Reflections on Restoring Honor

Normally, I find Glenn Beck to be just mildly annoying. He’s like a mosquito that buzzes in your ear – not biting, not landing – just perpetually floating without fail and creating an annoying hum in your ear. However, Beck’s resent actions are totally inexcusable. He is having a rally in order to restore honor to our nation. When I first heard of this idea, I thought, honestly, that it was a joke. A talking head from spin central is going to restore my nation’s honor? I’ll get Hugh Hefner right on restoring my modesty while we’re at it.

The first problem with this is obvious. My honor is not in need of restoration. Neither is that of my nation – not, at least, in the sense that Beck believes. He claims we are only as honorable as our virtues – a word he uses, dare I say, liberally – are in proper alignment. Acting more like a man at the pulpit than at the podium, Beck plays the sensitivities of his followers. He evokes humility when it looks best – calling up soldiers – both of the current conflict and wars past when convenient. My heart broke for them because not only had they served our country and lost, without doubt, something significant in each instance, but now they seemed to be losing something more. In the closing prayer, I man who had lost his face in Vietnam was paraded out after having the more grotesque details of his injuries retold by Beck. He told a story of loss in the name of defending freedom. He prayed to God that our troops be protected. The whole time he was standing there, Sarah Palin, failed governor and current talking head, was standing behind his left shoulder shaking her head in agreement. Beck stood to his right. He was bookmarked by two terrible people who spend day and night cooking up ways to brainwash the people into giving up their babies to warfare, giving up their shores to drilling, and giving up their dreams to inequality. I kept thinking, “This guy deserves better than this.” Though I’m a peaceful person, I don’t think there was anything wrong with this man’s honor – or that of the nation he served in the military – and I think it is pretty fucking smug of Beck to assume so. Using people is not bringing honor to them. If you really want to honor our veterans, Mr. Beck, help us get out of our military conflicts so no more of them have to become memories that never walk through the doors of their family homes again. Just today I saw a news snippet of a nineteen-year-old child who died in Iraq. The honorable thing to do would be to really learn from all these casualties we keep racking up and work to stop them. The only silver lining to this event is that the money raised – after Mr. Beck and his crew’s expenses – went to a very worthy charity, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

The second reason I’m coming down on Beck has to do with Mr. Beck’s own integrity. He’s a liar. He said – on national television – that the date of his rally wasn’t chosen for any particular reason other than it was the only free day in everyone’s schedules where the stars aligned. Bullshit.

I don’t really care that Beck chose to have his ‘Restoring Honor,’ rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s, ‘I Have a Dream,’ speech. I don’t care that it was in the same location as Dr. King’s famous speech. I do care, however, that Beck claims that the logistics of this event are just coincidence – the result of open nooks and crannies within the bowels of conservative crony schedules and surprisingly open venues. There is no way – no way – that it just happened to be that the anniversary of the most remembered and cherished speech of the civil rights movement happened to be the same day when nothing much was going on in the spin factory and the Lincoln Memorial was free. What’s appalling isn’t that Beck thought to utter this lie in the first place – he’s a snake and that’s what snakes do – what’s appalling is that he said it on national television with a look on his face that said, “I know you’re going to believe me even though this is bullshit.” I mean, he should have just come out and said, “Yeah, I know this is an important day. I want to put my mark on it – whether it is a shine or a stain.” At least that would have carried the weight of honesty.

Beck tried his best to seem holy, but to me he just came off as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He evoked the word God more times, I believe, than the Rev. Dr. King in his famous speech. It seemed semi-sacrilegious to me – like using God to advertise Foldgers Coffee, or “The View,” or something like that. He made God seem like a patriot – on our side (America’s side) and our side alone.

The most terrifying thing about this event, though, wasn’t the man of the hour. It was the misguided nonsense he was spewing out into the atmosphere. It wasn’t the fact that the media was lapping up his nonsense. No, the most terrifying thing about this event could be found in the reflecting pool at the national mall. Beck’s followers, ready to take his message anywhere to anyone, gathered in staggering numbers. There stood apostles of a fake messiah, waving handmade signs and sporting Beck-inspired t-shirts. I didn’t feel honorable watching this unfold on television. All I felt was shame.