Caroline Glick was born in America and immigrated to Israel, where she is now Deputy Managing Editor and columnist for the Jerusalem Post. This week, she wrote a long column, picked up by Townhall.com, about the importance of the Jewish creed to Israel. She began her piece with an insightful introduction about the importance of the American creed to the United States. Glick related our creed to Glenn Beck’s recent Restoring Honor rally and wrote about the significance of the rally in the age of Obama. Here is that introduction:
On August 28, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck confounded his colleagues in the media when he brought hundreds of thousands of Americans to the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC for a rally he called “Restoring Honor….”
(T)he rally was decidedly apolitical….The massive crowd gathered, prayed, celebrated American military heroes, listened to patriotic speeches and songs. Then the participants picked up their garbage and went home.
So what was it all about? Why do many people see it as a watershed event?
Although Beck called the rally “Restoring Honor”…it was about restoring something even more important. It was about restoring the American creed.
That creed is so ingrained that it has served as the subtext of every major political and civic speech by every American political and civic leader since the eighteenth century.
The American creed has two main components. First, its core belief is that America is an exceptional country and that the American people are an exceptional nation. Second, it asserts that as Abraham Lincoln first said outright, America is the last, best hope for mankind.
The reason Beck’s rally was a watershed event is that in the Age of Obama, millions of Americans for the first time feel the need to reclaim what they believe is their birthright as Americans. Because what distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is that he is the first American President who clearly rejects the American creed….
Obama’s unprecedented position stands at the core of the actions he has taken and the positions he has adopted since coming into office. … Obama has clearly rejected the building blocks of America’s national DNA.
And this is why Beck’s rally was important. At the rally Beck and the crowd he assembled committed themselves to repairing the damage Obama is causing…(T)he multitudes who congregated at the Lincoln Memorial two weeks ago understood is that America’s greatness as a nation is entirely predicated on its creed. If the creed is abandoned, while America may hang around for awhile, its path to ruin will be inexorable….
Glick’s conclusion contained a comment that will be especially interesting to Tea Partiers: “At his rally, Glenn Beck reminded us of the importance of loud, boisterous celebrations which recommit nations to their destiny and creed.”
