SOME OBSERVATIONS from the Tax Day Tea Party in Washington, D.C.

The rally officially started about 6:30 pm. When we arrived – around 5 pm – there were perhaps a few thousand present, widely scattered. By 7 pm, the preliminary estimate was 25,000 and people were still arriving. The maximum number I heard, at about 9 pm, was 40,000, which could be, but seems high. My guess would be on the close order of 30,000.

Yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags were in abundance, and the local street vendors selling them should plan on having to pay much higher taxes this year [at least it'll be on much higher income]. I did notice one journalist (I think) targeting the flag bearers, asking (again, I think; I was never near enough to catch more than snatches of conversation) about their knowledge of flag history. If it was intended to be a “gotcha” moment, it failed.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey spoke briefly. He had been working the crowd earlier in the evening, and went out of his way to salute the “435 villages are missing their idiots” sign, adding that “not so many years ago, I would have been one of those idiots.”

A group of Ohio coal miners drove directly to the Tea Party to plead their case for more coal and more jobs; they were not put off by the West Virginia mining disaster, saying in effect “we know what we’re getting into.” One miner, a big, burly, no-nonsense fellow had a word of advice for the President: “Americans bow to no one.” Cheers erupted throughout the crowd.

Racism seems to be a big issue on the Left; not so much on the Right. As usual, there weren’t enough minorities at the rally, but the ones who were there seemed perfectly comfortable instead of “fearing for their lives” as one leftist blog commentor thought they should. Corrogan Vaughn, running for soon-to-be-former Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski’s seat, was greeted by hugs and handshakes throughout the crowd. Dianne Borelli, of (the black conservative) Project 21 brought down the crowd when she touched her face with both hands and proclaimed “Mr. Olbermann, this color doesn’t fade!”

Lord Christopher Moncton, England’s leading climage change denialist had a few words of advice for the Tea Partiers: “Don’t dump the tea in Boston Harbor again; it tastes much better coming from a teapot.”

Country music artist Ray Stevens made several appearances throughout the night; his song ‘If 10 Percent is Good Enough for Jesus, it Ought to be Good Enough for Uncle Sam’ brought enthusiastic applause.

With that as a segue into tax reform, Grover Norquist and Neal Boortz announced a truce among the Fair Taxers, Flat Taxers, and anti-taxers for the purpose of getting tax reform on the Congressional agenda. Paraphrasing their announcement, “We’ll haggle over details later.”

“Crash the Tea Parties” was an epic failure. During the time we were at the protest rally itself, there were no incidents. I saw two obvious counterprotestors at the perimeter of the crowd, and the marchers pictured in this post made two quiet circuits of the crowd, then left.

And when we finally left, there was no litter.