Restoring Honor - August 28, 2010

Well, folks... we're back from D.C.

Nope... didn't get arrested!

I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of people were at the Rally with us, but whatever the number... it was huge!

To give you an idea, we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rockville-Gaithersburg, Maryland, which is about as far out of "town" (D.C.) as you can get with regard to a metro stop, and when our hotel shuttle dropped us off at Shady Grove Station we then had to get on a line to get in to the station proper. We were in line for almost an hour!

Hey... allow me to give a shout out - kudos - to the fine folks who run the Washington D.C. Metro System. Just as Mary and I were entering the station proper the "powers that be" actually had the gumption and good sense to simply open the entry gates to the platforms and allow people to get on for free so as to get the people on the trains and on their way!

Anyway... you'll read various estimates of the crowd size but my guess is that there were between 300,000 and half a million people there.

Listen... here's what I know because I was there:

We - Mary and I - got off the Red Line at Metro Station. As we walked from the station towards the Washington Monument our fellow rally-goers were approaching the same point from each and every street in sight. By the time we reached the Washington Monument we were part of a huge crowd streaming upon the Monument green heading for the National Mall - the Reflecting Pool area in from of the Lincoln Memorial.

Now if you're familiar with the layout of Washington, D.C., you know that the Washington Monument sits between 15th and 17th Streets "top" and "bottom" and Constitution and Independence Avenues on the "sides."

Once you cross 17th Street you're at the WW-2 Memorial end of the Reflecting Pool with the Lincoln Memorial at the other end and the river "behind" it.

Now understand... the Washington Monument green was not filled with people. It's a big space and there was plenty of room there to spread yourself out on if you didn't want to join the "main" crowd across 17th Street.

Still... we're talking thousands of people on the Washington Monument green who were "attending" the Rally from right there; folks who had brought their chairs and blankets and were obviously there specifically for the Rally.

As to the Reflecting Pool area - that whole "park" area between 17th Street and the river and Constitution and Independence Avenues on the side... that was packed solid! Not only were folks out in the open, but if you check out the map I provided the link to up above you'll see all the "wooded" area; that was packed as well - and frankly I'm not sure that an aerial picture would take note of that fact.

My point...??? Don't believe any spin about "thousands" of people or even "tens of thousands" of people attending; I was there; I'm telling you... there were hundreds of thousands of people there specifically for the Rally.

This was not a "Tea Party" Rally per se. Oh, sure, folks had their "slogan" tee-shirts on and small American flags stuck in their baseball caps and stuff like that, but besides a few - relatively very few - large American flags and "Don't Tread On Me" banners and the like, there were few signs. (Nothing like you'd see at a "regular" political rally!)

Nope. This was a crowd there to listen, not to shout or chant. (Though there was a bit of a "USA-USA" chant when Sarah Palin was up on stage talking about her son in uniform...)

Applause and spirited cheering at appropriate intervals? Yep. Sure. But political chanting... a partisan message... no - not really.

Was it a "religious" Rally? Yeah... in the sense of "Faith, Hope, and Charity" being the theme and the idea that all three of these attributes are key to the "restoration" of American ideals and values.

Was "God" invoked? Yep. Constantly. Jesus...??? Yep... every so often.

Is there anything wrong with that? Nope. Not in my book. Contrary to what some of you may have been (mis)taught, the Founders were by and large men and women of Faith and I have no doubt that they - Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Abigail Adams, et al - would have been quite comfortable with the "religious" aspect of the Rally.

There were tens of thousands of veterans at the Rally.

There were tens of thousands of children at the Rally.

Hispanics and those of Asian descent... a fair number. Blacks? Very few.

It was depressing how few blacks were at the Rally. I don't know why more didn't come. There's no getting around it - the Rally crowd was overwhelmingly white middle class.

What would the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. have thought of Beck's Restoring Honor Rally...

I truly believe he would have been proud and supportive; I truly believe that MLK was there on Saturday in spirit...

(I know his niece was!)

Beck's Rally was also a huge "Thank You!" to our troops and a fundraiser for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides full scholarship grants and educational and family counseling to the surviving children of Special Operations personnel who die in operational or training missions and immediate financial assistance to severely wounds Special Operations personnel and their families.

Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally is being credited by SOWF with bringing in over $5 million in direct donations to this fine charity.

What did Mary and I "get" from going to Washington, D.C. to attend the Rally in person? Well... besides a three-day, two-night mini-vacation we got to fellow Rally attendees from as far away as California! We took the opportunity to join with hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens to make a statement that America is our country and that we want this nation to operate more along the lines of the Republic our Founders bequeathed us than it has in many, many decades.

We there folks more "religious" than us there? Obviously! Were there folks there more "conservative" than us. No doubt! Were there folks there who would disagree with my views on foreign policy and military policy and a host of issues? Yep. Damn straight! But all that aside, these were clearly "our" People. They spent their time... they spent their money... they took part in a moment of history I hope marks the true beginning of a new "Constitutionalist Movement" at the grass roots that will be able to take this nation's present and future back from the hands of the self-serving politicians of both Parties who have laid our nation low.

Is Glenn Beck always right? No. But like yours truly... (*MODEST BOW*)... Beck is "usually" right.

God bless Glenn Beck for what he did!

God bless America...