Rep. Alan Grayson: Restoring Honor Attendees ‘Were Wearing Sheets Over Their Heads’ In 1985

Florida Rep. Alan Grayson is a lively public figure, and having established a fairly solid public image (for better or worse), it seemed easy to predict what he would think of Glenn Beck‘s “Restoring Honor” rally. On the Stephanie Miller Show on Thursday, he described rally attendees as “people who were wearing sheets over their heads 25 years ago,” which is almost predictable except… 25 years ago? In 1985?

Rep. Grayson was talking questions from callers on the program, one of whom invited Miller, Grayson, and “Ed” (we assume liberal radio show host Ed Schultz) to a counter-rally to show the American right that they have a challenge ahead of them. Miller said she’s “go to the opening of an envelope,” but wasn’t preoccupied with “show[ing] Glenn Beck that mine’s bigger.” Plus, she added, the people that came to Restoring Honor were mostly “McCain-Palin leftovers” and not a significant percentage of voters.

Rep. Grayson, as he is wont to do, upped the ante. “These are people who were wearing sheets over their heads 25 years ago.” He then criticizes Restoring Honor was “the teabag thing” and said “1/40 as many people” showed up for it as did for the Presidential Inauguration. He then rips into the Rasmussen polling organization a bit and takes some more calls.

Good thing this is Rep. Alan Grayson describing a peaceful, pro-American rally as a Klan meeting, otherwise it would be a completely unacceptable, wholly offensive statement worthy of significant outrage. Instead, it’s just amusing noise. But beyond whatever point Grayson was trying to get at, there seems to be some anachronism with this argument. True, the KKK (to which it’s assumed he is referring) was not completely dead in 1985, and David Duke was around riling up a good dozen people or so, but the chances that between 87,000 and 500,000 people (the estimates for Restoring Honor attendance) were still “wearing sheets over their heads” in 1985 is unlikely. They were probably wearing all sort of fedoras, flowers, bows, and mirrors over their heads at the time (not to mention the AquaNet), but the hood possibility seems unlikely. And if he was referring to Glenn Beck specifically, we couldn’t find what Beck was wearing in 1985, but here’s what he looked like in 1982 and ’83 (thanks, Gawker!):

Not too many sheets, but probably a little overboard on the mousse, no?

Listen to Grayson on The Stephanie Miller Show below:

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