Glenn Beck Day

This past Saturday, conservative Fox News commentator Glenn Beck was honored for his success by his hometown of Mt Vernon, Washington and presented with the keys to the city by the mayor. No big deal, right?

Wrong.

Apparently, the symbolic act of giving a day to a local son made good didn't sit well with the local (and not-so-local) liberal activists who don't like Beck and what he stands for. They turned out by the hundreds with their posters to protest the event and slam Beck, as well as their favorite bug-a-boo, Fox News. Apparently, the small town of Mt Vernon was invaded by out-of-towners and out-of-staters, mostly from Oregon, according to one account.

And what is Beck's sin? Overall, being a conservative, but more specifically, he has made some controversial comments questioning President Obama's racial attitudes (toward whites), an issue I take no position on. More important, Beck took the lead in bringing attention to the fact that there was a radical, self-proclaimed Marxist in the White House (Van Jones), something our vaunted main-stream media had decided to ignore. As a result of the furor, Jones was forced to resign. That apparently inspired a lot of folks in the ultra-liberal state of Oregon to cross state lines to join their liberal brothers and sisters in protesting Beck's appearance in Mt Vernon, Washington.

Let me make it clear; as long as the protesters were peaceful and obeyed the law, they had every right to turn out-same as the folks who have turned out to the tea parties. Yet, this demonstration was clearly directed against one man because of his conservative beliefs-still entirely legal on the part of the demonstrators.

Here is the test which I applied to myself in mulling over this issue; had some small town in the US, whether it be my own town or a town in another state, decided to have a similar day and event in honor of a famous son-say Keith Olbermann- whom I hold in utter distaste, would I turn out to protest? The answer is an emphatic no. If Irvine, California or New York City-wherever he is from-wants to honor him, I say, "have a nice day". First of all, I would not deign to travel to another state and another town to tell them who they can or cannot honor. Even were it my town, I would not cross the street to interfere with the right to honor a native son who made "good" (Olbermann).

Surely, my critical interlocutors will quickly reply with a litany of conservatives who violated the Fouse rule. Yet, I will maintain that the tactic employed in the Beck Day protests is a specialty of the intolerant left. If you don't believe me, visit a university campus when a conservative speaker shows up-a rare enough event to start with. There is a curious tendency on the left to want to prevent conservative voices from being heard by the masses. It is that attitude that turned out hundreds of Beck-bashers to Mt Vernon on Saturday.