I’ve been critical of Glenn Beck in the past, but it strikes me that James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal got it just about right when he wrote:
Pundits will debate whether the crowd at Glenn Beck’s Saturday rally in Washington was the largest in recent political history, but it was certainly among the most impressive. Mr. Beck is a television host and radio broadcaster with a checkered past and a penchant for incendiary remarks. But if he’s judged by the quality of people of all colors that he attracted to the Lincoln Memorial, his stock can’t help but rise. One would not be able to find a more polite crowd at a political convention, certainly not at a professional sporting event, probably not even at an opera.
What was politically smart was to use the rally not as a forum for anti-Obama anger but for expressions of gratitude to our military, to figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., and to God. I found Beck’s comments the next day on Fox about President Obama’s Christianity to be more troubling — but in terms of the rally itself, it was, from the coverage I saw, a fairly impressive display by Beck and, mostly, by those whom he was able to draw to Washington.
Critics were waiting to strike, but it turned out there was no target at which to aim. And so people like Bill Press were made to look like fools (see this takedown of Press by HotAir’s Ed Morrissey).
