What does reading and writing a language have to do with estimating the size of a crowd? Does “20,000″ in German translate to “200,000″ in English? Is it some new math? Or maybe a metric-to-standard conversion the rest of us don’t know about?

I have posted a link to support my claim. It reads in part:

“Obama Addresses 200,000 in Berlin” — thus ran the AP headline the day after Barack Obama’s much-hyped speech in front of Berlin’s Siegessäule or “Victory Column.” This 200,000 figure has quickly become the standard estimate of the crowd for Obama’s speech in both the American and the German media: so standard indeed that it is for the most part not even treated as an estimate.

The estimates given by German public television ZDF actually during the event, however, were as little as one-tenth of that number…. Barely five minutes before the speech was supposed to start, ZDF Berlin studio chief Peter Frey added, “We do estimate that 20,000 [literally, "a couple of ten thousand"] people have turned out.”
…
And then: the candidate did not appear at the appointed time…. When the coverage resumed some fifteen minutes later, ZDF host Claus Kleber promptly declared that there were “one hundred thousand” people on the Fan Mile. He then repeated the claim twice more in rapid succession — now, more precisely, “over one hundred thousand people” — as if repetition could somehow cover up the glaring discrepancy between this number and the number cited by his colleague Frey only 20 minutes earlier.

…By 8 p.m. — as the crowd filed out, obediently following the order to disperse given over the loud-speaker system — the number being cited had grown to fully 200,000. As this German timeline indicates, the original source for the rapidly growing estimates was in fact the rally organizers: i.e. the Obama team.

Further proof that the inflated numbers are coming from the Obama campaign itself can be found here:

Be that as it may, I yesterday contacted the press office of the Berlin police department to ask if the police was prepared to embrace the 200,000 estimate that has been attributed to it by several news organizations. “More than 200,000,” I was told. When, however, I asked whether this was, then, the “official estimate” of the Berlin police, I was told rather that it was the number established by the police “with the organizers of the event” — i.e. the Obama team.

As explained to me, moreover, the method used to arrive at the figure involved nothing more elaborate than assuming a given number of persons per square meter – four was mentioned as a maximum number – and extrapolating over the surface of the “fan mile.” The problem with this procedure is that, as the visual evidence clearly reveals, the density of the crowd was by no means uniform. Four persons per square meter may well be a realistic assumption for the some several hundred meters closest to the stage: i.e. those several hundred meters that, perhaps not coincidentally, are the focus of virtually all the iconic images of the Obama crowd. But the density along the half of the boulevard closest to the Brandenburg Gate, where people were milling about at a seemingly comfortable distance from one another, was clearly far less.

On what, exactly, are you basing your claim that I am wrong? You’ll have to do better than knowledge of the German language. Links of actual proof would help.

Somehow it is like I expected – If Bush is gone everything will return to business as usual. The hardliners will continue to hate America – there will be more America-fans again and as usually – the most simply will continue to not care about it at all….

You can watch this process in Europe every time, when the US is at war. And if the US will start the next one it will be exactly the same… If the europeans like or dislike the US depends a lot on their president. If the europeans support an american war or not depends a lot on the enemy. However – we are too much linked through economy and culture to really hate each other nowadays… I guess.

I would laugh about that one, if it wasn*t that ridiculous…

Don’t forget McCain!

On his visit to a German thinghy he got 4 viewers.

This made me laugh. McCain? McCain who? lol Poor McCain.

By default, I think it is suggested that if Europe loves a presidential candidate THIS much that right-wing America will then not vote for Obama. But then again, weren’t these people already NOT voting for Obama?

Liberal America already likes Obama and Europe.

In my opinion, I don’t think his popularity in Europe will change a thing.

On his visit to a German thinghy he got 4 viewers.

The rest were watching Obama on TV.

Obama will win by a landslide!

Dear Europe, don’t get your hopes up.

In any event, I did adore his speech in Berlin.

By the way Jean, I fixed the typo in your post.

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/blog/blog.aspx?id=2492