In an August 29 Politico article on Chris Wallace's interview with Glenn Beck on today's Fox News Sunday, Glenn Thrush reported that Beck “contradicted” Martin Luther King Jr. by “blasting what [Beck] characterized as Liberation Theology.” Thrush added that Beck “sought to marginalize a religious movement that inspired the civil rights movement and liberal theologians like King, Reinhold Niebuhr and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.”

As we've noted, Beck repeatedly invoked King in claiming that his 8-28 “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, D.C., would “reclaim the civil rights movement” and “pick up Martin Luther King's dream that has been distorted and lost.” But during the interview, Beck attacked a key part of King's vision -- the pursuit of economic and social justice.

Thrush reported that, during the interview, Beck "amend[ed]" his infamous comment that President Obama is a “racist” and said that he meant to attack Obama's theology:

“It shouldn't have been said, it was poorly said, I have a big fat mouth sometimes and I say things ... and that's not the way people should behave and it was not accurate,” Beck said, adding that what he picked up from Obama wasn't racism -- but a commitment to 'Liberation Theology,' a movement that stresses responsibility of religious people to help the poor and oppressed.

“I don't want to retract -- I want to amend. I think it's much more of a theological question. ... Read his own books, he writes about the white culture and how he struggled with it, etc., etc. I didn't understand really his theological viewpoints come from Liberation Theology; that's what I think at the gut level I was sensing and I miscast it as racism.”

Thrush went on to report:

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), appearing on NBC's “Meet the Press” show, rejected Beck's interpretation, saying that his “gospel” of private enterprise overlooked the central role federal government efforts have made in the revival of New Orleans.

“It's not just talking, it's actually [about] acting, it's taking care of the poor, it's caring for the sick,” she said.

“That's where Glenn Beck is wrong.”

In blasting what he characterized as Liberation Theology, Beck also contradicted King -- whom he invoked relentlessly over the week -- and sought to marginalize a religious movement that inspired the civil rights movement and liberal theologians like King, Reinhold Niebuhr and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Beck invoked a conservative theologian -- Pope Benedict XVI -- who blamed Liberation Theology for the rise of Marxist leaders in Latin America.

As we've documented, King advocated for better “distribution of wealth” and “radical redistribution of economic power.” And while Beck constantly rails against “big government,” King repeatedly and explicitly endorsed an expanded role for the federal government in fighting poverty in our country.

King was quoted in an article published shortly after his assassination in 1968 as saying, “We will place the problems of the poor at the seat of government of the wealthiest nation in the history of mankind,” and that it was the government's responsibility to “acknowledge its debt to the poor” or else it will have “failed to live up to its promise to insure 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to its citizens.' ” He called for an “economic bill of rights” that would “guarantee a job to all people who want to work and are able to work.”