say the numbers were less than anticipated. That’s been the case for years." This weekend was no different, though the range of estimates is wider than normal. (Watch Beck's take on the crowd size.) Here's how they lined up:

87,000

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