FYI you might need special wingnut glasses to see Beck-a-polooza the way the Tea Partiers see it. Here's a pair, via Driftglass:

Open thread below...

Goodnight, week.

On August 26, 1920 the 19th Amendment was passed giving Women the right to vote. On August 26, 1970, millions of women all over the country marched and demonstrated on its fiftieth anniversary and the Women's Movement came front and center in the social conscience of America. The days of the Second Class Citizen would be gone . . . mostly. Well, there is that issue of Equal Rights in the workplace some forty years later. Still, August 26, 1970 was a pivotal change for many people and it was the beginning of a new era.

One of the biggest demonstrations took place in New York with marchers estimated at between 10-50,000. On hand to address the crowd were founding members of the Women's Movement, among them Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique has been credited as sparking the feminist movement.

Betty Friedan: “The great debate in Theology of the 60’s was is God dead? I think the debate of the 70’s will be is God He, and I do not say God should be She. But I think that unless we can see the highest possible creation and creativity in Female cause as well as Male, we have not reached the next step of Human evolution.”

Forty years ago today, celebrating ninety years ago today.

What no one has really pointed out about Glenn Beck's upcoming pep rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial is that, in claiming he's following the example of Martin Luther King, he's actually positioning this gig as a civil-rights event. But whose civil rights? Well, judging by what we've seen at the Tea Parties inspired by Beck, it's gonna be pretty damned white.

It is thus, in essence, a civil-rights march for white people. Or more particularly, for right-wing white people who feel threatened by the growing presence and power of the nonwhite population.

Of course, they don't put it that way. They know that race talk will just get them called out for what this is all really about. So they talk about "government oppression" and "taking away our freedoms" and "preserving the Constitution" and "what it means to be American". Strip these down to the bare bones -- especially when you peel away the layers of illogic required to support these claims -- and what's really at issue here is a black man leading nonwhite minorities to power, which is always perceived by authoritarians as a sign of their loss of power.

So that's what it's really about. If the rhetoric all seems terribly vague to you, that's why.

And what's really bizarre and Orwellian about this whole spectacle is that it's part of Beck's larger campaign to demonize progressives -- even though the civil-rights movement was always a progressive phenomenon, and indeed Martin Luther King Jr. often proclaimed some of the very themes, such as "social justice," that Beck loves to demonize as part of progressives' eeeeeevil plot to destroy America.

Moreover, as we've said previously and often, there's a reason conservatives like Beck should never, ever try to claim his mantle or his legacy: Because it was conservatives who attacked and demonized and opposed King at every turn in his career.

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Cenk Uygur filling in for Ed Schultz asks the question I'm sure so many of us have as well on President Obama's deficit commission.

Why did we elect a Democrat if we`re going to get a conservative deficit commission that`s going to cut our Social Security?

As Bob Shrum rightly responds, if the Democrats join with Republicans to destroy Social Security, it's going to spell big trouble for the party, and rightfully so. Alan Simpson and the whole commission need to go.

UYGUR: The White House is circling the wagons around former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chairman of the president`s deficit commission after he went berserk about Social Security.

Simpson likes to talk about the budget in terms of farm animals. In an e-mail to an older voter advocate he wrote that Social Security was like a cow with 310 million -- I think you get the picture.

The White House has responded, quote, "Alan Simpson has apologized and while we regret and do not condone his comments, we accept his apology and he will continue to serve." Catering to loathsome Republicans, the Obama White House at its best.

For Simpson, this week it was a cow. Last month it was a pig. Speaking to a gathering of the nation`s governors in July, Simpson compared the Recovery Act to a pig saying "the pig is dead. There`s no more bacon to bring home."

Get a load of this guy. He thinks you`re milking the system as if it`s his money. You paid into social security. It`s your money. You`re not milking a damn thing and when we try to stimulate our economy or keep teachers on the job, he says the pig is dead. Who killed the pig?

Simpson and his friends in Congress who spent all of your money including the Social Security surplus on tax cuts for the rich and endless wars. Old Simpson had a farm on it he had a bunch of rich Republicans who milked the system dry then told us they killed our pig.

Joining me now is Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. He`s a professor at New York University. Bob, look, this whole talk about how Social Security is going bankrupt, you don`t understand, you guys are milking it dry, doesn`t it have a $2.5 trillion surplus? Isn`t all this one big fat lie?

BOB SHRUM: Yes, it is actually. The truth of the matter is that before Simpson loves to say Social Security goes bust in 2037. That`s not true.

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[H/t Heather]

This seems to have been Laura Ingraham Tries Out for Her Own Fox Show Week at The O'Reilly Factor, and it's been quite a bust -- largely because Ingraham has tried to use O'Reilly-style bullying of her guests, and has not just been outplayed, she's really come off as a nasty, mean-spirited whiner.

That was particularly the case yesterday, when she tried playing the Right-Wing Victimology Card in the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy: It's not Muslims who are being victimized by the hateful scapegoating of Islamophobes who want to associate them with all things 9/11 and blame them for all the world's terrorism -- rather, it's those very Islamophobes who are being victimized by the people calling them out for their bigotry.

It was particularly striking how she reacted when her guest -- a conservative Republican Muslim named Muhammad Ali Hassan -- tried to explain patiently that the very accusation that these Muslims and this mosque are somehow associated with terrorists is simply prima facie bigotry: "When you tell a group of people they're not allowed to build something because they're Muslim, that's bigotry." It really is that simple.

Ingraham acted as though someone had just spilled coffee on her lap. She began shouting Hassan down, talking over him, attacking his conservative bona fides because he dared to speak this simple truth.

And I just love it whenever right-wingers play the victim card. It's a classic case of the waving-the-bloody-shirt strategy, which magically transforms vicious and violent right-wing thugs into the woebegone victims of the meanness of the people they target.

It has really been quite the demonstration of the intellectual bankruptcy of conservatives this week at O'Reilly's place. Ingraham has tried to pose as someone smarter than her guests. Consistently, she's being outsmarted and made to look like the shallow and vicious harridan we all suspect she really is.

Comedy Central's Jon Stewart is going to be on vacation the week following Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial so he took the opportunity Thursday to preemptively critique the event.

Beck's speech is planned on the anniversary at and the same location as Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. In his defense, the Fox News host claims that when he scheduled the rally that he wasn't aware of the significance.

"Glenn Beck didn't know it was an important day in American history," noted Stewart. "I find that totally plausible."

But Beck explained that there is one major difference. "I am certainly no Martin Luther King," he said. "I am not going to be standing on the stair that Martin Luther King stood on."

"I'll be two flights down from that stair as is appropriate," said Beck.

"In Glenn's defense, I would have guessed he would have gone two flights up, sat on Lincoln's lap," joked Stewart in a segment titled "I have a scheme."

After learning how important the date was, Beck seemed to co-opt King into his talking points. "It's about the things that Martin Luther King stood for, the contents of character, not the color of skin," he said.

Michael Yaki, a Commissioner for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights wrote:

Beck has decided that the event will help he and his fellow right-wingers "reclaim the Civil Rights movement." He liked that phrase so much, he has two different versions. One states that it is because " it is "distorted" and "turned upside down". The other has enough chutzpah to choke a grown rhino: he seeks to reclaim the movement because "we were the people who did in the first place."

What?

Unfortunately, Beck will get coverage, mainly because Fox News is promoting as if it were the Second Coming. And there is nothing wrong with honoring the men and women of our armed services. And nothing wrong with honoring people who have done great service to our country out of uniform as well.

But Glenn, don't get caught up in your messianic self-promotion and think for a moment that you can use this moment to hijack the civil rights movement. I'm not sure what "distortion" of Dr. King's dream you are talking about, but I do recall that the speech dealt with judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

On that note, Glenn, you have failed miserably.

"The people have been acting as though no white man can mention or praise or support the mission of Martin Luther King. African-Americans don't own Martin Luther King," said Beck.

"Black people don't own Martin Luther King," observed Stewart. "White people -- wait, that's not right," he said.

"By the way, who acts like white people can't praise Martin Luther King or is it that they don't want people who called Barack Obama, the first black president, a racist to praise Martin Luther King?" Stewart noted.

"Here is something that never happened to me, Martin Luther King is one of my personal heroes. Oh, no you didn't white boy," Stewart said using his best Tracy Morgan impression.

I'm catching up on things I missed, and found this article from last Friday on Elizabeth Warren in the New York Times. Actually, it's not so much about Warren as it is about the pressure on the White House to appoint her, which is as it should be.

What struck me, when I reread that article recently, was the bluntness of her language. She used words like “tricks,” “fleece,” and “bribe” to describe the actions of mortgage and credit card lenders. And I think a lot of her appeal stems from that simple fact: she describes abuses — predatory lending, hidden fees, bewildering “disclosures” that hide more than they disclose — in precisely the way most Americans have experienced them. She conveys a powerful sense that she understands what we’ve been through this last decade.

If nothing else, it stands in stark contrast to Christopher Dodd's silly and unnecessary opposition.

Republican Mark Kirk is vying for Barack Obama's Illinois Senate seat. But he's got a little bit of an honesty problem. So far, he's been caught out lying about his teaching career, his military career, his sexuality and that's just the beginning.

Mike Lux looks at Kirk's chances:

In my view, the race for Obama's old Senate seat is the most important race in the country for progressives. Kirk has been proven to be a serial liar about his biography, and a staunch supporter of the big banks and corporate America, but with his moderate social issue views, if he becomes an incumbent he will be tough to beat in the future even in a Democratic state like Illinois.

Alexi Giannoulias, on the other hand, is a crusading reformer who has staked his campaign on taking on big money and big business, and has pledged to form a Senate progressive caucus if he wins the race. He has lost a lot of money by turning down corporate lobbyist contributions, though, and Kirk has a $3 million edge, and the Chamber of Commerce is running attacks ads for him. Every dollar we can swing toward Alexi in this race right now is critical. The symbolism of winning this race and the stakes for the future only adds to its importance.

Those deep pockets of the Chamber of Commerce can easily erase the memory of Kirknocchio's honesty problem in the minds of the less engaged voter. And that's a dangerous thing. I admire Giannoulias' stance refusing corporate lobbyist money, but that puts the burden on us to support this progressive candidate.

If this doesn't prove a good portion of Tea Party activists aren't batshit crazy then I don't know what to tell you.

Media Matters:

At long last, Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" self-aggrandizement festival is almost upon us. In Beck's words, the rally will mark a "turning point" in American history, where "miracles" will happen.

In a new promo posted on a "Producers' Blog" at his website, Beck humbly places the rally in the context of the moon landing, the Montgomery bus boycott, Iwo Jima, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and other landmark historical events. It also not-so-subtly suggests that Beck is following in the tradition of Martin Luther King (which is a farce), Abraham Lincoln, most of the Founding Fathers, Martha Washington, the Wright Brothers, and other notable historical figures. To give you some sense of the egomania on display here, it starts with the line, "Every great achievement in human history has started with one person. One crazy idea."

As readers of Over the Cliff and this blog already know, the GOP elders never excommunicate their wingnuts because they serve a useful purpose and Beck has been very useful whipping up the hate against minorities and President Obama, but even some of them are queasy over this one:

"In general, people coming to Washington, being organized and active is a good thing," said Doug Heye, a spokesman for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele. "But I gotta be honest with you - I don't know about any Glenn Beck event."

I believe somewhere before the 2012 election takes place--- Glenn Beck will be releasing his own version of The Bible, inscribed on six Goldline plates that he recited one word at a time on a little digital recorder he got from Radio Shack which he will claim was the Lord speaking through him.