Kathleen Parker: Beck's gathering right out of AA playbook

The Dallas Morning News ^ | September 1, 2010 | Kathleen Parker

[2ndDivisionVet]

Despite all the words spilled in evaluating Glenn Beck's tent-less revival last weekend, the real meaning may have been hiding in plain sight.

Beck's "Restoring Honor" gathering was right out of the Alcoholics Anonymous playbook. It was a 12-step program distilled to a few key words, all lifted from a prayer delivered from the Lincoln Memorial: healing, recovery and restoration.

Saturday's Beckapalooza was yet another step in Beck's own personal journey of recovery.

Beck's history of alcoholism and addiction is familiar to any who follow him. For Beck, it has been a defining part of his life, and recovery is a process inseparable from The Glenn Beck Show. His emotional, public breakdowns are replicated in AA meetings in towns and cities every day.

Taking others along for the ride, aka evangelism, is also part of the cure. Beck, who vaulted from radio host to political-televangelist, now has taken another step in his ascendancy–to national crusader for faith, hope and charity.

It's an easy sell. Meanwhile, Beck has built a movement framed by two ideas that are unassailable: God and country. Throw in some Mom and apple pie, and you've got a picnic of patriotism and worship.

Wait, did somebody say ... Mom?

Sister Sarah, come on down!

Yes, Mother Superior made an appearance. Sarah Palin, whom Beck sainted a few months ago during an interview in which he declared her one of the only people who can save America, came to the Mall not to praise politics, but to honor our troops.

Palin is the mother of a soldier, after all, and God bless her, and him, and all those who have served. Unassailable. As Palin said, whatever else you might say about her, she did raise a combat soldier. "You can't take that away from me."

[Truthsearcher]

Seems pretty appropriate for a country that is drunk on overspending and instant gratification. I really don’t see that much difference between our addiction to spending other people’s money for instant gratification and substance addiction.

[brytlea]

I think she once wrote one good column. People were fooled.

[Matchett-PI]

There’s too much talking point co-ordinatin’ goin’ on.

The Great Glenn Beck-a-Palooza
Warning Signs ^ | August 29, 2010 | By Alan Caruba
Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 6:22:50 AM by Ronbo1948
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2579938/posts

[2ndDivisionVet]

She backed Mr. Obama in 2008, as did Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley, Colin Powell, JC Watts, etc, etc..

[RightOnTheBorder]

Even if we accept this twit’s shaky premise, she is still putting the cart before the horse. The 12 step programs lean on the principles of faith, not the other way around. Or is the writer suggesting that The Lord got his good ideas from Alcoholics Anonymous?

[LibLieSlayer]

parker is a sharia loving commie wh0re for satan.

LLS

[rejoicing]

The Left Is Terrified!!

[the_daug]

11. “Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films”

[November 2010]

Good point Ranger. Parker is using AA essentially as a pejorative here, a way of attempting (in a way that makes absolutely no sense) to undermine Beck’s success with his rally. AA has done a great deal of good for millions and millions of people and she is trying to use it as a prop in an ad hominem attack.

[EverOnward]

The leftists just can’t wrap their head around HONOR let alone faith, hope and charity.

[VeniVidiVici]

Another meandering screed brought to you by Catty Parker. You know, as bad off as newspapers are doing nowadays one has to wonder if they still pay idiots like her to write down some comments for the newspaper.

Don’t worry, Catty. Soon your beloved Barry will have a lot more time to spend with you on the sex chat line.

[nathanbedford]

"Clement Attlee is a very modest man and he has much to be modest about," Winston Churchill.

I am going to surprise many Freepers and distress many fans of Glenn Beck, author Kathleen Parker has got it right: Glenn Beck's addiction and recovery explain much of his wonderfully successful rally at the Lincoln Memorial to Restore America's Honor. It explains Beck's spirituality and the fact that he wears it on his sleeve. After all, it was through a spiritual epiphany that he found sobriety and even life itself. This is a mighty achievement. Few indeed among millions of alcoholics and addicts who can find survival much less sobriety. Most simply die.

"Like other successful revivalists – and giving the devil his due – Beck is right about many things. Tens of thousands joined him in Washington and watch him each night on television for a reason. But he also is messianic and betrays the grandiosity of the addict."

I wonder, Ms. Parker, if you would deny that Martin Luther King Jr. was "messianic?" Was he also grandiose? I suppose that is in the eye of the beholder. In either case, King or Beck, hundreds of thousands joined him in Washington.

I should not be surprised if Glenn Beck would be the first to cheerfully admit that his triumph over drugs and alcohol is far more important and of much more merit than his rally. In either case, I have no doubt that he would give the credit to God. I believe he would count himself as sincere when he does so. The problem, Ms. Parker, is that the Book tells us, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Was Martin Luther King's heart completely free of deceit? He was, we now know, rather fond of the ladies. There is no evidence that Glenn Beck dallies these days in this deceit. What do you say about the relative level of deceit in these men?

When Barak Hussein Obama told us that "we are the ones we have been waiting for," or that the seas would now recede because he had been elected, could you kindly tell us, Ms. Parker, which of the two, Obama or Beck, is the more grandiose?

You complain that Beck cannot go 16 hours without referring to the deity, would you reveal your choice to us, Ms. Parker, about whether you have more confidence in a man who repeatedly refers to God or do you have more confidence in a man who cannot remember virtually anything in his preacher told them in the course of 20 years?

Beck is a man who is not without sin. But the big difference between Beck and King is that Beck follows the biblical injunction and confesses his sins and repents of them, so far with stupendous success. He is after all sober. King kept his mistresses. Barak Obama is a narcissist with a singular inability to admit he is ever wrong about anything. The man is utterly incapable of repentance.

Clement Attlee was a socialist who very nearly wrecked England when he came to power after World War II. Churchill's quip about modesty does not apply to any of the three men under discussion above. The point is that modesty could not redeem the trail of consequences left in Mr. Attlee's wake. We are all flawed, to quote the Book again, we all sin and we all fall short of the glory of God so perhaps it is the wiser course to judge a man by how he deals with his shortcomings. I think Glenn Beck has done so admirably.

Ms. Parker condescendingly says, "Let's hope Glenn gets well soon."

Ms. Parker, he already has.

[Mad Dawgg]

"What does AA have to do with anything?"

Bottom line of the article Beck is an alcoholic, you shouldn't listen to him.

[kanawa]

Yep

[bmwcyle]

Pg. 8 — Have a big rally with 500,000 people. If you fail drink again.

[Matchett-PI]

GREAT post! bttt