It looks like the media clampdown worked, at least as far as keeping the event almost entirely out of the headlines - there's a short article here, which notes that the Defense Department claims over 13,000 people participated, but there's also a (very short) first-hand report here, which puts the crowd closer to 3,000. Generally, though, there was almost complete media silence about the event, which is no doubt (to my mind, at least) exactly what the organizers wanted. However, it has been said before that there are two types of silence - suspicious, and embarrassed. I think this is an example of the latter.

• Mykeru - Freedom Walk Operation Yellow Elephant video.
• DC Drinking Liberally - Freedom Walk Reports.
• Pretty pathetic Flickr output.

Apparently it wasn't all that:

Although the Pentagon required walkers to preregister for the event, officials did not provide a crowd estimate. Metro officials said about 4,000 people arrived at the Pentagon's Metro station yesterday morning.

I grew up outside DC; every time there's a rally on the Mall, the organization that sponsors it reports the number of people who attended (or argues about it with the Park Service). It's unusual for event sponsors not to report numbers, especially since people had to register in advance. The Washington Post's photo gallery only has shots of small groups, including what looks like the same family in photos 1 and 7. The crowds look pretty sparse in the Defense Department's photo essay, too.

The New York Times writeup says "more than 15,000 people" registered. The Pentagon couldn't say how many actually showed up, "though it was clear that there were several thousand people."

AMERICABlog went to the Mall after the concert, and it looked amazingly clean 2 hours later.

This guy has a video of going to the walk to try to recruit people to go to Iraq.

According to Salon's writeup, Rumsfeld (who was desribed by several people as "a hunk") said "This is our first March for Freedom and by the size of the crowd, I suspect it will not be the last."

(Portions cribbed from my MetaFilter comment.)

But did Clint Black play Iraq And Roll?

Thanks folks. Those are great.
Any more would be good too.
I am finding it to be an interesting read.

Pretty pathetic. I've seen bigger church picnics.