It’s funny: for a school that’s ostensibly a pit of sin, NYU–where I’m currently working on getting my BA–is home to an awful lot of ultra-conservative craziness. Most famously, you’ve got Keith Olbermann handing the “Worst Person in the World” prize over to the head of the NYU Republicans a couple years back for organizing a game called “Find the Illegal Immigrant.” But that’s not an isolated burst of insanity.

Last year Ann Coulter (who I’m told used to be a widely-read political commentator?) paid us a visit, and just this week a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business tried to coin the phrase “going Muslim” to describe Nidal Malik Hasan’s Fort Hood killing spree. Meanwhile our august school newspaper runs columns like this on a semi-regular basis.

So while at first I was a little baffled at the news that Glenn Beck was gracing our performing arts center with his presence, it actually makes perfect sense. He’s just one of the more fashionable in a long line of brave souls, all of them risking mild derision in order to spread the Word to my dyed-in-the-wool Commie classmates.

Or at least that’s what I thought. But it turns out Glenn Beck isn’t coming to preach the gospel of Skousen, Rand, or that yelling guy at the subway station. No, he’s on a mission of peace this time. Peace and self-promotion.

Presented by NCM Fathom and Mercury Radio Arts, The Christmas Sweater – A Return to Redemption reveals the real-life events that inspired Beck to write “The Christmas Sweater.” Beck will also share stories of the overwhelming response he received about how the tale’s message of redemption changed people’s lives during this LIVE event broadcast from the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at New York University. Following the showing of this re-mastered and exclusive version of “The Christmas Sweater,” pre-recorded live during his 2008 tour, Beck will introduce several people who were touched by the story, taking audiences on an intimate journey of transformation through redemption. One of New York’s premiere choirs will open and close the evening with LIVE uplifting, holiday music.

It looks like Beck’s had enough of pimping whoever his poor man’s Tom Clancy of the week is, and decided to release his own inner kitschy Christmas parable, accompanied by a broadcasted monument to self-worship and awkward, gratuitous crying.

Actually, the juxtaposition of this holiday special and the thriller novel shtick (which, as you can see, got the Times to label him the “New Oprah”) is instructive: it shows how Beck is intent on having his brand permeate the entire culture of his followers. He doesn’t just want to be a political commentator, he wants to be a life coach. And that’s what makes this whole affair so ghoulish: the casual manipulation of not just his follower’s political views, but their entire lifestyles.

My sincere apologies to all of you for my university’s role in giving this tawdry celebration of narcissism a platform. And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to organize an NYU chapter of the 9/12 Project in time to snag some free tickets to this.