Glenn Beck is Vaguely Nuts

I put up a couple of posts yesterday about Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington. It was reported variously as an evangelical religious revival (ironically led by a Mormon), an apolitical political event, or an ego trip.  But one of the overriding themes was the vagueness of the message. Restoring honor from what? Restoring honor to what? The only thing everyone can agree on is that it's over now.

So, Sunday morning has rolled around, and it's time for FOX "News" Sunday.  No big surprise, Beck's home network has him in the #1 spot to talk about yesterdays big event.  I didn't have high hopes that Beck would clarify what it was all about, and they wouldn't have been met.  Beck is quite frankly bonkers.  Apparently, we as a nation need to "return to God," and we're "lost" until we do.  Mmmkay. For a dude who likes to wave around the Constitution, trying to weld religion to politics seems un-American to me. As a non-believer, I wouldn't cotton to this message anyway, but coming from Beck--an outsized cartoon character--I can't figure out why anyone would.

Keith Olbermann has dubbed him "Lonesome Rhodes Beck" from the film A Face in the Crowd, starring Andy Griffith. I've never seen the film, but the description seems apt.  Still, having watched a rerun of Saturday Night Live last night, I'd say Beck is more like "Nicholas Fehn", the babbling "comic" on Weekend Update.

He opens his mouth, and says stuff, and it sounds like he's making some sort of sense if you aren't paying close attention. . .but he isn't saying much of anything.

It's a mishmash of "things in America are bad," "we must work together to make it better," "we want the truth," "America must stand guard," "we must get right with God," and on and on. . . I can't for the life of me understand this man's hold on people.  He is saying nothing, much like his primary guest yesterday, Sarah Palin.  I'd like to call it style over substance, but the style is so unappealing, I truly cannot see the appeal.  

By the way, as always happens, there is a dispute about the size of the crowd at yesterday's event.  Immediately, Beck fans started saying "hundreds of thousands," with 300,000 become the fast favorite round number.  CBS News estimated slightly less than 100,000.  Beck today said 300,000 on the low end, perhaps as high as 650,000, which sounds like a ridiculous overestimation. But it's just like the "argumentum ad populum" logical fallacy that is consistently made about the FOX "News" ratings.  Popularity doesn't equal "correct." It doesn't equal clarity either.