The past couple of weeks saw Glenn Beck take his Acute Paranoia Revue on the road. He appeared in Israel where he complained that he was losing a million dollars staging a silly affair that purported to “Restore Courage” to ….. something or other. And from there he embarked on a worldwide adventure wherein he was all but invisible. Can you find him?

After making grandiose, narcissistic declarations that the event would change the course of the world, the planet still appears to be on the same orbit. There was no pillar of fire. No gates of Heaven and/or Hell opening. However, there was a miracle, as imagined in the mind of Beck. Just like last year’s “Restoring Honor” event in Washington, D.C. when Beck asserted that a flock of geese constituted a miracle from God, the Israel rally’s miracle was that an unscheduled singer was able to be squeezed into a tightly scripted program at the last minute. That’s not a joke. Beck insisted that that was an actual miracle from God. By that measure I, myself, was the beneficiary of divine intervention a couple of days ago when God caused a new lane to open at a busy grocery store just as I was approaching the check-out area. Praise the Lord!

In his speech from Israel, Beck announced the remainder of his travel itinerary. The first place he would venture post-Israel would be Cape Town, South Africa. His reason for choosing that destination was “to remind the world what the evil of apartheid actually looked like.”

There is precious little evidence that Beck was in Cape Town. He held no rallies and made no public appearances. There were no interviews with the local press. All there was was a broadcast to his U.S. radio affiliates wherein he said he was in Cape Town and that…

“Apartheid is going to play a role in the conversation of the world again, but they’re going to blame Israel for Apartheid and we’re here to set the record straight on what Apartheid was and what it is and is it happening in Israel or not. […] By the way, Apartheid solved in South Africa peacefully. We should figure out how South Africa did that. Huh?”

Apartheid solved Peacefully? Beck knows less about South African history than he does about U.S. history. South Africa was a hotbed of violence perpetrated by a racist regime. The resistance to the government oppression was led by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, which the regime regarded as a terrorist organization. Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. Heroic comrades like Stephen Biko were assassinated. In 1976 a peaceful student protest in Soweto was met by police aggression and resulted in the deaths of 600 protesters. The government’s reign of terror included the arrest and torture of tens of thousands of black Africans.

In his Cape Town broadcast, Beck slammed Mandela as a communist with whom he disagreed on everything. The parallels between his views on Mandela and his views on the revolutions in Egypt, Libya, etc., are striking. He regards all of these uprisings as ominous acts of evil inspired by radical leftists. There is an irony in Beck traveling to South Africa from Israel in that Israel was, to its shame, a supporter of the Apartheid regime. Then Again, so was the American president, and right-wing idol, Ronald Reagan. Based on the available evidence, Beck, too, would have stood with South Africa’s white leadership against the commie hoards from the black homelands.

From Cape Town Beck reportedly went to Venezuela. As Beck tells it, he was denied permission to land by Hugo Chavez, but he found an alternate means of entry into the country. Once again, there is no evidence that he ever set foot in Venezuela or anywhere else in South America. He had previously announced that he would be speaking “to a group of nearly 5,000 local leaders from all over the continent.” If there were a public event of that size it would surely have been reported somewhere. And why have there been no accounts of the event by any of the alleged attendees? Including Beck! His own web site says nothing about his supposed stay in Venezuela.

Finally, Beck headed home to Texas where he delivered a sermon at the High Point Church in Arlington. This is a date that he managed keep. There is an article about it on his web site along with an audio recording of his address. The sermon was typical Beck fare pontificating on his moral superiority and the need to stand (Beck is the nation’s foremost adversary of sitting). He announced that the Human Rights Movement was over and that his Human Responsibility Movement would replace it. With respect to that he introduced his “Declaration of Responsibilities,” all of which he has already personally broken.

Beck is going to have to work harder if he is going to satisfy his insatiable lust for adulation. None of the events on his travels produced much in the way of publicity. Even Fox News ignored him. He is already grumbling about the lack of attention paid by the media. Which is funny because he used to do nothing but bash the press, but now he is desperate for it to notice him again. If this keeps up, expect Beck to escalate his rhetoric and declare war on San Francisco or pronounce himself the Messiah. Short of that he will next be seen crawling under a stone that no one will bother to roll away.

[Update] On his radio program today, Beck said that he had addressed 1,400 rabbis in Cape Town and 5,000 pastors in Venezuela. And still there are no accounts by media or participants of these events. Still, Beck’s web sites have no stories about them. I’m beginning to think the Israel rally was done on a green-screen.

Glenn Beck’s Traveling Acute Paranoia Revue concluded today in Israel. For the record, there was no pillar of fire; no gates of Heaven and/or Hell opening; no turning point for the world. He declared that his rally would usher in an era of miracles. He promised us these things and more. Here is a taste of the colorful rhetoric he employed to promote this boondoggle:

• When I first had this idea, what I saw in my head was a global shockwave. It will ripple across the earth.
• Possibly for the first time in man’s history, God will remember and make note of what we do there.
• This is a life-changing, life-altering event.
• This will be a pinnacle moment in your life. It will define you. In the end it will define you.
• I want you to know, the very gates of Hell are going to open up against us.
• It will be expensive to get there. It might be dangerous.
• Will my event hurt foreign policy of the U.S.? I damn well hope so now.
• If Israel falls the western way of life falls. That’s not hyperbole.
• This may be it for our generation or for all mankind.
• I will stand, I will speak, and in the end, if it be His will, I will die right alongside my brother.

So far as I can tell the world is pretty much the same as before Beck’s Restoring Egomania affair. There wasn’t even a flock of geese flying overhead (which Beck asserted was proof of divine intervention at last year’s Restoring Honor event in Washington, D.C.).

However, there is a new holy relic for Beck’s disciples to worship. Today Beck revealed his Declaration of Rights & Responsibilities as a sort of addendum to the Constitution. Unfortunately, he has already violated every one of them.

1. Because I have the right to choose, I recognize that I am accountable to God and have the responsibility to keep the 10 commandments in my own life.
   .
   Actually, all Christians break this one because the first commandment requires the acknowledgment of the single God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Simply worshiping Jesus is a violation of this.
2. Because I have the right to worship as I choose, I have the responsibility to honor the right of others to worship as they see fit.
   .
   Beck, along with most other Fox News/Tea Party conservatives vehemently oppose the construction of a mosque because it was a couple of blocks away from the site of the World Trade Center.
3. Because I have freedom of speech, I have the responsibility to defend the speech of others, even if I strongly disagree with what they’re saying.
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   Beck engages in the defense of the free speech of those with whom he disagrees by demonizing them as Nazis, cancers, etc. On one famous occasion he shouted down a woman who had called his radio program screaming “Get off my phone you little pinhead!”
4. Because I have the right to pursue happiness, I have the responsibility to show humility and express gratitude for all the blessings I enjoy and the rights I’ve been given.
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   Humility? Seriously? The man who says that his silly rallies will alter the course of the planet? The man who says that God has chosen him to save the human race? The man spends half his time on the air praising himself and his imaginary prescience? Very humble indeed.
5. Because I have the right to honest and good government I will seek out honest and just representatives when possible. If I cannot find one then I accept the responsibility to take that place.
   .
   Beck has repeatedly lamented the absence of honest representatives, especially in his home of the past several years, New York, yet he has never accepted the responsibility to run for office.
6. Because I have the God given right to liberty, I have the personal responsibility to have the courage to defend others to be secure in their persons, lives and property.
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   Some of the people whose liberty Beck does not have the courage to defend include gays and lesbians, undocumented immigrants, and union members.
7. Because I have the right to equal justice, I will stand for those who are wrongly accused or unjustly blamed.
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   Yet Beck unjustly blames others incessantly. He falsely calls Van Jones a convicted felon. He falsely calls George Soros a Nazi collaborator. He blames the President, whom he calls a racist, for turning America into a socialist dictatorship.
8. Because I have the right to knowledge, I will be accountable for myself and my children’s education…to live our lives in such a way that insures the continuation of truth.
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   Beck’s version of truth is a bastardization of the word. His lies occur with such frequency it’s hard to keep up.Plus, he bashes education every chance he gets. He regards it mostly as elitist or indoctrination.
9. Because I have the right to pursue my dreams and keep the fruits of my labor, I have the responsibility to feed, protect and shelter my family, the less fortunate, the fatherless, the old and infirm.
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   Beck’s idea of protecting the less fortunate is to cut taxes for the wealthy and vital, life-saving services for poor. And what does he have against the motherless?
10. Because I have a right to the truth, I will not bear false witness nor will not stand idly by as others do.
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    (See #7). Apparently Beck has no responsibility to refrain from repeating himself.

It would be understandable if Beck had broken one or two of these commandments. No one is perfect. But he has violated every single one of them on numerous occasions. Perhaps he is offering himself as a model of what not to do as a public service.

It is also interesting that Beck and his Tea Party followers, who have beatified the Founders and sanctified the Constitution as a divinely inspired document, are still so insistent on changing it or tacking on silly appendages that they don’t honor themselves.

This Just In: Media coverage of Beck’s planet-altering event was nearly non-existent. Beck is now whining about on his radio show:

“BBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, I don’t believe Fox was there. But everybody else under the sun was there. Everyone was there. Yet no one reported on what I said. It’s fascinating to me because they put the world on notice.”

Media Matters reports further that, not only did Fox News fail to report on the event, but it was also absent from FoxNews.com and the Fox Nation web site. Beck is now being ignored by even his most ardent (former) supporters. And perhaps the reason no one reported what he said is that he didn’t say anything worthy of reporting. It was just another load of evangelical snake oil and self aggrandizement. And, of course, an advertisement for his new Internet venture.