APP Editorial: Beck's rally not about honor

The following editorial is from today's edition of the Asbury Park Press. A simple Amen is all that needs to be said.

It's hard to guess exactly what Glenn Beck is thinking today in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, on the anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King's historic "I Have A Dream" speech.

Is his "Restoration of Honor" rally a way to honor America's military, or is it rather, as Beck originally put it, a matter of "reclaiming the civil rights movement" — which begs the question: From whom does he intend to take it back, and whom would he like to see get it?

There is no shortage of angry, doughy, white guys in this country who feel shortchanged and cheated and, rather than looking in the mirror, prefer to blame every failure and setback in their lives on those with more melanin than their own pasty selves.

Beck may be a fool — a man who believes that President Barack Obama has a deep-seated hatred of white people, a man who, 30 years late, hears Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and can't tell the difference between a patriotic protest song and anti-American propaganda, a man who never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like — but he's not stupid. He's got red meat to hand out to the crowds.

But most Americans know he's a clown. What Beck carries in his heart is no dream. It's a nightmare.