(CNN) -Glenn Beck is scoffing at recent attacks from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and others after the Fox News host inaccurately told the crowd at his recent Washington, DC rally that he “held” George Washington’s handwritten inaugural address.

“I thought it would be a little easier in the speech,” Beck told his radio listeners Thursday as he dismissed the most recent liberal attack directed at him.

The uproar from the left came in response to a comment Beck made during his Restoring Honor rally on the National Mall last weekend in which he said, “I went to the National Archives and held the First Inaugural Address written in his own hand by George Washington.”

Turns out the Archives’ policy doesn’t allow members of the public to touch rare documents like the First Inaugural Address. Instead, Beck was permitted to view the document through plastic – prompting Olbermann to declare “his story that he actually got to hold it…is wrong.”

“His fib stands in stark contrast to the point of the rally, which was all about restoring the principles of courage and honor that the nation was founded upon,” the publication Mother Jones chimed in.

But Beck himself didn’t seem frazzled by the allegations.

“They are like, ‘He’s such a liar. Glenn Beck is such a lair!’ said Beck laughing off the criticism.

“I thought I’d be a little easier than to say, ‘Yesterday, I went to the National Archives, and they opened up the vault, and they put on their gloves, and then they put it on a tray, and they wheeled it over, and it’s all in this hard plastic, and the because you’re sitting down at a table and you can’t – because of [Former National Security Advisor] Sandy Berger – you can’t actually touch any of the documents because they are very rare’…..I thought it was a little clumsy to explain it that way.”

“Might have been a little too much useless information!” Beck exclaimed. “Once again, they caught me.”

Source: CNN Political Ticker

As the reactions to last weekend’s “Restoring Honor” rally pile up, pro and con, I’m reminded of the first time I was actually exposed to the guy–in this January 2007 Washington Post interview profile by David Segal.

This was before the presidential primary season had begun, before the Fox News Channel gig, and, most decidedly, before Obama.

Segal was struck by Beck’s apparent humility, personal and intellectual:

While most sermonizing conservatives wait for a public debacle to expose their failings–think of William Bennett and his slot-machine addiction, or Rush Limbaugh and his pill problem–Beck and his many inner demons are on a first-name basis, and he’s constantly introducing them to viewers. His alcoholism is just part of it.

Plus, where O’Reilly traffics in absolute truths and certitudes, Beck is a hand-wringer, forever rummaging around the gray areas in any debate, pontificating even as he wonders aloud if his instincts are wrong, or at least worthy of reexamination. He’s more culture worrier than culture warrior. …

Beck has the disarming habit of candidly discussing his foibles, not to mention the agonies and mistakes of his past and his lengthy bout of self-loathing and depression. He is not just a recovering alcoholic (“two glasses a day–but tall glasses, and all Jack Daniel’s”) and not just a former pothead (“every day for 15 years”). He is a recovering jerk.

“Honestly, I was just a despicable human being,” he says.

Where’d that guy disappear to?

[Poll: Did Beck's Rally Strike the Right Tone?]

How did we get from there—likable former “Morning Zoo” disc jockey brings human touch to conservative TV punditry—to here, a full-blown personality cult, with talk of spiritual revival and great awakenings and, conversely, heresy and idolatry?

Is this really—was it ever—about healthcare or deficits or taxes? Strictly speaking, is this about the math or the culture?

[Read more about the deficit and national debt.]

Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate, goes ahead and connects the dots, dubbing the Beck rally the “Waterworld of white self-pity”:

This summer, then, has been the perfect register of the new anxiety, beginning with the fracas over Arizona’s immigration law, gaining in intensity with the proposal by some Republicans to amend the 14th Amendment so as to de-naturalize “anchor babies,” cresting with the continuing row over the so-called “Ground Zero” mosque, and culminating, at least symbolically, with a quasi-educated Mormon broadcaster calling for a Christian religious revival from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

I wonder what Glenn Beck, circa early 2007, would have made of all this.

Source: usnews.com

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are constantly talking about restoring our Constitution. They want to get our Constitution back. I did not know that it had gone away. They have created this aura that since Barack Obama was inaugurated somehow our Forefathers have been affronted. Aside from the crazies who claim that President Obama was born in Kenya and is not a citizen, and therefore sits in the presidency in violation of the Constitution, I am at a loss to know what it is they are talking about. Other than the health care legislation, which faces a legitimate challenge on the basis that it requires all citizens to buy insurance and does not come within the power of Congress to tax, I know of no other claim, no less a legitimate one, that the current administration has violated the Constitution.

What I find remarkable is the suggestion that the President’s agenda (whether successful or not) of caring for the poor, the sick, the elderly, the uneducated and the unemployed has somehow dishonored the country and poses a danger to it. Apparently in the eyes of Glenn Beck these “socialistic” goals are un-Christian and are to be feared. I do not pretend to be an expert on the Bible, but I thought those precepts were the very foundation of Christianity. Do they become less so because they are provided by the government?

There will be strong disagreement over the size of the crowd which attended the Beck rally and who or what brought them there. Without impugning those who attended, the greater the size of the crowd; the greater should be our fear——not the phony one he has created. They have been convinced that there is a danger out there that does not exist. If our honor was lost, it was through the invasion of Iraq, wire tapping of American citizens, the torture and rendition of suspected terrorists, imprisoning persons for years without charges or hearings, allowing greed to prevail over regulation and our woeful response to Hurricane Katrina. If those were the good old days for which Mr. Beck and Ms. Palin yearn, then he is right, we all should start praying.

Source: HuffingtonPost.com

Saturday at the Glenn Beck church picnic, oops I mean Restoring Honor Rally. And btw, exactly how did Beck restore honor to America by having a religious rally with 90,000 conservatives.

So anyway, at the religious rally Beck said some crazy things, but one thing stood out to me as really crazy. After reciting the names of Moses, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington, Beck said this:

BECK: I can relate to Martin Luther King probably the most. Out of all these giants, I can relate to Martin Luther King probably the most because we haven’t carved him in marble yet.

Now that’s f-ing crazy, because Martin Luther King and Glenn Beck are like fire and water, they are exact opposites. In no way can Glenn Beck relate to MLK, and if MLK were alive today he would not relate to Glenn Beck at all. Let me show you a few ways that they are exactly opposite.

— MLK believed that it was America’s collective responsibility to provide economic justice for all.

In 1961, MLK addressed the AFL-CIO on his vision of the American Dream. King said that his vision of America’s promise was a country where equality of opportunity, of privilege and property are widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few.

King helped launch a Poor People’s Campaign based around demanding that President Johnson and Congress help the poor get jobs, health care and decent homes. He explained that poverty was a problem that couldn’t be solved without the nation spending billions of dollars – and undergoing a radical redistribution of economic power. Then he spent the last days of his life campaigning on behalf of a living wage for striking sanitation workers in Tennessee.

Glenn Beck has repeatedly insulted and opposed any government attempt to help the poor.

Beck has claimed that Big government never lifts anybody out of poverty. It creates slaves, people who are dependent on the scraps from the government, the handouts. He has said that President Obama is really is a Marxist because he believes in the redistribution of wealth.

He argued in his book that the reason the poor are poor and can’t be helped by the government is simply because they are lazy.

Discussing the topic of rebuilding New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, Beck said we shouldn’t spend a single dime, and that the residents should just move out.

Discussing the topic of jobless Americans unable to find work receiving unemployment benefits, Beck said he would be ashamed to call some of them Americans.

MLK championed using his faith to achieve social justice.

King called himself an advocator of the social gospel, and saw Jesus’s teachings as commanding him to take part in progressive activism to achieve social justice. In a 1963 speech Western Michigan University, he said that he saw an age of social justice as the goal of his movement.

Beck is 100% opposed to social justice, and attacked Christians who want to use their faith to achieve it.

Beck told his viewers that when they hear the words social justice they should run, and don’t listen to anyone who is telling you differently. He also accused progressives of trying to hijack churches with a message of social justice. He even wrongly claimed that civil rights demonstrators weren’t crying out for social justice.

MLK believed in loving those who disagreed with him and engaging in thoughtful dialogue.

One of the hallmarks of King’s philosophy and what separated him from many other leaders was his advocacy for maintaining thoughtful and respectful dialogue with those who disagreed with his goals. In 1957, the civil rights leader gave a sermon titled, Loving Your Enemies.

King said that a man must discover the element of good in his enemy, and everytime you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.

He practiced nonviolence and even asked civil rights demonstrators to not fight back when attacked by white racists. He demanded of his fellow demonstrators a refusal to hate.

Beck has repeatedly attacked his political opponents with vicious and hateful language.

Beck has compared president Obama to the Antichrist and said that it was approaching treason to elect a more progressive Congress.

He has said he hates the 9/11 victims families and derided supporters of cap-and-trade as greedy, wicked, and treasonous.

When interviewing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the nation’s first elected Muslim congressman, Beck said this to him, “What I feel like saying is, Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”

He also speculated that Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-OH) wife must have been under the influence of a date rape drug to marry him.

In fact, it would be hard to find two people with philosophies so different than Glenn Beck and Dr. Martin Luther King. While MLK fought for all people to be able to live a decent life, championed a compassionate version of Christianity that sought to create a better world, and established dialogue with those who disagreed with him.

Beck shows little compassion for those he disagrees with, has slammed the social gospel, and has viciously smeared and attacked his political opponents. So for Glenn Beck to claim he relates to Dr. King more than anyone is laughable, and just another lie from Beck.

Dr. King and Glenn Beck are nothing alike, in fact, they are exact opposites.

Source: glenn-beck-sucks.com

Glenn Beck has a deep seated hatred of himself. This can be traced to the underlying rage and confusion he experienced over the apparent suicide of his mother when he was teenager; exacerbated by the humiliation he felt for having failed college after a single term; and crystallized by a career which started early and rewarded him for demeaning any idea or person that threatened his damaged self-esteem, This resulted in a compensatory grandiosity that blossomed into the pathetic, maudlin egomaniac that we know and hate today.

Of particular interest to me is his propensity to perceive high achievers (‘elites’) as evil, driven by power and manipulative, withholding approval from him. His own followers are perceived as naifs who need to be educated by him, and once so educated, can provide him with the approval he is hungry for.

Striking is his tendency to assume that, if he learns something new, it is as though no one has known of it before him, except those elites who he assumes do know it but for insidious motives, are withholding this ‘secret knowledge’ from himself and others as a way of retaining their power.

• Auriandra’s diary :: ::

Often, Beck will discover a nugget of knowledge and, instead of concluding that he has learned something new, something that other people absorb as part of a normal result of learning, he will ask his audience, “Did you know that before?” then he will ask “Why not?” [long pause, signalling that something sinister is at play.] Often, it turns out, this secret knowledge is in fact something I did know. For instance (from his 8/28 rally) – why the color of the marble on the Washington monument changes a third of the way up; or that “Amazing Grace” was written by a converted slave ship captain. There is nothing uncommon or inaccessible about this information; many people know these things. But, unlike Beck, most people do not assume that their learning such things involves breaking through an imaginary conspiracy of a group of elites who have tried to withhold the information. This explains his typical refrain, “Why aren’t the schools teaching this?” Because most people accept learning such things to be part of the work of a life’s work, most people do not react to such new information is an affront to one’s ego. They experience no need to presume that not having known it before indicates that there was an conspiracy to keep the information hidden. To Beck, new knowledge always presents such a threat.

This paranoia was apparent at his Martin Luther King event. He assumed, erroneously, that blacks think they “own” Martin Luther King. As a white person, I have felt I too have access to the King legacy for one simple reason. MLK’s own words say so. His vision was of a world in which whites and blacks would live together without racial hatred, tension, or prejudice. I never felt excluded from this dream, but Beck’s view appears to be that blacks have assumed sole ownership of King, thereby excluding him, and white people in general.

Not that everything Beck asserts is something I knew before. Some things he asserts, I know of but do not agree with. Other things are jumbled together (as when he says Obama is both fascist and communist) or that the Founding Fathers were the equivalent of modern evangelical Christians. In the first instance, he simply does not seem to know that ‘fascism’ and ‘communism’ are defined by academics to be at opposite ends of a scale from extreme ‘right’ to extreme ‘left.’ To deal with the fact both tend to adopt certain common methods, another term is usually invoked (courtesy of Hannah Arendt), “totalitarianism.” These are definitional matters, terms that have been agreed upon to allow for discourse. Communication requires accepting such shared terms and definitions.

The assertion that the Founding Fathers were essentially evangelical Christians in the modern sense, and that they intended the founding documents to define a theocracy, is more complex. Here what is needed, and what Beck lacks, is a sense of historical context, as well as a sense of what constitutes evidence. For instance, the fact that Washington (or any other FF) may have referred to God in one or two letters out of thousands of documents, is not enough to establish that his views were the same as those of a 20th Century Rev. Hagee. In order to interpret the phrase, “they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” it is important to know the history on English law in which rights were not considered inalienable, but rather granted by the state and the crown. One need not invoke a Creator to maintain that rights are inalienable, but in the mindset of the 18th century, this was a pragmatic way of saying that the state was not empowered to displace these rights.

Beck often shows naïveté with regard to historical context. The Republican Party of Abe Lincoln was not the same as Republican Party of today, just as early 20th Century Progressives are not the same as early 21st Century progressives. Parties and movements evolve over time; in fact, sometimes they swing dramatically in a short period, as when the Republican Party emerged after the Civil Rights Bill passed as the more anti-civil rights party. Nor does the fact that the Progressive President Wilson exhibited a degree of racism mean that modern day progressives are really closet racists, as though the word progressive is not amenable to changing over time. History is, in some ways, the study of social and political change over time in which a significant amount of effort must go to understanding events in ever-changing contexts as well as the evolution of labels used to describe them.

My advice to Glenn Beck would be to take off four years (he can afford it) and get a college education from a reputable college or university. He’s bright enough. However, I doubt his damaged ego could handle the assault of so much new information. Sadly, lacking this, I fear he will continue to be a thorn in the body politic, and become one of history’s stranger footnotes.

by Auriandra

Source: DailyKos.com

Glenn Beck is now presenting himself as a theologian, saying people don’t think President Obama is Christian because, he told Fox News Sunday, Obama…

… understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor-and-victim. People aren’t recognizing his version of Christianity.

Beck says this is because Obama is a black liberation Christian, which he links to Obama’s years in the congregation of the incendiary preacher Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

• Comment at Faith & Reason blog
• Follow F&R on Twitter, Facebook

Says Beck:

… It’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don’t know what that is, other than it’s not Muslim, it’s not Christian. It’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.

Back when Wright was front page news in 2008, I asked an expert on the black church and on that school of theology more about it. He explained that it’s all about the hermeneutics — the point of view you take for interpreting Scripture and applying it to your life.

As J. Kameron Carter, associate professor of Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke University Divinity School, told me:

Hermeneutics isn’t whether you have the Scripture right or wrong, it’s the sunglasses you’re wearing when you read it and when you look out at the world.

Black liberation theology, a term popularized in the 1960s as an African-American adaptation of the “liberation theology,” Carter say, saw

… Jesus, as God’s representative in the world, was about deliverance, uplift and liberation of the downtrodden. God is working out the uplift of his people and freeing the captors as well as the captives from the structures of oppression.”

(For a clear, accessible Catholic description of Liberation Theology, Rev. James Martin gives a short tutorial at the America magazine In All Things blog.

However, unlike Beck, scholars think Wright was drawing on an entirely different tradition — the tradition of prophecy, in which, Scripture teaches, God sends critical voices forward to correct society.

Here’s what Carter told me in 2008 about Wright:

He is hearkening back to the prophets of ancient Israel, charged by God to call Israel back to its mission, identity and purpose. They often had to use such harsh words that Jeremiah was thrown in a dungeon for his gloom-and-doom declarations. The prophet’s job is speaking truth to power, not on their own authority but on God’s.

Beck’s weekend events in Washington, starting with his Divine Destiny gathering Friday, through his Saturday rally and on to his TV appearances trashing Obama were all about his vision of America’s need for God, like a self-appointed prophet.

Sound familiar? Is Beck styling the 2010 Jeremiah? Do you wear his “sunglasses?”

Source: USAtoday.com

Washington (CNN) – If you’ve ever tried to guess how many jelly beans are inside a huge jar, you have some idea what it’s like to estimate crowds at massive Washington D.C. rallies.

But the stakes in Washington are far higher, with the estimates politically charged and highly controversial. U.S. Park Police, burned by previous controversies, no longer makes them. So there are no official estimates of crowd size at events on the National Mall.

And Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” rally with Fox News and radio show host Glenn Beck was no different. There was wide disagreement of just how big the crowd near the Lincoln Memorial was, followed by claims that some estimates low-balled the size.

CBS News took a scientific approach, commissioning a crowd estimate by the company AirPhotosLive.com. The network reported that AirPhotosLive estimated the crowd at 87,000 people. But they noted that with a margin of error of 9,000, “between 78,000 and 96,000 attended the rally.”

The NBC Nightly News estimated the number of people in attendance as “tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands.”

ABCNews.com reported “the rally has attracted more than 100,000 people.”

Fox News, citing organizers, aired a banner characterizing it this way: “CROWD ATTENDING BECK RALLY ESTIMATED AT OVER 500,000.”

The Washington Post noted that Beck told the crowd that he had heard “it was between 300,000 and 500,000.”

And the Post quoted Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota), speaking soon after the rally ended as saying, “We’re not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today – because we were witnesses.”

On the morning after the rally, Beck himself told Fox News Sunday that he believed the crowd was as low as 300,000 and as big as 650,000.

CNN contacted AirPhotosLive.com about the estimate they did for CBS News. A company official told CNN they used photos taken from their tethered balloons to shoot photos at the height of the crowd. They then had 3 experts use their own methodologies to evaluate the crowd. Company officials said they extrapolated the crowd size from 2-D and 3-D grids of the photographs marked off in small boxes.

The New York Times noted, “Officials do not make crowd estimates because they are unreliable and can be controversial,” adding, “by any measure it was a large turnout.”

So how many people were really there? In the end, most people will believe what their own eyes tell them. And the one estimate guaranteed to be right: Beck’s own comment making fun of the inevitable controversy: “I have just gotten word from the media that there are over 1,000 people here today.”

Source: Political Ticker at CNN.com

Glenn Beck has a dream too, apparently. And he’s catching some major heat because of it.

The Fox News host is planning a rally at the location of Martin Luther King Jr.‘s legendary "I Have a Dream" speech on Saturday, the anniversary of the historic event.

Beck maintains the event at the Lincoln Memorial has nothing to do with politics, although former Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin is scheduled to speak.

The conservative television personality, who has called President Obama a racist, said it was coincidence that the event’s date coincided with the 47th anniversary of King’s famous appeal for racial equality.

Rev. Al Sharpton, who is holding his own D.C. event, slammed Beck and questioned the host’s claim that the event isn’t political.

"When we heard about Glenn Beck, it was puzzling," said Sharpton. "Because if you read Dr. King’s speech, it just doesn’t gel with what Mr. Beck or Mrs. Palin are representing.

According to the event’s website, the "Restoring Honor" rally‘s goal is to pay tribute to America’s military personnel and those who "embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor." Participants are banned from bringing signs.

Beck said the rally would be "iconic."

"This is going to be a moment that you’ll never be able to paint people as haters, racists, none of it," he said. "This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement. It has been so distorted and so turned upside down. It is an abomination."

The online magazine The Root points out, to Beck’s credit, that he recently devoted a segment on his Fox program commemorating forgotten African-American heroes. He praised Prince Whipple and James Armistead, two former slaves who fought alongside George Washington and General Lafayette in the American Revolution.

But critics questioned Beck’s motives.

"The 8-28 rally is supposedly is about ‘reclaiming the civil rights movement,’ but it is being led by someone whose idea of a racist is the president of the United States," said Jess Levin, spokesman for the liberal Media Matters for America. "This rally is about one thing and one thing only. And that’s promoting Beck’s political agenda."

By Aliyah Shahid

Source: NYDailyNews.org

David Barton, Glenn Beck’s favorite history “professor,” is the creator and purveyor of a revisionist history of race in America that is rapidly gaining traction in conservative and tea party circles. That history, drawn in part from the writings of Christian Reconstructionists, recasts modern-day Republicans as the racially inclusive party, and modern-day Democrats as the racists supportive of slavery and post-Emancipation racist policies.

Barton frames the details for maximum impact on contemporary politics, to an increasingly growing audience. Like Barton’s larger revisionist effort to develop and perpetuate the narrative that America is a “Christian nation,” the “Republicans-are-really-the-party-of-racial-equality” narrative is not entirely fictive. Some historical points Barton makes are true; but he and his star pupil Beck manipulate those points along with false historical claims in order to promote their political agenda.

Barton’s narrative is gaining a hearing. Three months ago, Barton appeared on Beck’s show to talk about “Founding Fathers Black Heroes of American History,” carrying with him, as he usually does, what he claims are original documents and artifacts to flash around for credibility. (Barton is regularly on Beck’s show on “Founder’s Fridays.”) And now this Saturday, Beck will hold his “Restoring Honor” rally bringing together Tea Party Patriots, Freedom Works, 9-12 Project, Special Operations Warrior Foundation and others at the Lincoln Memorial. Beck has announced very few details, though Sarah Palin will join Beck and Barton as a special guest, as will Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece and Director of African American Outreach for Priests for Life Alveda King.

While Beck initially promoted the event as a non-political effort to return to the values of “the Founders,” he claims he only realized later that he scheduled it on the anniversary, and in the same location, of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. He suggested that while he did not realize the significance of the date, God might have had a hand in the coincidence. Beck has received much criticism for both the timing and his credit to the Almighty.

Beck fancies himself a contemporary King “reclaiming the civil rights movement,” exemplified by his pledge not to “sit in the back of the bus.” While he has been widely mocked for drawing this parallel, it’s less recognized, however, how he’s doing it on a foundation laid by David Barton and his revisionist history, which relies in part of the work of Reconstructionist R.J. Rushdoony.

More Barton Revisionist History

In his essay “The Founding Fathers and Slavery,” Barton quotes extensively from the writings of the founders and claims that many of them were abolitionists. He maintains that the overwhelming majority of the founders were “sincere Christians” who thought American slavery was “unbiblical,” blamed England for imposing the institution on the colonies, and set in motion the processes to end it.

But as with his “Christian American History,” scholars dispense with these claims. According to historian Diana Butler Bass, the few white Christians in the 18th century who thought slavery was unbiblical were mostly women. She said, “It was nearly universally accepted by white Christian men that the Bible taught, supported, or promoted slavery and it was rare to find a leading American intellectual, Christian or otherwise, who questioned the practice on the basis that it was ‘unbiblical.’ Some intellectuals thought it was counter to the Enlightenment.”

And historian Mark Noll argues that the reverse of Barton’s view with regard to the British is correct: Evangelicals in the Church of England, not in America, argued slavery violated the Bible. Again, according to Bass, “the American biblical argument against slavery did not develop in any substantial way until the 1830s and 1840s. Even then, the anti-slavery argument was considered liberal and not quite in line with either scripture or tradition.”

In another essay, Barton compares Republican and Democratic party platforms from 1840 to 1964—the period before Southern Democrats who blocked civil rights legislation began switching to the Republican Party. In his telling, the modern Republican Party is the party more favorable to African-Americans because the Republicans led the fight against slavery and for civil rights from the formation of the Republican Party as the “anti-slavery party” and the “election of Abraham Lincoln as the first Republican President,” to the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, the passage of civil rights laws during Reconstruction, and the election of blacks to office.

Barton writes that while the Democratic Party platform was defending slavery, “the original Republican platform in 1856 had only nine planks—six of which were dedicated to ending slavery and securing equal rights for African-Americans.” Democrats, on the other hand, supported slavery and then sought to ban blacks from holding public office, limit their rights to vote with poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and general harassment and intimidation, and establish legal segregation under Jim Crow laws.

Barton takes issue with framing the history as “Southerners” fighting for racist policies, because “just one type of southern whites were the cause of the problem, southern racists whites.” Rather, he argues, we should, lay the responsibility for racism at the feet of Democrats:

Current writers and texts addressing the post-Civil War period often present an incomplete portrayal of that era… To make an accurate portrayal of black history, a distinction must be made between types of whites. Therefore, (it would be) much more historically correct—although more “politically incorrect”—were it to read: Democratic legislatures in the South [instead of just “Southerners”] established whites-only voting in party primaries.

Because he says very little about contemporary Democrats, it’s clear that Barton’s purpose is to connect them with the racist Southern Democrats, while completely ignoring the relationship of contemporary Republicans with the racist South.

Most glaringly, the Republican “Southern strategy” is entirely missing from Barton’s account of the parties’ political strategies with regard to race. From the Johnson administration through the Nixon and Reagan campaigns, Republican strategists effectively used race as the original “wedge issue.” Southern Democrats would not support efforts by the national party to secure civil rights for African-Americans. By focusing on specific issues regarding race (like segregation) Republicans split off voters who had traditionally voted for Democrats. The contemporary “states’ rights” battle cry at the core of the conservative movement and tea party rhetoric is rooted in this very tactic.

Barton and Beck want to rewrite American history on race and slavery in order to whitewash (pardon the term) the Founders’ implication in it and blame it and subsequent racism on the Democrats. But Barton’s rewriting of the history of the founding era and the civil rights movement alone doesn’t quite accomplish that. He has to lower the bar even more and make slavery itself seem like it wasn’t quite as bad as we might think. And for that, he turns to Stephen McDowell of the Reconstructionist-oriented Providence Foundation.

The Christian Reconstructionist Connection

Barton’s Wallbuilders website promotes a collection of “resources on African American History.” Much of the material is written by Barton himself but one of the essays is McDowell’s, drawn almost entirely from Rushdoony’s work in the early 1960s.

McDowell’s discussion of slavery, written in 2003, comes from Rushdoony’s more familiar Institutes of Biblical Law. He attributes his views to Rushdoony and uses precisely the language that Rushdoony used as early as the 1960s. Rushdoony’s writings on slavery are often cited by his critics who have not read his work widely and who are looking for attention-grabbing quotes. The few writers who have looked closely at what Rushdoony did and did not say about slavery have been his supporters trying to downplay the more shocking elements. They often try to argue that Rushdoony is mischaracterized by those who assert that he supported slavery. The reality is that Rushdoony did argue that some forms of slavery are permitted by biblical law. While criticizing American slavery as violating a number of biblical requirements, however, he did not view it as inherently immoral.

By promoting McDowell, and by extension Rushdoony, Barton promotes a “biblical worldview” in which slavery is in some circumstances acceptable. This worldview, like his discussion of the three-fifths rule, which minimizes the rule’s dehumanization of slaves, diminishes the dehumanization of slavery in general by explicitly arguing that God condones it in certain circumstances. Moreover, Rushdoony’s issues with American slavery had to do with its lack of compliance with biblical law, rather than with the morally reprehensible nature of it.

Rather the discussing slavery as a moral issue, McDowell argues it is tightly regulated, though not forbidden in the Bible, and that American Southern slavery was not “biblical” slavery because it was race-based and enforced. However, he also argues that there are two forms of biblically permissible, voluntary slavery: indentured servitude in which “servants were well treated and when released, given generous pay,” and slavery in which, in exchange for being taken care of, one might choose to remain a slave. Moreover, he maintains that the Bible permits two forms of involuntary slavery: “criminals” who could not make restitution for their crimes could be sold into slavery and “pagans,” who can be made permanent slaves. “Pagans,” in this view of the Bible, would be those not in "covenant" with the God of Israel, and by extension today, those who are not Christians (in a narrow, Reconstructionist defined sense). McDowell is explicit that race-based kidnapping and enforced slavery are unbiblical. In fact, they are punishable by death, again all of this coming directly from the Institutes of Biblical Law.

Still, though, like Rushdoony, McDowell dismisses the role of slavery in the Civil War. The major point of dispute between North and South, they argue, was “centralism,” that is, the increasing centralization of power in the federal government, an argument frequently echoed today by the “states’ rights” agitators and 10th Amendment tea partiers. In one essay, Barton parts company with Rushdoony and McDowell over the significance of slavery as a cause of the Civil War. However, echoing Rushdoony, Barton insists that a continued discussion of slavery is a tool used for political power, with Barton arguing that Democrats use it to foster white guilt and black anger, all while he paints the Republicans as the upright defenders of justice.

The historical revisionism with regard to race in America that is increasingly gaining a hearing in the tea party (thanks to Glenn Beck and activists such as Frantz Kebreau) is rooted in Barton’s and Wallbuilders’ writings, which, including McDowell’s, have been deeply influenced by Rushdoony.

Wallbuilders’ reliance on Reconstructionist works is an excellent example of Rushdoony’s meandering influence throughout the religious right. Rushdoony outlined an early version of Christian American history, and an argument in favor of “Christian revisionism,” as early as 1964. He argued for the use of the Bible as the only source of authority. He developed a critique of federal “centralism” in favor of states’ rights, he laid the philosophical basis for unraveling the public school system in favor of Christian schools and home schools, and helped insure the legal basis for those alternative forms of education in the courts. He developed “biblical” arguments against government “welfare,” taxation beyond the 10% in the Bible, and against socialism and communism. Many of these positions are embraced by activists in today’s tea party—thanks to Glenn Beck, his “university,” and his upcoming rally in Washington.

Source: ReligionDispatches.org

One of the main lines of attack in the never-ending conservative freak-out over the plan to build an Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan has been attempting to smear the developers of the center — Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf in particular – as "radical." In their usual despicable fashion, conservative media figures have worked hard to blur the line between the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 and the moderate Muslims who are behind the planned center.

One of the loudest voices in conservatives’ fight against the center has been Glenn Beck, who has specifically targeted Imam Rauf with blatant falsehoods and hypocritical attacks in a desperate attempt to smear him as a radical.

Additionally, among other offensive comments, Beck has asked, "after you’ve killed 3,000 people you’re going to now build your mosque?" He’s also absurdly labeled the center an "actual danger" and suggested it is an "Allah-tells-me-to-blow-up-America mosque." Though we — and many other outlets — have repeatedly pointed out that Rauf is widely viewed as a moderate and has often denounced the extremists who carry out violent attacks in the name of Islam, Beck and his fellow demagogues continue to push the dishonest attack.

But Beck does not need to take our word for it that Imam Rauf is a moderate who distances himself from radicals — Rauf told Beck as much while sitting at the same table with him during a 2006 discussion on ABC’s Good Morning America.

During the ABC segment, Rauf condemned the extremists who issued death threats against the Pope and political cartoonists, specifically saying that "these reactions are not at all called for by Islamic teaching. The teachings of Islam are very similar to the teachings of Christianity, of loving the one God and loving thy neighbor. These are the two common principles."

When Diane Sawyer mentioned that Imam Rauf says the radicals are just a "group of people" and "not him," Beck seemed to agree, saying "sure, sure." He added, "I believe it’s a small portion of Islam that is acting in these ways."

Beck, for his part, even appeared to gesture to Imam Rauf when he invoked the idea of "good Muslims." (At about 2:45.)

Watch:

Beck’s response to this — if he bothers to respond at all — will likely be that when this segment was filmed, he was unaware of the supposed "radical" beliefs of Rauf. However as we (and Jon Stewart) have pointed out, Rauf’s statements about 9-11 that Beck and others have pointed to as evidence of his hatred of America and sympathy for terrorism track very closely with things many conservatives — including Glenn Beck himself – have said.

Source: MediaMatters.org