"Restoring Honor" Rally

Glenn Beck lamented the "garish light of America today" at his "Restoring Honor" rally Saturday, saying it was time to reverse course from "what we've allowed ourselves to become."

Speaking at the Lincoln Memorial 47 years to the day after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in the same spot, Beck said, "Something beyond imagination is happening."

"Something that is beyond man is happening," Beck told his enthusiastic audience at the planned three-hour rally. "America today begins to turn back to God. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness."

Said an impassioned Beck: "Are we so pessimistic that we no longer believe in the individual, and the power of the individual? Do we no longer believe in dreams?"

"One man can change the world!" he stated, telling members of the audience that they must take up that charge.

Approximately 87,000 people attended the rally, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News. The estimate was made using aerial photos taken at noon, which was judged to be the height of the event. The estimate has a margin of error of 9,000 people.

Crowds gathered for the event stretched from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the World War II Memorial. One person held a cardboard cutout of President Obama and asked people what they would tell him, CBS News' Fernando Suarez reports. One man said he'd punch the president in the face, while another said he'd take Mr. Obama to jail.

For the most part, however, the crowd was calm. Beck had asked his supporters not to bring political signs to the event, which was ostensibly non-political (despite the presence of Sarah Palin, among others). Most of the assembled crowd complied, opting for American flags instead of political messages.

Beck, at times near tears, said that heroes like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington had disappeared from American life, but that the next generation of those heroes were in the crowd, and were the children of those who had come to an event he had compared to Woodstock.

Palin, speaking near the start of the event, said, "We stand today at the symbolic crossroads of our nation's history."

"May this day be the change point," she said. "Look around you. You're not alone. You are Americans!"

Beck would go on to oversee the awarding of the "badge of merit" to three Americans he cast as modern-day heroes, among them an African-American pastor who called Beck a "servant of God."St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa introduced Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols, the recipient of the "badge of merit for hope," who discussed his faith in Jesus.

The event often seemed like a religious service, with a pastors offering prayers and Beck and other speakers peppering their comments and songs with references to God. A large wooden cross could be seen in the crowd, and Beck implored attendees to let their children see them pray.

"This day is a day that we can start the heart of America again, and it has nothing to do with politics, it has everything to do with God," Beck said, arguing that God had been sending Americans "wake-up calls," including the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We must be better than what we've allowed ourselves to become," he said. "We must get the poison of hatred out of us...we must look to God and look to love."

A Mormon, Beck asked attendees to tithe ten percent of their incomes and said it is "my joy and my honor" to do so.

In addition to "restoring honor," the event was designed to honor members of the military, which Beck said was one of the few institutions that Americans continue to trust.

"Our fighting men and women do the things that most of us don't even want to think about," he said, before introducing speakers from (and asking for donations in support of) the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

Al Sharpton was hosting a much smaller "Reclaim the Dream" counter-rally as the Beck rally went on at the Lincoln Memorial. Sharpton told CBS News yesterday that Beck is trying to "hijack" the civil rights movement.

Near the World War II memorial, a few protesters stood holding signs protesting Beck's rally. One sign said, "Glenn Beck is a F'king Racist. Another said, "DC Does NOT Hate." Beck has suggested that President Obama is a racist.

Another protester holding a sign deeming King a "dream" and Beck a "nightmare" got into a screaming match with a Beck supporter who said she is tired of living under communism.

Midway through the rally, Beck showed a video hailing King and introduced Alveda King, King's niece. Alveda King gave an emotionally charged speech calling for, among other things, prayer in schools.

Beck said King's dream was the dream of all Americans. Though the audience at the event was overwhelmingly white, many of the speakers were African-American, including a woman who sang a song about unity.

Beck insisted he is not a "fearmonger" as, he noted, some have suggested. He said that while he talks "about frightening things," he is no different than the man on the Titanic who first saw the iceberg and yelled out a warning.

Beck read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address at one point and repeatedly invoked the Founding Fathers in his remarks. He said he and the assembled crowd were standing on "a great battlefield with warriors on each side."

"America is at a crossroads, and today we must decide, 'Who are we? What is it that we believe?'" Beck said. "We must advance or perish. I choose advance."

Beck said that the event will be "meaningless" if the "wake-up call" he was offering fades after the day ends. But if people let the day be a turning point, he said, "we will change the world."

"It is time to start the heart of this nation again and put it where it belongs - our heart with God," said Beck. He added: "The truth will set you free."

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Glenn Beck Supporters Head For D.C. Rally - 'RESTORING HONOR'

WASHINGTON — Glenn Beck's supporters started boarding buses days ago in cities as far from the nation's capital as Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Houston.

Heading east for a grass-roots show of force on Saturday, they will join the conservative icon for a rally that he says is aimed at "restoring honor" to a troubled nation.

"People are upset with the direction of the country," says Patti Weaver, head of the Pittsburgh Tea Party, who is bringing 900 people on 16 buses to the event at the Lincoln Memorial. The rally will "continue to unite people who are upset with our government. … We can take our country back."

Beck has been criticized by civil rights groups such as the National Urban League for holding the rally at the site of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech on racial equality and on its 47th anniversary. The Fox News and radio talk-show host insists that his rally is about supporting the nation's troops — not about politics.

He has instructed his followers not to bring signs, and in a post on his website this week he chastised those who he says are trying to "label this a gathering of hatemonger's."

Beck's supporters, however, talk about the event in political terms. The keynote speaker is Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and a potential 2012 White House aspirant. In her home state of Alaska, Palin's endorsement appears to have helped propel a little-known lawyer named Joe Miller to a possible upset victory over incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Tuesday's Republican primary. Miller, who was backed by the Tea Party, is almost 1,700 votes ahead and awaiting a final tally of absentee ballots.

Many of Beck's supporters identify themselves as members of the small-government, anti-tax Tea Party or other conservative grass-roots groups and they recruited rally-goers through those organizations.

"It's time for Americans to let themselves be heard instead of being spoken to or spoken for by people who don't represent us," says Dan Baltes of Salt Lake City, who boarded a bus at 2 a.m. Wednesday for the 50-plus hour ride to Washington, D.C.

Baltes, who runs a group called Americans Against Immigration Amnesty, says "the government has a deaf ear to our best interests."

Thelma Taormina of Houston, who has organized two busloads from Texas, says she's concerned that the Obama administration and Congress are passing legislation that strips Americans of their rights. The sweeping new health-care law means people are going to "lose our human rights in one fell swoop" and new credit-card legislation aimed at protecting consumers' rights "means they can go into your personal bank accounts and get information," she says.

Taormina says she hopes the rally "wakes up America."

How much attention the rally gets likely will depend on how many people show up. Beck's permit from the National Park Service estimates 300,000 attendees.

Beck, who last year called President Obama a "racist" and accused him of having a "deep-seated hatred for white people," says he never intended to hold his rally on the anniversary of King's speech. He says he was hoping for Sept. 12th, but that's a Sunday and he didn't want to have the rally on the Sabbath. That Aug. 28 was the only other day the site was available that worked with his schedule was a matter of "divine providence" not political intent, he says.

Al Sharpton, who has organized his own rally and march on Saturday, is skeptical.

"Is he going to address civil rights?" Sharpton asks. His event on Saturday at a once-segregated city high school and a march to the Martin Luther King memorial site on the National Mall will include other civil rights leaders and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Beck, whose Fox News show averages more than 2 million viewers a day, says critics are being unfair.

"Those opposing the rally do so from a position of ignorance," he wrote. "They have no idea what this rally is going to be. … It's not about bigotry or politics. It's about the content of character and merit. I hope those at the counter rallies this Saturday and others opposing this event actually listen to the words with an open mind."

Sharpton and others say they've already heard enough from Beck, Palin and those who support them.

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who has helped organize previous events marking the anniversary of King's speech, said Beck's event is about "division and separation."

Sharpton says he'll avoid confrontations with Beck supporters. "We don't want to make the day about them," he says. "We want to make the day about 'the dream.'

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