Are we moving Beck-wards?

Indeed, much of Beck's American Revival was just plain revival, with Beck playing Billy Graham or the fictional Elmer Gantry, depending on your view of the divisive political entertainer.

"Faith gives us an opportunity to start all over again," said Beck, who at one point spoke sprawled out on the floor of the stage, re-enacting his lowest moment with the bottle. Before the lunch break, a fan - later reported to be OK - fell in the upper deck and required medical attention, and as doctors in the house raced to the spot, Beck and Buckner led the throng in a softly sung "Amazing Grace."

It was a moment he re-enacted when he took the stage for his keynote, choking back copious tears as he said, "I love you guys."

At one point in his talk, a fan hollered out from the floor seats: "Preach it, Glenn!"

But any good preacher leaves the audience wanting more, and so the months between now and Beck's Lincoln Memorial rally in late August will reveal whether an emotional rabble-rouser in the mode of the 1976 movie "Network" 's Howard Beale can convert his mad-as-hell fans into political action.

An early hint may come in June, when Beck publishes his book The Overton Window, which he described as "a story of America in a time much like today where the people are confused," with a government in crisis and the rise of a citizens' group called the Founders Keepers, which "leads to a battle and a civil war, and life is upside-down planetwide."

The book is fictional, Beck said.