In this event, some people are simply repeating what they have heard second- or third-hand like a giant game of "Telephone", so that by the time they repeat it, they have no idea what was originally said or intended.
I heard what Glenn Beck said with my own ears the moment he said it, and also in context.
He absolutely did not intend to imply racial animus to the Tea Party. Instead, he was making a point about both Obama and Gingrich being Progressives, and daring people to identify any difference between them other than race.
It was an inelegantly-made argument and also, in my opinion, a mistaken one. But it was absolutely not meant as an indictment of the Tea Party on racial grounds.
Beck is wrong in my opinion, because "Progressivism" is not something to which Obama and Gingrich are equally attached. Further, his failure to differentiate between people who sometimes espouse Progressive ideas (Gingrich), those who do it frequently (Romney), and those who wish to impose it imperiously as doctrine (Obama) is sometimes causing him to ignore the reality of electoral politics and also to make poorly-considered statements like the one he made about the Tea Party.
It certainly seems that way to me. I'm not sure how you can spin the following to mean anything other than that:
Ask yourself this Tea Party, is it about Obama's race? Because that what it appears to be to me. If you're against him, but you're for this guy, it must be about race"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOkaLfJyqyw&feature=player_embedded