Bob Parks of the Media Research Center and Big Journalism goes where no Nimoy has gone before — “In Search Of People Of Color” at the big 9/12 Tea Party in Washington DC:

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Meanwhile, as Jillian Bandes writes at Town Hall, regarding Glenn Beck’s late August rally in DC, “Alveda King Reaffirms Ties Between Blacks and Conservatives:”

MLK, Glenn Beck, and racism: these themes are still echoing long after the conclusion of Beck’s monumental rally on the anniversary of King’s “I Have A Dream” speech last month.

Dr. Alveda King, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, has been under fire for her participation in the event, with fault lines running not only from liberal critics but also from the black conservative Christian movement and in the conservative movement at large.

Alveda King is both defensive and realistic about her involvement.

“The principles of faith, hope, charity, love, honor – we are taught to honor God, to honor our families – and love our neighbors… and I believe the message that Glenn delivered helped us do that,” she said in an interview.

“The answer to all of the religious questions: it wasn’t about Glenn the person, or Glenn the man – it was Glenn the message. I’m not a naysayer, I’m a unifier,” she said.

Detractors claim she was dishonoring her uncle’s legacy by participating in the rally, because the conservative talk show host had allegedly dishonored the cause of civil rights. In these critics’ opinions, Beck represents the antithesis of King’s civil rights legacy, and can even be characterized as racist.

“Is Glenn Beck a racist?” asked Rev. Anthony Evans, President of National Black Church Initiative. “I think in Glenn Beck’s eyes, he is not a racist, but for those of us who understand code words, that Glenn Beck is dangerous.”

As dangerous as Malcolm X?

Tina Brown, the founder and editor of the online publication the “Daily Beast,” said Sunday [on Howard Kurtz's CNN show] that conservative talk show host Glenn Beck “has become sort of the white Malcolm X.”

As I said when one of Brown’s writers first made this preposterous comparison last month, I await the Hollywood biopic starring Denzel Washington as Beck.

OK, back to Bandes’ Town Hall piece:

Evans said that he respected Alveda’s participation, however.

“I think she has a right — I think she was right to be there,” said Evans. “I think that one of the failures of black leadership is that we have given all of our cookies to one person. For African Americans to be successful politically, we have to be in every single party, so we can make sure our interests are addressed.”

Gosh, ya think? (See also: collapse of black families due to destructive impact of a nearly a half century of Great Society-era programs.)

Otherwise, as Jay Nordlinger writes:

On the subject of education generally, I like to quote my colleague Ramesh Ponnuru: “If the American people wanted better schools, they’d have them.” I’m not 100 percent convinced of that; but I very much appreciate the line.

For many years, conservatives said — maybe they still say — “Black Americans, on the whole, are conservative. They are certainly well to the right of their leaders — their self-appointed leaders. Black Americans favor traditional morality, law and order, school discipline and reform. Jesse Jackson, Ben Hooks, and Al Sharpton are far outside the black mainstream. The ‘black leadership’ is like Bella Abzug; black Americans are more like Gerald Ford.”

I myself talked that way. But I stopped, at a certain point — when black Americans kept voting for the Democratic presidential nominee 88 percent, 91 percent, 94 percent . . . I said (to myself), “Do not commit the error of condescending. If people are voting a certain way — maybe it’s because they want to. Maybe they know full well what they’re doing. Sometimes you have to take no — such as ‘no to Republicanism’ — for an answer.”

I have had a long-running argument with Armando Valladares, the great Cuban dissident. He believes that people in the Free World who are pro-Castro, or soft on the regime, are merely ignorant: They have no idea what takes place inside the country. They are brainwashed, by Castroite propaganda. Wait’ll the regime falls, just as the Nazi regime fell, and the camps were exposed: Then everyone’ll know; then everyone’ll despise the regime.

No, they won’t. They could despise it now. I do. You do. Armando does. (More than 20 years in the gulag will do that to you.) Information about Cuba has been available since Castro seized power in 1959. About a decade ago, after years of debating Cuba, I had a terrible thought: If people in free countries are defending Cuban Communism — maybe it’s because they like it.

Is Michael Moore ignorant? No — he’s on a side. I realize I have chosen an extreme example; but he is certainly not an isolated one.

Almost a century, H.L. Mencken originally wrote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard” — but even he likely had no idea just how brutal the left’s Assault on Reason could ultimately be.

(Oh, and speaking of Michael Moore and his own unique assault on reason…)