When Tea Party Express III kicked off in Searchlight, Nevada, a couple of weeks ago, CNN described the crowd of 10-20,000 as "at least dozens of people." Earlier today, the "Top Stories" widget on my iGoogle page included a Boston Globe report that "hundreds" were at the Tea Party Express rally at Boston Common.
The Tea Party Express people say it was "Well over 10,000," and they have pictures and aerial footage to back it up.
The Boston Globe has now acknowledged in its photo gallery of the event that there were "thousands." But it wasn't until picture 23 (of 71) that I found a half-way decent crowd shot, and that's at a low enough angle that it's hard to judge the size. Most of the images are tight shots of Palin or of fewer than half a dozen attendees (I quit after looking at the first 36; maybe all the crowd shots are toward the end).
Well, we've gone from an absurd claim of dozens, to a laughable claim of hundreds, to a grudging acknowledgment of thousands. It's progress, I suppose.