Spot the difference in the blogging regarding the number of those at Trafalgar Square protesting Bush's London visit. While Hoffmania! appears to be following the adage of "believ[ing] none of what you hear, and only half of what you see," InstaPu... uses the saxophonist's "circular breathing" method to incessantly spew forth anti-truth pablum.

Hoffmania! (has eyes, can use 'em):

And somewhere in Britain, President Cokespoon is pleased that CNN isn't showing the hundreds of thousands of angry Brits protesting his visit, because the nets are busy covering this "news." [Michael Jackson being driven "to wherever he's going"]

So here. Let's show you what's NOT being shown on the news - the love the U.K. is displaying toward President Pilotpackage: [followed by a series of photos] [LINK]

InstaPundit's Glenn Reynolds (hangs onto his masturbatory "right-is-omniscient" fantasy 'til reality practically bites him on the ass):

The NPR story that I just heard didn't mention any numbers -- it just interviewed protesters. From that alone, anyone used to reading Pravda could have figured out that the numbers were small. . . . [LINK]

[Quoting the BBC "Reporters' log"]:

A relatively small number of protesters have made their way down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace where they have effectively been cut of [sic] by the substantial police numbers who have been visible all day today.

Several hundred people would perhaps be a generous assessment of how many people made it there.

[Reynolds] They're promising 100,000 for tomorrow. We'll see. [LINK]

[Quoting David Frum in the Telegraph]:

The anti-Bush demonstration in Lincoln's Inn Fields was called for six o'clock, but at the appointed hour, journalists and camera crews substantially outnumbered protesters. . . .

...

I looked up and down the south side of the square. The "mass movement" extended barely half the length of the railing. I'd seen larger crowds at poetry readings. [LINK]

[Reynolds] HERE'S A LIVE WEBCAM VIEW of Trafalgar Square. Doesn't look like 100,000 people to me, to the extent you can tell from one webcam. Nor to Andy at World Wide Rant.

UPDATE: This BBC story still says 100,000 are "expected" -- but if you scroll down you'll see that it's really more like 30-40,000. That's about 10% of the number who showed up to protest the fox-hunting ban. And yeah, I know these numbers don't mean much in themselves. But the downward trend seems pretty clear.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Email from London suggests that protesters aren't exactly overrunning the place. And here's a photo from a London blogger's office window that makes the turnout seem less than overwhelming, too. [LINK]

[Quoting David Carr]

Never in all my days have I cast my gaze upon such a motley collection of bedraggled, unsightly, grotseque and snaggle-toothed specimens as gathered today in Central London.

[Reynolds] And he's got the pictures to prove it. [LINK]

Finally, "all Insta, no Pundit" makes a three-word admission that his claims -- which are merely excerpted above -- were wrong:

"IAIN MURRAY ... says he was wrong about the turnout ... So was I." [LINK]

[Originals contain many links]

[All bold emphasis in quoted sections mine]

What a man, that Glenn! (Not!)