The Restoring Honor rally this past Saturday was a success, and the exhaustion toll was not lost on Glenn Beck. Any regular Beck listener is aware that sometimes the man gets a little overwhelmed, and often has a slip or two that can be clipped and replayed for any opposition goons’ delight. Rush Limbaugh is a frequent fatality of such sound byte tactics. There’s also the “gotcha” moment, where a question is posed that can be answered with some greased maneuvering if executed with precision. But Beck seems to have missed that Interview 101 memo and found himself floundering for Chris Wallace of Fox News.

That’s right, he got whupped on the home front.

I love Chris Wallace. He’s by far my favorite journalist (for my political awareness lifetime anyhow), and it’s not because he’s a Fox guy. He will actually ask the hard questions, and no one gets a pass. Yes, other journalists do this at times, but Wallace never misses a beat. I’ve cringed many a time while watching him do away with the fluff and get down to the grit while remaining tactful and professional.

What in the world am I talking about? I’ll get to that.

Now, Glenn Beck claims to not have known about the significance of the date of his rally before going about making his plans. Being that it is somewhat of an abstract year, the 47th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, rather than a nice round number such as 50, I’m inclined to believe it. But if evidence were to be presented to the contrary, I wouldn’t feel the need to defend my inclination.

That being said, Beck responded to the significance of the date by incorporating elements of the speech and inviting civil rights leaders to speak at the rally, including Dr. Alveda King, Rev. King’s niece. This eventually started nipping him in the rear. Was he wrong to do that? Absolutely not. It was an honorable thing to do. What did he do then? He tried to incorporate a popular understanding of the civil rights movement into his rhetoric which, upon closer inspection, didn’t quite jibe with the actual meaning of the civil rights movement, according to Chris Wallace in the interview.

I will just disclose right now that, because I am fortunate enough to have grown up in a generation where racial equality has been an unquestionable right – where instances of racism are seeing as disgusting and hateful, and having no memories of racism ever being acceptable in any shape, fashion or form – my knowledge of civil rights movement events, symbolism, leaders, etc. is very limited. So I am commenting on Glenn Beck’s “gotcha” moment with Chris Wallace, and pontificating how he could have better incorporated the 8/28 anniversary date.

Beck typically refers to King’s “content of his character, not the color of his skin” vision when he refers to the civil rights movement. That’s fine. That’s important. But the idea of “reclaiming” the civil rights movement is another idea altogether, especially when your ideas only connect in an abstract way.

Here’s the breakdown: From what Chris Wallace put forth to Beck, the civil rights movement was about economic equality – a rally for the poor, a push for an economic bill of rights. Glenn Beck is pushing for people to turn back to God. He tries to incorporate the two by stating that people of faith need to open their hearts and see everyone as equal human beings with equal “shots” at life.

Sure, on the notion that the civil rights movement was only about how people perceive one another in terms of looking beyond race, Beck could perhaps capture this. But when looking at the economic agenda in King’s message, things get a little shaky. I don’t think Beck connected the dots. If I’m interpreting this correctly, Beck would be arguing that people need to turn back to God, and through that faith, understand that we are all equal, and push for economic reform as advocates for the poor?

Okay, maybe I could run with that. Except Beck floundered and didn’t put that together at all. He kept wavering from “this is about faith”, “this is about the individual, you can do it” to “this is about reclaiming the civil rights movement”.

Then he redefined the movement as about equal “justice”. He made a pass about racial politics being overcome, as in, making it about the issues, not the skin color, which is probably the point he could have honed in on the make his overall point, but he didn’t. Frankly, he was caught off guard by the question and doggie-paddled his way until Wallace moved on to something else.

Overall, I thought the rally was a success as far as bringing people together to show solidarity over the importance of keeping the founding values of the country alive. He tried the civil rights thing, and failed to make any headway. I think the faith button was effective, but the spirit of American-ism prevailed as the most important message.

That was something on which Beck was solid in his interview. Maybe if he was used to being questioned by people interested in real journalism, he’d have been more on message. Since he’s used to being pelted with misrepresentations and cheap shots, eh, it is what it is.

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