Douthat on Beck

Ross Douthat's take on Beck-a-palooza is about as insightful as I've seen, and it captures a lot of what I've felt but haven't been able to artfully express.  Here's a key graph from his editorial:

"In a sense, Beck’s “Restoring Honor” was like an Obama rally through the looking glass. It was a long festival of affirmation for middle-class white Christians — square, earnest, patriotic and religious. If a speaker had suddenly burst out with an Obama-esque “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” the message would have fit right in." 

That's it, really, for me.  This rally and the Tea Party, represents a bunch of State-U or No-U, hard workin', church goin', tax payin', flag wavin'  folks (I was channeling Sarah Palin there) who are a little bit tired of what they are seeing.  And they will not be ignored.

Barack Obama's genius as a political figure is that he tapped into the hip, urban, cosmo, hepcat meme--and he got a pliant, cheering press to go along with him (because he was so much like them!).  That was enough to win an election when the Dems could have run a goat against the Republicans and won--but now that the country has re-awakened, Obama and his Greek chorus at the NYT/WaPost, ABCNBCCBS, are beginning to realize how very, very different they are from a large chunk of America.

Glenn Beck's Rally On The Mall

So it seems Fox News guy Glenn Beck had himself a little rally on the Mall yesterday, and of course it was covered fairly and accurately by the mainstream media.  A few thoughts in no particular order.

1.  I'm not a fan of Glenn Beck, but I sorta like what he's doing.  He's getting folks interested, involved, thinking, talking, writing, reading.  I happened across his radio show for the first time the other day--and lo and behold--to confirm the cartoons I've seen of him--he was sniffling and crying over something (not my cup of tea).  But he is getting people movitvated.

2.  This little article in the Washington Post was of interest to me.  In the very first sentence, the crowd on the Mall was referred to as a "sea of activists".  If anything, the interesting thing about the Tea Party, Glenn Beck's crowd, etc, is that they ARE NOT activists--unless all of a sudden deciding that you don't like the direction in which the country is headed and you decide to attend a rally now counts as making you an activist. 

3.  But of course, the racial makeup of the crowd on the Mall was of great interest to the Post.  Referred to as "overwhelmingly white", this depiction stood in contrast to the counter-protest of one Reverend Al Sharpton, which was referred to as "mostly black".  Here is a slideshow of photos from Sharpton's rally.  The difference between "overwhelmingly" and "mostly" seems somewhat blurry, no?   And just what the hell is Sharpton wearing?  So the crowd was well-behaved, patriotic, friendly, upbeat, and supportive--but guilty of the great crime of being white. 

4.  Some of my liberal Facebook friends were absolutely getting the vapors over the Beck Rally, the common theme of which seemed to be that the choice of an anniversary of MLK's speech there was of course, symbolic of the right's desire to reinstate slavery, or at least Jim Crow.  Liberals are fascinating.