Huffington Post
- Last week in a commentary in the Huffington Post, we promised not to prejudge Glenn Beck’s planned Lincoln Memorial rally to “Restore Honor” on the 47th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s “I Have A Dream” speech. With the rally concluded, however, it is time to weigh in not in anticipation of the planned event, but on the event that unfolded.
In Sunday’s New York Times, op-ed columnist Ross Douthat essentially suggested that the rally was bland enough that people on either side of the issue could see what they wanted in it:
A Beck admirer could spin “Restoring Honor” as proof that left-wing fears about the Tea Partiers are overblown: free of rancor, racism or populist resentment, the atmosphere at the rally resembled that of a church picnic or a high school football game. But a suspicious liberal could retort that all the God-and-Christ talk and military tributes were proof enough that a sinister Christian nationalism lurked beneath the surface.
It is easy to agree with Douthat on this point. But surely a man like Beck would not purposely design a television event to be so unfocused that it meant to be read as pep rally, a come-to-Jesus meeting and anything in between. In his eyes, at least, it must have been one or the other.
