While promoting his upcoming “Restoring Honor” rally that falls on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech - and chalking up said coincidence to “divine providence” - Glenn Beck has repeatedly invoked the memory of the civil rights movement. According to Beck, the rally will “reclaim the civil rights movement” because “Martin Luther King's dream” has “been distorted” and "massively perverted" by progressives.
As we've noted, Beck's shameless co-opting of King's legacy for his own self-aggrandizement is especially appalling in light of his long history of race-baiting (including, but far from limited to calling President Obama a “racist.”)
Joining Beck at the rally next weekend will be fellow Fox News employee Sarah Palin, whose presence at the rally is complicated by her defense of Dr. Laura's racially charged rant. As we documented, last night Palin told Dr. Laura “don't retreat....reload!” She also nonsensically chalked up attacks on Dr. Laura to an infringement on her “1st Amend.rights” by “Constitutional obstructionists.”
As John Ridley pointed out in response to Dr. Laura using the same defense, this argument is “absurd.”
And just to remind everyone what exactly Palin is defending here: in Dr. Laura's initial rant, she not only used the n word eleven times, but also told her African-American caller that she had a “chip on [her] shoulder,” suggested that people should stop “complaining about racism” because we have a black president, accused the caller of “hypersensitivity” that is being “bred by black activists,” and said that if you “don't have a sense of humor, don't marry out of your race.”
Oh, and when the caller objected to Dr. Laura's rant, Schlessinger implored her not to “double N -NAACP me.” I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the people who led the civil rights movement wouldn't respond to such a rant by telling the person “don't retreat, reload!”
But Palin is going to help Glenn Beck “reclaim the civil rights movement” because they “were the people that did it in the first place.”
What a disgrace.