THE AFL-CIO STEPS IN IT: “A union official backed away Friday from an analogy in an e-mail in which he had linked Volkswagen’s Nazi past to the use of Hispanic workers building the automaker’s Chattanooga plant.”

In the future, everyone will be a Nazi for 15 minutes.

NICK GILLESPIE: Argue about Saturday’s numbers all you want, but “the crowd was truly huge.” “First, the crowd was truly huge. Second, the crowd was from all over the place (both geographically and ideologically). And third, the crowd, well-behaved and stunningly normal in the main, was genuinely pissed off at out of control spending and government policies. “Stop spending,” was the basic answer to any questions about what Congress and the president should do come tomorrow. Throw the bums of either party out come next fall was the second most-common answer.”

As I’ve said all along, the 2 million number seems awfully high to me — even if we did first hear it from an internal Democratic memo. But Stephen Green reported an actual body count of 450,000 by noon. So I’d say upwards of half a million is a reasonable figure. PJTV has been trying to see if there’s a satellite photo, but I think the cloud cover was probably dense enough to rule that out.

But these pictures show an awful lot of people.

Plus, a rather intensive crowd analysis by Henry Vanderbilt, over at Rand Simberg’s.

THAT’S ENCOURAGING: Federal Healthcare Will Mimic The IRS.

HOWARD KURTZ on how the media blew the Van Jones story. “In the Jones case, there is little question that the traditional media botched the story of an Obama administration official who, wittingly or otherwise, lent his name to those who believe that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney deliberately allowed thousands of Americans to be slaughtered. Some conservatives accused journalists of liberal bias; it is just as likely that their radar malfunctioned, or that they collectively dismissed Beck as a rabble-rouser. ” The truth is, they don’t think having been a communist, or believing silly conspiracy theories about Bush and Cheney, is all that bad, and they suffered a Kaelian surprise when they discovered that most people felt differently. Plus this: “The follow-up news pieces focused on the administration’s failure to vet Jones’s background. Perhaps the media bloodhounds should be just as curious why they failed to sniff out a story that ended with a White House resignation.”

What’s Howard’s next item? This puzzler: “Public respect for the media has plunged to a new low, with just 29 percent of Americans saying that news organizations generally get their facts straight.” Do tell.

TIGERHAWK: The health care “reformers” go after medical technology.

You were warned.

STEPHEN FARRELL: The New York Times journalist for whom a soldier died.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Election trouble brewing for House Dems in 2010. “Despite sweeping Democratic successes in the past two national elections, continuing job losses and President Barack Obama’s slipping support could lead to double-digit losses for the party in next year’s congressional races and may even threaten their House control.”

BYRON YORK: Inside the 9/12 Tea Party Protest. “Some people were animated by a single issue — health care, taxes, the Second Amendment. But in dozens of interviews with marchers, the picture that emerged was of people who believe things are racing out of control along a whole range of fronts in Washington, and that no one is representing their interests. . . . You’ve probably heard descriptions of the marchers as crazies and haters and fanatics. Perhaps there were some in the crowd. Far more important, though, was the very presence of so many everyday Americans protesting in Washington, just eight months into unified Democratic control of the White House and Congress. What did Barack Obama and his party’s leadership on Capitol Hill do to bring doctors and truck drivers together in common cause on the streets of the nation’s capital? More than anything, these people are afraid that the new president is running the country off a cliff. They’re in no mood to remain silent now.”

OH, LOOK: More ACORN Prostitution Videos. This time from New York.

THE HITS KEEP COMING: Charlie Rangel’s rental disorder. “Rep. Charles Rangel reported no rental income for eight years on his rundown Harlem row house, even though public records show tenants were living there.”

Taxes are for the little people. Maybe if Joe Wilson gives an apology speech in the well of the House, he should apologize to the public for Charlie Rangel, too. . . .

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? U.S. Tire Duties Lead to Trade War With China.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Obama’s Speech Was No Game-Changer. “Bottom line: right now, voters are almost exactly where they were before the speech.”

MICKEY KAUS: That’s It? That’s the Bounce? “WaPo reports that in the days after Obama’s speech, the Dem health care plan was opposed by a 48 to 46 margin–versus a 50-45 margin in mid-August. … From five points down to two points down. That’s all he got for playing the joint-session-prime-time-address card? Does that seem like enough to you?”

JAMES JOYNER on the 9/12 protests and the reaction thereto. Love the photo at the bottom.

IN WHICH I PROVE prophetic.