FreedomWorks began planning for a Washington rally over a month ago. Specifically, based on timestamps on their message board, they began applying for permits for a September 12th rally in the early afternoon of March 13th, 2009. March 13th sounded familiar last night, but I didn't make an important connection.
As it turns out that, March 13th was also the day that Glenn Beck took to Fox News for his "We Surround Them" special. That night, he introduced his 9/12 project:
From Media Matters, a mashup of sycophantic coverage from Fox -- of their own events.
To recap: off-air, Cavuto is recorded estimating the crowd at 5,000, perhaps slightly more. On-air, Cavuto says the crowd is “easily” double or triple that.
But when FNC turns itself into the Tea Party Network tomorrow, having built up to it with a series of completely one-sided promos, it doesn’t just make “fair and balanced” into a joke, but threatens to undermine if not overwhelm a nascent movement of citizens and make it look like what the Obamanauts will dismiss it as being - a manufactured tool of the already committed Right.
VAN SUSTEREN: Hi, Sean. I know you're going to Atlanta. Why Atlanta? Why that tea party?
SEAN HANNITY, HOST, "HANNITY": You know, I -- well, first of all, I lived in Atlanta, Greta, for four years, so that might have a little something to do with it. But you know, look, it's just one of a lot that are happening around the country. What's interesting to me is that these have been happening organically. It's really a grass-roots type of effort, and the mainstream media hasn't covered it.
Critics have raised journalistic questions about Fox's coverage leading up to today's tea parties. But have other networks just closed their eyes to what's happening across the country?
Take Charles Johnson, a jazz musician and software programmer who is best known for his Web site, Little Green Footballs. Although an independent himself, for years Johnson's LGF has been one of the most popular blogs on the right, focusing mostly on national-security issues and the war on terror. It's also been a magnet for criticism from the left and even denounced by some as a "hate site" for its strident criticism of radical Islam.
SANFORD: I think that it's slowly sleeping in, which is why we've been pushing it back, as we have in our state, and why I think that those tea parties that are, you know — again, originating around the country, are so important come April 15.