He calls himself ‘mushy’, others call him a born-again ‘Elmer Gantry’, or a ‘Carnival Barker’ who dresses up ‘Hallmark’ platitudes about honor and freedom and God and Country deluding himself when all the Glenn Beck rally this weekend amounted to – was a rating grabber.  A made-for-TV-event.  But unlike a reality TV show, the media pundits who call it the way they want to enviously see it, can’t take away from Beck the massive audience he drew.

The left called the crowd number around 90,000 while the right thought it was more like 650,000.  In  fact conservative estimates put it at more than 300,000, a massive crowd that stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.

And, it wasn’t suppose to be a left or right event, it was to be apolitical, and for the most part it was.

Now the media pundits, who call themselves journalists, but are really in the entertainment business today, as is Beck, have this burning desire to interpret for their audience what actually happened, as though they were not smart enough to figure it out for themselves.

Did some 300,000 people really show up to hear Beck amplify or expound on ‘Hallmark platitudes about honor and freedom and God and country?’

I don’t think so.  I think Beck served a need, a focal point for people to rally, who don’t like what they see happening to their country, and they want to take it back.  In two short years they have seen what big government does, it is intrusive to people’s lives.  The people want politicians to uphold and honor the Constitution, not erode it.

Glenn Beck is not academically educated, he is self-taught, a reader, an historian.

He is a history teacher, uses the blackboard as well as President Obama uses the teleprompter.  He lectures, instructs by reviewing the constitution and making it relevant to today.  He reviews history, mistakes of the past, so hopefully they don’ t occur again.  I believe he does believe in ‘equal justice for all no matter race, color or creed.’

He wants the people empowered and believes in ‘collective salvation’, described as redemption in what everyone does collectively through God.

Beck’s Elmer Gantry style looses me, and I believe, causes some to question his credibility when associated with fire and brimstone healing.

I do believe that Americans must participate in their democracy, to ensure that it continues to be what our forefathers intended it to be and not transformed into what some politicians might think it should be.

I don’t think the answers to the multitude of problems this nation faces is with the politicians, nor is it with God.  However, the role that faith and religion play with respect to right and wrong decision making is paramont.

The answers are with the people and common sense.  One can learn common sense from history and an entertaining and enlightening teacher like Beck.

Beck doesn’t profess to be a journalist, he bills his radio and TV shows as a fusion of entertainment and enlightenment and has an audience in the millions.

Unlike his media pundits who are also entertainers under the guise of journalism, Beck has nothing to be jealous about.  Few can achieve what he did this weekend, so the people must be seeing something worthwhile in his message.

It is interesting how we often set out to demonize those that achieve.

As William Penn said, “The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.”