Looking for Blame in Glenn Beck's America

Ever since I watched Glenn Beck's Fear-extravaganza on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial last Saturday, I've been trying to figure out who ran off with America.

Bound to happen, I guess, after you spend three hours watching a talk show host masquerading as a messiah. It doesn't take many camera shots of guys in the audience dressed as Ben Franklin and George Washington nodding their wigs before your own head fills with questions:

Wait, what? America is missing? Who took it? Where is it? How do I explain this sweet land of liberty still unfolding all around me?

So confusing.

Let's consider the usual groups others accuse of trying to destroy our country.

If America's missing, maybe gay people took it.

Well, why not? We already blame them for divorce, rainbow dog collars and a whole generation of first-graders who don't care if Molly has two mommies. Besides, if you're looking for a scapegoat to blame for your fear in changing times, the target doesn't get any easier than it is with homosexuals. Biblically speaking, I mean, what with Leviticus and all.

Of course, if you're a Christian, it gets a little dicey because Jesus refused to condemn homosexuals — or even mention them. But now that we have Glenn Beck claiming that God is working through him, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he clears up that mystery with his discovery of the lost rewrites of Jesus.

Until then, how about those immigrants? I've been hearing a lot about them lately. Maybe they took off with America.

Except, wait. Immigrants are the ones flowing into this country. They're willing to take the low-paying jobs we don't want, and they're paying Social Security they never will be able to collect. They want to become U.S. citizens, too. Darn. Keep forgetting that part.

Nope. Can't blame the immigrants.

Well, I guess that only leaves the president. He is, after all, Beck's favorite target. Last year, Beck described President Barack Obama as a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people." To be fair, though, Beck is so over that.

Now Beck just says that President Obama's religious beliefs are "a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it."

Much better, don't you think?

On his show last Friday, according to a transcript released by Fox News, Beck was full of insights into what God wants for all of us.

"We are lost," he said. "We are lost. We can't see very far in front of us, because we've got a little flashlight or better yet, sometimes I use my iPad to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, to find my way, I just turn it on, I'm using my iPad to lead — that's the kind of light we've got.

"God's light is not showing us this path. It's showing us where we're headed. It's a lighthouse, guiding the ship. And the lighthouse is on solid rock."

I never would go so far as to claim, as Beck did about Obama, that the talk show host's religious beliefs are unrecognizable to Christians. Christians like me, say.

But I do want to say that I never thought of my iPad as a bridge to a metaphor for God's light. Nor have I used my iPad to find my way to the bathroom — which is veering so off topic that it actually helps me see who stole America.

Nobody.

On Aug. 28, 2010, a right-wing talk show host attempted to hijack the legacy of the civil rights movement by standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, claiming divine destiny and then delivering a cobbled version of American history and Scripture so weird and warped that even many conservative Christians winced.

The next day, he was back on a talk show, warning Americans not to trust their president.

And America — mine and yours — is still standing.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine. To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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