GLENN BECK DID US A FAVOR YESTERDAY

I've been doing other things this weekend and haven't had time to focus on Washington, D.C.: The Becking, but I'm looking at the New York Times story and realizing that Glenn Beck did us a huge favor yesterday, if we're smart enough to take advantage:

... But the program was distinctly different from most Tea Party rallies. While Tea Party groups have said they want to focus on fiscal conservatism and not risk alienating people by talking about religion or social issues, the rally on Saturday was overtly religious, filled with gospel music and speeches that were more like sermons.

Mr. Beck imbued his remarks on Saturday and at events the night before with references to God and a need for a religious revival....

Many in the crowd ... said they had been motivated to come by faith.

Becky Benson, 56, traveled from Orlando, Fla., because, she said, "we believe in Jesus Christ, and he is our savior." Jesus, she said, would not have agreed with what she called the redistribution of wealth in the form of the economic stimulus package, bank bailouts and welfare....

The purveyors of conventional wisdom have been telling us for the GOP and the right have put this stuff behind them, that this is not your father's conservative movement, that abortion and gay marriage and prayer in schools are irrelevant now. They've been telling us that those aspects of the culture war are over. They were telling us that just this week, when Ken Mehlman finally came out of the closet and wasn't damned to eternal hellfire by (most) right-wingers.

Yes, the organizers of this movement have mostly quieted that kind of talk for now. And yes, a lot of them aren't interested in that, and think it costs them votes.

But you can't have a movement with Beck and Palin and Angle and Joe Miller and the Pauls, who have a carve-out in their libertarianism for unswerving opposition to abortion, and expect this stuff to just go away. You can't have a Southern-based conservative political movement and expect God-bothering not to be a part of it.

It's coming back, sooner or later. It may start coming back ten minutes after the networks declare that the GOP has taken the House. It's certainly coming back with a vengence in the all-GOP federal government that will be sworn in in January 2013.

Beck is letting us know. Forewarned is forearmed. Let's be smart enough to listen.

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Oh, and on a diffeent subject, I see that Sarah Palin was quintessentially Sarah Palin yesterday:

"Say what you want to say about me, but I raised a combat vet, and you can't take that away from me," said Ms. Palin, whose son Track served in Iraq.

Wow, she doesn't even pretend that it isn't all about her, does she?