This photo
ran with a story in today's Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette about an event at Trine University in Angola, Indiana yesterday featuring Fox News TV show host Glenn Beck showing many empty seats in the gymnasium where the event was held. Jeff Wiehe writes:
With the gymnasium a little more than half-full of supporters, many of them donning buttons calling him a “True American” or some other phrase expressing their admiration, Glenn Beck began preaching Saturday.
He promised miracles. He talked of a God who would judge, and he put George Washington next to Jesus Christ as one of the greatest men to ever live. He assured the crowd that they see the light, while the media and many of the politicians – the “establishment” – are lost in darkness.
He warned that tough times are ahead, that there are consequences for the things done under the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. “At some point,” the television and radio talk show host said, “you have to pay for those sins.”
Beck fervently mixed religion and politics the entire afternoon, regaling a crowd of a few thousand at Trine University with romantic images of the nation’s first president and calling for them to remain faithful to God.
Beck was the featured speaker of a rally organized by We the People Michiana 9/12 Project of Elkhart. He spoke for about an hour and 15 minutes, declaring that a new chapter of American history is being written now.
In sharp contrast, another Beck rally
held in Hoffman Estates yesterday in Barack Obama's home state drew 5,000. Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady joined Beck at the rally but U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, the GOP Senate candidate, stayed away from the Right Nation 2010 event. He faces a close contest with State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a close friend of Obama. Recent polls have shown Brady leading Gov. Pat Quinn, who succeeded to the office after the impeachment and Senate trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich resulted in his removal from office. Local activist Paul Wheeler is featured in a photo which ran in today's Chicago Sun-Times dressed in his familiar American Revolutionary War-era costume he often wore at Tea Party events in Indianapolis during the 2007 municipal election.
I'm not religious, so for me that angle is over-the-top, like a suppossed righteous location for a mosque where logically none should go. However, I've heard either direct audio or quotes I won't hear from a mainstream media that no longer covers both sides. Examples being the former or would-be Czar Van Jones, and lots of debt and deficit coverage, post AND pre-President Obama.
ReplyDeleteToo be fair- Angola's not exactly a major crossroads in the Midwest. Beck seems to book some appearances as a favor. Or, maybe this was indeed a dud.
I still listen to some weekend replays. If it gets too "Old Testament", I gotta bail. But, he emphasizes the citizen getting off your duff, becoming participative, and studying history and civics to have a real reference.
You may disagree or find him personally disagreeable, but I don't think that's bad advice given our predicament.
I hope he was being sincere, and would have liked to have been there. George Washington still deserves to have his own special federal holiday, not just be lumped in with President's Day. Can't wait for Amazon to mail me, THE OVERTON WINDOW, used discount, of course.
ReplyDeleteI don't trust Glenn Beck.
ReplyDeleteBecoming active and studying history and civics is a laudable goal. Regrettably, many that do, or claim to do so, get the lessons terribly and objectively wrong.
ReplyDeleteBeck wishes to annoint Washington as Christ's brother. Washington was indeed the war chief of the Continental Army. But to ignore James Madison's role as primary architect of the Constitution demonstrate's a fundamental misintepretation of Washington's role as "father of the country." Madison, Washington, and the others in attendance at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 are all "fathers of this country."