America is better than Glenn Beck....an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure (Herbert)

[jefferson_dem]

America Is Better Than This
By BOB HERBERT

America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure. On the anniversary of the great 1963 March on Washington he will stand in the shadows of giants — Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Who do you think is more representative of this nation?

Consider a brief sampling of their rhetoric.

Lincoln: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

King: “Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter.”

Beck: “I think the president is a racist.”

Washington was on edge on the morning of Aug. 28, 1963. The day was sunny and very warm and Negroes, as we were called in those days, were coming into town by the tens of thousands. The sale of liquor was banned. Troops stood by to restore order if matters got out of control. President John F. Kennedy waited anxiously in the White House to see how the day would unfold.

It unfolded splendidly. The crowd for the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” grew to some 250,000. Nearly a quarter of the marchers were white. They gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, where they were enthralled by the singing of Mahalia Jackson and Joan Baez. The march was all about inclusion and the day seemed to swell with an extraordinary sense of camaraderie and good feeling.

The climax, of course, was Dr. King’s transcendent “I Have a Dream” speech. Jerald Podair, a professor of American studies at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, has called Aug. 28, 1963, “the most important single day in civil rights history.” This is the historical legacy that Glenn Beck, a small man with a mean message, has chosen to tread upon with his cynical rally on Saturday at that very same Lincoln Memorial.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/opinion/28herbert.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

[tanyev]

1. I Have A Scheme.

[Mass]

2. Really? Because, if I believe the coverage the rallye is getting (all positive), the media think

this is America. It is now clear that any number of people showing up is going to be considered as a success, even if it is only 10,000. This is the meme that is presented. I dont even want to imagine if actually people show up.

I can understand people being afraid of the future, but following this jerk is another story.

[Enrique]

3. Abraham, Martin and Glenn? n/t

[saltpoint]

4. Strongly recommended. Herbert, as usual, nails it.

I hope many more people read Herbert's column today than attend Beck's hatefest.

:hi:

:thumbsup: