It's interesting to read here about the rally from the point of view of those who saw it through the media, because from the ground, ANSWER was just not that important. While everyone gathered on the Elipse (and spilled out onto Constitution Avenue) there weren't that many people really listening to the speeches. The volume wasn't turned up very loud, it was hard to distinguish one from another, and everyone was busy reading each other's signs and t-shirts as they milled around waiting for the march to begin. (Apparently there was a three hour delay on Amtrak, and the leaders were waiting for the thousands coming down from NY and Philadelphia and other points north to arrive.) And once we started marching, ANSWER and all their absurdities had nothing to do with what was happening on the street.
The metro downtown was packed with all sorts of people. I went to one of ANSWER's rallies before the war, and in general, it was a pretty young and fringey crowd. Today, there were families with little kids, older people, and everything in between - pretty much regular folk. People were there to protest the war, and assorted Bush administration travesties, nothing else. They hardly took note of ANSWER's other issues.
It was incredibly, incredibly crowded. I have no idea how they measure crowd size, but the march extended block after block after block with the streets packed with people, and tons of people in the surrounding streets. It was lots of fun, too - the crowd was very fluid once you got past the bottleneck at Constitution and 15th St (across the street from the Washington monument) and I got to see a lot of different groups. There were the Veterans for Peace, chanting together, led by an older man in his veteran's hat who carried the flag with immense dignity. There was a group from Vermont (perhaps Bread & Puppet Theater)who had huge brown and black paper puppets that represented "collateral damage". It was very intense - the very large contingent would make the puppets sway and then fall in unison - at one point they were all lying down in the street. I saw the grannies group all dressed in funny hats, the enormous group from Code Pink all carrying pink balloons, Buddhists in robes, a peace group from Georgia, one from Florida, another from Minnesota. One group xeroxed a photo of each of the soldiers who died in the war and attached them all to a very long string. They marched in a long line, which was very moving. There were signs everywhere, about the war, about the lies, about impeachment, and lots of singing and chanting. The atmosphere was so positive, like people were almost relieved to come out on the street and stand up for what has been on their minds for so long. It felt to me like the heart of America.