Side Show Slam

True confession: I have found further evidence that I am easily distracted from serious matters by loud, fast, shiny irrelevancies. And I do so hate that admission, since it eye-rolls in the face of my self-image--the serious, duty-bound, research-loving, non-fiction reading, television abhorring me. (I blame Slutticia, my alter ego, who sneaks Amy Winehouse's "Amy, Amy, Amy" onto my iPod between my "On Point" podcasts from NPR.) Specifically, I refer to the Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin ado-about-nothing in Anchorage last night. I get it. I was hooked by the hoochy-koochy show at the fair. I bought the snake oil. I'm a dupe for diversion. I got the side show mixed up with the big tent.  For the last time.

Hat tip to Octopus, who warned that we should follow the serious money, the Kochs and Murdoch, if we want to know what's hauling the conservative voting pool toward the ranting right.

So dazzled and distracted was I that I actually went looking this morning for the big announcement Beck promised from the Anchorage...um, performance. I can't call it a rally and it wasn't a political fundraiser, although Beck announced that his speaking fee, an undisclosed amount, would be donated to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. That's the same organization that lent its name to the Beck/Palin rally on the Mall and that insisted the speakers stick to non-political topics, according to Time Mag.

 Remember that the fundraising efforts for the August 28th rally (which restored an honor that hadn't gone missing except at Fox News) went first to support what Mother Jones calls, "Beck's tribute to himself." Only the remainder, after all costs were paid, went to SOWF. Disingenuous of Beck and Palin.  Because, of course, all of us are clueless about their politics, so we don't assume that they might represent any particular political viewpoint, right children? Anyone? Anyone?

Time Mag thinks there's genius in Beck's plan to link his appearances to SOWF, a non-profit that pays the college tuitions of the children of special operations personnel who died in training or battle after 9/11. Beck would find the job too important to be left up to the US government. But the G.I. bill was expanded by The Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry Scholarship, which pays in-state tuition for the children of ALL military personnel killed in the line of duty after 9/11, regardless of age or marital status; Public Law 111-32, sponsored by Democratic Congressman John Boccieri of the 16th District of Ohio.

 Beck's announcements in his gatherings would lead his audience to believe that it is by his efforts and his alone that the children of the deceased special ops veterans receive an education, when, in fact, the SOWF organization only supplements the amended G.I. Bill, only for children of deceased special operatives, and only expands it to private colleges...not an unworthy goal, but not critical in a country with outstanding state university systems. Time Mag may think it genius on Beck's part, but I call it disingenuous...again.

So what was Anchorage all about? Nothing...if we still care, and even if we don't.

The Alaska Dispatch reported that Beck didn't seem aware that he was insulting the state when he complained about how long it took to get there and essentially said that he and his wife had thought of vacationing in Alaska, but chose Idaho instead. He made a crude reference to Palin, saying she had just come back from caribou hunting and still had blood under her fingernails. And he said it all made him feel "like a girl again."

Read that last line one more time. Yep, I think going after that, as the Dispatch did, would produce some copy at least as interesting as the stuff I read on Mr. Obama's wedding ring. In fact, I'll let the Dispatch write about Glenn and Glenda a bit:

He was at turns bombastic, self-effacing, philosophical, funny, historical and even tearful as he prowled the stage lamenting the collectives that rule American politics today, stressing the value of the individual and suggesting, without ever actually saying so, that those in the attendance form a new collective. Stand together, he said; take strength from each other; and take back America.

The mostly white crowd loved it. Not that Beck's message wouldn't have had something for any race or nationality. There were, as is often the case with Beck, so many messages scattered through the presentation that there was something for anyone.

He said to find God, but then he stressed it could be any God, even a mountain top. He attacked the bureaucracy, something with which almost [every] American has had a run-in at some point, although he referred to them as the "administrators.''

He said everyone should read their history, though his livelihood is dependent on people watching an electronic box instead of reading. He said he'd already made enough money to be set for life, but that he was carrying forward his message for the good of the country.

It was very good theater. Those leaving had all kinds of reactions to the message, although they seemed mainly to have gotten the theme that they should find the Christian God and fight to shrink government.

Beck's last pitch was to call on them to join his 40 Days/40 Nights campaign of self-awareness, which includes the search for God, after which "our politicians will be replaced." The new ones, he suggested, wouldn't fight so much, which would probably be a first in American's cantankerous political history.

Would that mean that they wouldn't fight each other so much? Those darn democrats just insist on governing when they have the majority and the presidency.  Or does that mean they wouldn't fight other countries so much? Oh, brother; let's don't even go there. And the 40 days and 40 nights? No shame to his name.

So, with their special genius, Beck and Palin managed to co-opt a second significant calendar date--August 28th, the anniversary of Dr. King's death and 9/11/10, the ninth anniversary of the death of America's sense of security and 2,976 innocents--and turn it into another paean to...well, if they are to be believed and it ain't about the politics, it must be just another performance of the Glenn and Sarah Show. Not the main event, after all.