With Obama’s approval ratings back on the rise; and the conservative tea-party movement losing steam, Republicans recentely resorted to holding a large rally at Washington D.C. in the hopes that Americans would decide Obama is unfit to be president. Knowing that the media gets a woodie for any demonstrations against our current President, the ‘teabaggers’ grabbed their misspelled/ignorant/occasionally racist protest signs and marched their way through the capitol. The question is, did it even work?

In estimates provided by the teabaggers themselves, it was stated that anywhere from 1.5 to 2 million protesters were on hand at the recent rally to protest Obama’s economic and health care policies. Conservative blogs lit up with what was purported to be an aerial photo of the demonstration, eagerly frothing at the mouth at what they felt was a sign that Obama’s popular status in the country was coming to an end. Conservatives sipped their tea, and slapped eachother five, congratulating eachother on their acheivements until reality sunk in a few days later.

In official estimates provided by fire police in the area it has now been revealed that only 50,000-70,000 people showed up to the rally…a far cry from the 1.5-2million estimate provided by the teabaggers at the event. To put this into perspective, that is only 0.025% of the country’s 2009 estimated population of 305 million. Not even one percent of the country showed up to protest against President Obama.

As for the photo itself? It’s not from the event, or even from any events this year. The picture shows an overhead view of the Promise Keepers rally that took place in 1997. This is evidenced by the fact that the National Museum of The American Indian (which opened in 2004 and is located at the corner of Fourth Street and Independence Avenue and should be in the upper right hand corner of the National Mall, next to the Air and Space Museum) is nowhere to be found, and that from comments made by the fire police..the crowd “only filled the Capitol grounds, maybe up to Third Street” but not up to the Washington Monument as shown. Therefore, in the words of Mr. Joe Wilson himself, I suppose it’s safe to tell the teabaggers: “YOU LIE!”.

What’s worse for these protesters is these protests had absolutely no effect on the American people; as Obama’s approval ratings (in recent polling) are now higher than they were in August, and most people now support Obama’s vision of Healthcare reform. Which just goes to say, if a Paranoid Republican falls in the woods, does anybody really care?