A soft message enrages the true haters.

I watched Glenn Beck's show this afternoon for a few minutes and as he cited various "reports" and comments about the "Restore Honor" gathering and himself, it occurred to me that his critics and enemies have handed him a huge victory and amplified his message by contrast to their own bitterness and disdain for religious faith. Our founders, even those who didn't personally practice or support sectarian religion, believed in religious freedom and expression as a necessary part of self-government.

To see Chris Matthews project that Dr. King would see this gathering and say, "I have a nightmare!" or Ed Schulz shouting about his hatred for and desire to crush Fox News in the ratings, nothing needs to be said by Beck to refute them.

Some have said that this is all because Beck is a shrewd manipulator. Howard Dean compared him to Father Coughlin, a notorious antisemite and bigot. He could have conducted his entire program today without saying a word, just replaying clips of his critics and scenes from the rally. Beck, this "master demagogue," really didn't do anything new. He is emulating Martin Luther King, Jesus and harking back to the words of Psalms in the King James Version: "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger," but with a spin. He let his critics spew the grievous words, but turned the other cheek. If he made a mistake, it was in letting his giddiness over the success of this event show through. The Beck Haters will call this gloating, but, hey, it's only human to rejoice when your plans succeed so well.

If this proved anything about Glenn Beck, it's that he's no dummy, and that his critics are gravely mistaken to rely on demonizing or dismissing him. He used the same appeal to the better angels of our nature that Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and Barack Obama in 2004 invoked before him.