I had to watch Beck last night to get Beck’s own view of his rally.
He spent most of the show trying desperately to "prove" that he had more than "just tens of thousands" of people show up. The much touted figure of 87,000 appeared to leave him aghast. The real figure, he insisted, was in the half million mark and probably more, perhaps two million. All the media reports otherwise were wrong.
Leaving that fantasy aside, there were some breath-taking moments after that. Although I am sure that the Smithsonian does this for each and every large event on the Mall, apparently the Smithsonian called Beck’s people and asked for some token souvenir representing the event. Also, apparently, Beck thought he was the only one ever asked for this. He announced that he was so excited by the call that he woke up his whole family to tell them that he was going to be in the Smithsonian Museum for what he had accomplished. Stunning, stunning self-deceit. Stunning show of ego.
And there is more...
Then he showed a picture of himself and Ms. King together and announced that, yes, he was wearing a bullet proof vest... but only because his wife had insisted on it. This was followed later by another pronouncement that "someone" (never identified in any way) had put out a $100,000 contract on his life. No evidence of that, of course. I think this was his "I’m playing Dr. King in mortal danger right here" role.
The best moment was when Beck disclosed, in total shock, that none of the media had printed his speech in full. None! Not one! He cannot understand that. HIS speech was as good as or even better than Dr. King’s. How could they not preserve it for all time? How could they not print it for the whole world to read? I could see that Beck was truly wounded to the deepest part of his ego by this gross and callous shunning of wisdom and majesty of words and inspiration, and I laughed out loud. Yes, Beck, it was your "I Should Crawl Out Of Here In Shame" speech that no one saw fit or worthy to print.
Nor could he understand why none of the branches of the Armed Forces would participate in his event.
He did show all twelve of the African Americans that were present anywhere at the Mall during the event.
There has been no announcement so far about any check being delivered to the Wounded Warriors, nor how much money he managed to raise (and spend).
I would guess his biggest accomplishment was finding a way to connive a pack of pandering pastors into supporting this farce. Or maybe it was morphing a book launch into a political rally into a religious revival meeting that was in itself an utter failure.
What a feckless, twitterpated egomaniac this man is.
And that is all the Beck I can stand to watch for at least another year, if he is still around by then.