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Title  THE ANTI-WAR NUMBERS GAME 
Release Date  2003-02-17 
Time   
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Article Text 
FEBRUARY 17. On Saturday morning, MSNBC ran a piece headlined ""Tens of thousands rally against war.""

They were talking WORLDWIDE. First of all, the rallies in US cities hadn't even started yet.

But here's what I love. Down in the MSNBC story, we find this: ""On Friday, at least 150,000 people packed the streets of Melbourne, Austrialia...""

I guess you could call that tens of thousands---15 tens...or you could say thousands (150) or hundreds (1500) or ones (150,000).

Later in the story, this naked quote: ""Hundreds of thousands of people are expected at protests around the world.""

You've got to admire those headline writers and editors. They'll lie even if their own story contradicts the headline.

SNOW (in the Arctic) REDUCES DEMONSTRATIONS.

Later on Saturday, AP reported at least a million people in the streets of Rome (organizers said 3 million), 750,000 in London (organizers said 2 million), almost half a million in Berlin, and 100,000 in Paris.

antiwar.com reported 50,000 in Athens, 100,000 in Dublin, 6000 in Tokyo, 30,000 in Bern, 50,000 in Montevideo.

The NYC rally has drawn at least 100,000. Organizers there state that rallies are going on in 600 cities and towns around the world.

Later on Saturday, MSNBC replaced its ""tens of thousands"" headline with ""millions."" CNN, however, steadfastly clung to a ""hundreds of thousands"" figure for the total of all demonstrators outside the US. Complete baloney.

Then on Sunday morning, as if the day before had not taught MSNBC anything, a story ran about a second day of protests in Australia. The tens of thousands figure was trotted out again to describe total numbers of people on the streets of that nation. Meanwhile, from the scene itself, the Sydney Morning Herald was reporting between 250,000 and 300,000 on the Sunday strets of Sydney alone. It's pretty obvious who's been training the MSNBC dogs...

JON RAPPOPORT www.stratiawire.com