Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- "We are on the right side of history! We are on the side of individual freedoms and liberties and, dammit, we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement -- because we were the people who did it in the first place." -- Glenn Beck, on his nationally syndicated radio program, May 26.
It is Glenn Beck's most audacious stunt yet: This Saturday, in the company of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the National Rifle Association and others, the Fox News Channel host will stand in the sacred shadow not just of the
Lincoln Memorial but of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. himself, near the spot where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech 47 years earlier to the exact day.
During this event -- billed as "Restoring Honor" -- Beck will aim to "reclaim the civil rights moment" for his cause, and in the process he will continue what he's been doing for the last 18 months: bending the history of 20th-century
America like a Philadelphia soft pretzel.
The revisionist message behind "Restoring Honor" is nothing new for the conservative shock jock. In the year and half since President Obama took office, Beck has led his loyal followers on a journey not just to "reclaim" civil rights but much more audaciously to rewrite the sweeping narrative arc of American history from the time of the Founding Fathers forward.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/26/bunch.beck.history/index.html?hpt=C2