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We've been saying for awhile that for a guy like Glenn Beck to try to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement for conservatives -- as he is clearly attempting to do with his August "Restoring Honor" rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial -- is nothing short of a travesty -- especially when you consider that he otherwise spends his time promoting the work of a Bircherite Mormon who was otherwise well known for smearing King as a Communist (a practice Beck himself is notably fond of applying to other black liberals like Van Jones) and attacking "progressives" as a "cancer", even though King himself not only was a self-described progressive, but even made speeches proclaiming Beck's great shibboleth, "Social Justice."

Last night, Al Sharpton went on the air with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown and made clear that Civil Rights leaders are indeed deeply offended by Beck's desecration:

OLBERMANN: Read that phrase again: “we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place.” To your knowledge, who‘s this we he‘s talking about?

SHARPTON: I have no idea. From my study of history, those that claim to be the Tea Partiers and the followers and supporters of Mr. Beck and Mrs. Palin were the ones that today advocate the things that that march was against.

First of all, that march was to appeal to government to intervene and protect the rights of people. They are against big government. I mean, you don't have to get to race. Their idea of government and the idea that Dr. King and Roy Wilkins of—and others espoused is the exact opposite of what they're calling for. Dr. King met with Caesar Chavez and talked about how we protect people, no matter who they are, that come into the borders, and have a sound policy. They're the ones that are rallying against that. So I think that they are absolutely, unequivocally—I don't even have to get to the race side of this. They are against the concept of what the march was about in '63. And for them to now talk about we're going to reclaim or we're going to take back a movement, that they are the philosophical children of the Barry Goldwaters, who opposed it—I think it would be laughable if it wasn't so arrogant.

OLBERMANN: Yeah. What do you think—is there an attempt in here to desecrate Dr. King's memory and what everybody stood for then? Or is this just a publicity stunt by some sort of a megalomaniac?

SHARPTON: Well, whether it's an attempt to do the desecration or whether it's a publicity stunt, it can desecrate. The fact of the matter is the march was 47 years ago. So people that are middle-aged and younger would not understand what it was about if we did not do our rally that we do every year. And Urban League, Marc Morial and others that have inherited those organizations, as I came out as a kid in the aftermath of Dr. King's death from his movement—that's not what the movement is about.

The movement is about what they talked about them. Martin Luther King talked about America giving blacks and poor people a bad check. These people are the ones that don‘t want to even give you an unemployment check today. He talked about us having a judicial system that was fair. These are the people that defend brutality.

So I think that it will be a classic case of they're trying to hijack something. But there will be some of us in Washington, at another location. We're not going to confront them. We're going to do what we always do, affirm the dream to try to complete it, because we're not there yet.

Sharpton says the way to counter Beck's rally is for thousands to turn out for his "Reclaiming Rally" in New York the same weekend. And he said he's not alone in being offended:

SHARPTON: It's going—certainly it's energized by this distortion. I've talked to Martin Luther King III. He's coming and others. A lot of us are offended by it. But we're not going to play into that. We're going to put a clean glass next to whatever they do, wherever they do it.

OLBERMANN: It's a fascinating point that you can subtract the entire element of race out of this, and they've still gotten it wrong, from what Martin Luther King said in 1963.

SHARPTON: And if we had another hour, I could bring the race part up. If you just use government and what Martin Luther King said—read the whole speech. It is the exact antithesis of what they represent and what they‘re saying in the Tea Party.

Glenn Beck, of course, has no shame. It's about time someone called him out for his bizarre and hypocritical hijacking of Martin Luther King's legacy.

(h/t GottaLaff at Political Carnival)

By now, unless you've been living under a rock, or below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, you know that Glenn Beck is about the lowest common denominator when it comes to corporate teevee and radio. Despite his ratings dive and a lack of sponsors, he still considers himself to be a winner.

Well, he's really stepping in it this time. He's asking his fans to make donations to a military charity to fund a rally in Washington D.C. - the only problem is that the rally is nothing more than a release party for his new book and well...I'll let GottaLaff tell the rest of the story, keying off this audio report from Bill Press:

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Yes, you heard right. Beck doesn’t even have a permit for The Big Rally yet. They’ve applied, but they’re still in negotiations. Yet, they’re selling merchandise as if it’s a done deal. He’s selling stuff for an event that may never take place.

It’s also not being held at the Lincoln Memorial, but at the reflecting pool, across the street. Glenn Beck is lying about the location of the rally.

And finally, he’s exploiting a charity by soliciting contributions to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. But see, the fine print says all contributions will first be applied to the rally, the one with Sarah Palin. All contributions in excess of the costs will go to the troops.

Let’s recap:
–He’s desecrating the memory of Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln;
–He’s lying to the (gullible) American people who still choose to give him an ounce of credibility, and
–He’s using a charity set up to raise money for members of the military, and then stealing the money he raises to pay for his little get together. Read on...

I am flabbergasted that Glenn Beck would try to freeload like that! /snark WTF is wrong with pukes like Beck and Hannity, who claim to be sooo patriotic, yet use military charities to enrich themselves? Oh wait...they're Republicans....

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Glenn Beck seems to be on a crusade of sorts to try to claim the Civil Rights Movement for conservatives. Lotsa luck with that, big guy.

Yesterday on his Fox News show he opened a segment with this:

Beck: I told you this summer that we are going to concentrate on restoring history. The history of our nation, the founding, the 20th century, the Depression era, um, and the Civil Rights Movement, which has been co-opted by progressives.

Of course, if Beck wants to make this claim, he won't be "restoring" history, unless by "restoring" you mean "utterly falsifying and inverting on its head".

Because, of course, as we've explained several times, the Civil Rights Movement from its very inception was a progressive cause. Beck's favorite Civil Rights icon, Martin Luther King, was a leading advocate of the same "social justice" that Beck now openly despises.

This whole project of Beck's -- built around his August 28 "Restoring Honor" rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial -- is more than a little peculiar. It's become evident he wants to claim the mantle of the Civil Rights Movement for he and his fellows on the American Right.

There's only one little problem with all of that: Not only was the Civil Rights Movement a progressive cause from the start, it was the American Right that opposed, attacked, condemned, and undermined the Civil Rights marchers at every turn. It was conservatives, the Glenn Becks of their day, who publicly reviled them and inspired the deadly lynch mobs and Klansmen who committed acts of violence against them.

Indeed, some of their propaganda looks more than a little familiar, don't you think?

This, you see, was a flier that was distributed widely as part of a campaign to discredit King as a Communist. Among the formost leaders in that campaign, especially among Mormons, was none other than the Church's future president, Ezra Taft Benson.

Here are some prime quotes from Benson:

“LOGAN, UTAH-Former Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson charged Friday night that the civil-rights movement in the South had been ‘formatted almost entirely by the Communists.’ Elder Benson, a member of the Council of the Twelve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in a public meeting here that the whole civil-rights movement was ‘phony.’” (Deseret News, Dec. 14, 1963)

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I have a Dream

3 Quarks Daily: It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America. This is the full text of MLK's heroic and devastatingly moving speech delivered on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. I strongly urge you to read it again, if you haven't done so in a while, and I defy you to remain unmoved by it. An audio version is available here...

Read the speech here. Brad has the video up.

"The National Park Service sought out footage of ``conservative - right-wing demonstrations'' to revise the video shown to visitors at the Lincoln Memorial after being pressured by conservatives who complained the display implied Abraham Lincoln supported abortion, homosexuality and liberal causes. Park Service documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show officials purchased video of President Bush, pro-gun advocates and pro-Iraq war rallies and also considered removing images of Democratic former President Clinton at the memorial."

Click here for a news clip about the story: Video

Click here for the full eight minute version of the: Video

"The video gave the impression that Lincoln would have supported abortion and homosexuality,'' said the Web site of Rev. Louis Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition.'' read on"

God's Circus Clowns are at it again. There's nothing like a little Civil Rights to get them all hot and bothered. I thought these succubi had souls to save not videos to destroy? Oh how I wish it were Festivus again.

Direland has some more on the story.