Glenn Beck doesn't understand the meaning of “hijacking”
Written by Mike Burns
Published
Yesterday, Media Matters' Will Bunch reported that several of the nation's top civil rights leaders have accused Glenn Beck of “hijacking” the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream Speech” by planning a rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary date of August 28. Bunch noted that while Beck has claimed that he is trying to "reclaim the civil rights movement," civil rights activists believe that he is trying to rewrite history and “promote an agenda of intolerance.”
It seems that Beck either doesn't understand or doesn't care about how he is “hijacking” the legacy of Dr. King's most famous speech -- or about the rank hypocrisy he espouses in defending his position.
Responding to Bunch's piece on his radio show today, Beck claimed that he is not “hijacking” Dr. King's “legacy in any way, shape, or form;” rather, he “plan[s] to salute Dr. King and the civil rights movement” at his 8/28 rally. However, later in the program, while speaking with a caller fearful of losing his oil rig job due to President Obama's moratorium, Beck invoked Dr. King in encouraging oil drillers to “stand peacefully” against Obama by engaging in civil disobedience, going out to the rig and forcing Obama “to take you off in handcuffs.”
That certainly sounds like hijacking Dr. King's legacy to us, and it's only the latest example in Beck's long history of using the civil rights movement to his own ends.
Mercifully, the NAACP and other civil rights groups have responded to Beck's contemptible plan with a counter-rally of their own.