I GUESS I OWE GLENN BECK an apology. For months now I've thought of him as just another right-wing media nut case, paid very well to do the propaganda work of the wealthy conservative elite.
But I recently visited his new site, The 9/12 Project, and I was amazed.
Apparently Beck has been operating under cover, pretending to be a conservative and taking their money, while secretly biding his time until he could strike a blow for the left.
The site I mentioned above is that blow.
It begins with the following mission statement, which reads in part:
The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the values and principles of the greatest nation ever created.
So, from the first, he sounds the note of unity and bipartisanship, the same note that liberals have been sounding since the last election.
In doing so he stands firmly against those who would compare our elected President to Hitler, or call him a liar or a racist. He condemns all who would talk of dividing this country by succession, or who would make cheap jokes about poisoning congressional leaders.
And he does it by harking back to what we all felt on 9/12—the deep desire not to allow this tragic attack by a small group of terrorists to pull our country away from its fundamental values and principles.
I can remember the deep fear I felt on that day, that our government would use that attack as a pretense to reverse our constitutional liberties, to attack countries that had nothing to do with what happened at ground zero, to spy on our own people, to implement policies of torture.
In short, to abandon "the values and principles" of this great nation.
I even wrote a poem about it at the time.
And I can remember thinking that we needed to be "united as Americans" and stand together to protect those values, lest our government sacrifice them to fear.
It's a good start, and Beck continues to get it right with his "Nine Principles and Twelve Values," which, once again, are deeply liberal.
I do worry a little that he's blown his own cover here. What follows is so clearly left-wing that I wonder just how long his present employers will put up with it.
But it's a courageous act, especially considering which side his bread is buttered on.
Let's take them one at a time.
First, the nine principles:
Next time Principle #1: "America is Good"...
