I told you it wouldn’t be long before the media would play down the crowd numbers at Beck’s Restoring Honor rally. I was right.

“An estimated 87,000 people attended a rally organized by talk-radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News.

The company AirPhotosLive.com based the attendance on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which stretched from in front of the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument. Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spoke at the rally.

Beck, who predicted that at least 100,000 people would show up, opened his comments with a joke: “I have just gotten word from the media that there is over 1,000 people here today.”

The area around the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington during a rally organized by conservative commentator Glenn Beck is seen in this aerial picture taken Aug. 28, 2010. (Credit: AirPhotosLIVE.com)

AirPhotosLive.com gave its estimate a margin of error of 9,000, meaning between 78,000 and 96,000 people attended the rally. The photos used to make the estimate were taken at noon Saturday, which is when the company estimated was the rally’s high point.”

Airphotos Live isn’t remotely qualified to give estimates on crowd size. Indeed according to it’s “who we are” page, they don’t even list that as an option. NBC News, the New York Times and other media outlets put it at close to 300,000, that’s more a likely number, where incidentally the Park Service DID place the estimate at 300,000. Yes they still do crowd estimates.

Again the photo tells the real story.

DC Rally

UPDATE: CNN: “CNN contacted AirPhotosLive.com about the estimate they did for CBS News. A company official told CNN they used photos taken from their tethered balloons to shoot photos at the height of the crowd. They then had 3 experts use their own methodologies to evaluate the crowd. Company officials said they extrapolated the crowd size from 2-D and 3-D grids of the photographs marked off in small boxes.”

Ok. So who are these “experts”? So C-BS’s original report that AirPhotosLive estimated is actually a lie. As I said they are not qualified so they outsourced the counting to some anonymous “experts”.

I’v got a few friends with the USGS (Geological Survey) who ARE qualified to make assessments. I asked them at the center here in Miami to take a look. While they too say that numbering these crowds is difficult, you can assume from the photographs that the numbers are well over 100,000, more likely between 150,000 and 200,000.

Both sides of the mall are filled in the photos we have seen so far. On the life side of the AP photo it would take more than 100,000 to fill that area alone.

The Park Service which – in contrary to reports – does crowd size estimates – put the number at more than 300,000.

By the way, the Park Service MUST estimate crowd sizes for purposes of security and for the allotment of emergency services and resources. Reports that it no longer performs number estimates is a lie. It’s a meme that has been repeated for more than 10 years, but it’s simply not so.

UPDATE: Doug Powers with a recap and good points.