DAVID HOGBERG points out that A.N.S.W.E.R. is now claiming a half million protesters in Washington yesterday. A German reader emails that the German media are uncritically repeating this claim.

Do these photos show a protest with a half-million people?

The photo on A.N.S.W.E.R.’s website is suspiciously tight in its framing. (In fact, all their crowd shots are). Note the absence of a panoramic view, and note that reports from the scene yesterday noted that a block from the mall you couldn’t tell anything was going on. Of course, they’re not exaggerating their crowd size any more than they’ll exaggerate Iraqi civilian casualties in the event of war. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on crowd sizes: maybe bigger in San Francisco than the official estimates, but nothing like a half million in DC. Some interesting photographs of other marches are included.