There was a mini-National Review Cruise reunion in Washington on Saturday at the march. One cruiser e-mailed friends yesterday:

Some right-thinking friends of mine who I met this summer in Europe came to town for the “tea party” / 9-12 protests on Capitol Hill, and they invited [my wife and me] to join them at the festivities. As a conservative, I’m not prone to protest in the streets — I generally make my arguments in the course of conversations, in writing, and in the occasional speech. But this time, I decided to join my friends to witness this tea-party movement. I’m glad I went.
In my estimate, there were probably about 30,000 to 40,000 folks there, stretching from Capitol Hill down the mall to the Washington monument. There may have been more — I heard “tens of thousands,” “hundreds of thousands,” as well as a “1.2 million” figure from various sources today — but we’ll see. No matter the actual number, I’m confident there haven’t been that many conservatives in Washington, D.C., in the last 50 years.
I’ve never seen so many funny signs, and I was paying more attention to them than anything else. Admittedly, some of the signs would have certainly offended President Obama’s staunch supporters. I saw a couple “birthers” there. There were a number of “Liar” signs. There were a lot of “Marxist” and “Socialist” signs, but they wouldn’t have outnumbered the old “Fascist” or “Nazi” signs that liberals used to protest President Bush. Most notably, I saw no signs that were terribly offensive–no swastikas, no KKK signs, and nothing like the worst of the anti-Bush signs that would frequently appear at liberal protests over the past 8 years: zomblog/?p=621see. All in all, I saw signs you would expect at a protest of this size. For those who are interested, some of my favorite signs were these: “Silly Marxist, Czars are for Russia” “It took Carter to give us Reagan” “Remember Soylent Green is People” “Trees Love CO2″ “Right Wing Extremists (with picture of Founding Fathers)” “Who is John Galt?”
While I was walking around for the great people-watching, I only saw one person who rightly could have been called “angry,” and yet it was a bit comical, too: There was an ACORN “community organizer” who was walking around passing out her propaganda, and she was being followed for at least 20-30 minutes by a man who kept shouting repetitively, “This woman works for ACORN! ACORN is a fraud! Obama sucks!” I was entertained by it, but I have to say that I felt a little bad for her. ACORN may be bad for America, but the kinder side of me doesn’t want to believe that everyone in that organization is corrupt. I also saw another exchange that wasn’t very nice: a young man carrying a sign reading, “Joe McCarthy was right,” crossed paths with a woman wearing an Obama shirt — when he passed her, he muttered, “You should get another shirt,” and she got in his face to tell him a thing or two. Not a proud moment for either of them, but also entertaining for me.
All in all, the people I saw seemed very normal. The kind of people I might see at the grocery store in Virginia or at church in Georgia. I spoke to a number of them, and normal is the first word that comes to my mind. I found many of them to be very nice, funny, amiable, and interesting. Of course, they were all very upset with what the President and Congress are trying to do. They’re upset about the wasteful spending, the expansion of the federal government, the socialism-esque redistribution-of-wealth, and the haste with which lawmakers are enacting laws they haven’t read. All of those serious frustrations are why these out-of-towners had traveled to a protest in Washington, D.C. But despite their concerns, I think it would be unfair to call this group of people an “angry lynch mob.”
In my view, this is all very interesting. When this “tea party” movement started (in February, I believe), the media — some more than others — took notice. But the consensus was that it wouldn’t last. Eventually people stop protesting, right? But this thing seems to have legs. Nine months into the Administration, it’s as strong as ever. I’m not convinced it’s the best thing that has happened for Republicans — I saw some anti-Bush signs today, too — but it’s got to be better for Republicans than for Democrats. And if Democrats continue to appear as being dismissive of average Americans, there’s good reason for them to be concerned about 2010.