Say what you want about him, and progressives do, but it’s become harder to pigeonhole Glenn Beck as just a “rodeo clown” political shock jock.

As if his 2010 Restoring Honor rally in Washington, D.C., which probably drew several hundred thousand demonstrators, wasn’t enough of an indication that there’s more to the conservative libertarian than on-camera weeping and diatribes against Woodrow Wilson, his activities in the last six months should solidify his position at the vanguard of a growing movement to restore and protect freedom on a global scale.

Sure, he no longer has his highly rated show on Fox News Channel, delighting the Left to no end, as if a hated enemy had suddenly fallen in combat. However, it turns out he only dropped to the ground momentarily to pick up the battle flag of individual freedom to carry it forward into the breach.

As he departed mainstream TV, he warned progressives that soon they would only wish he was on cable new for only one hour a day. Since then, he pioneered the development of an Internet-only cable news channel complete with documentaries, reality and comedy programs, and a two-hour live broadcast expanding on the format of his successful FNC program.  He organized an unprecedented rally in Israel to declare his support for Jews against rising anti-Semitism, then jetted to South Africa and planned a visit to Venezuela before Hugo Chavez interfered with this flight.

Last week, in the midst of a heated battled between the Catholic Church and the Obama Administration over religious freedom, Beck traveled to the Vatican to meet with top officials there and launched a “We’re All Catholics Now” initiative. Then, he met with two dozen European “movers and shakers” about another global program.

“I called a conference along with FreedomWorks to bring people from all over Europe together and talk to them about a global tea party,” Beck told his radio audience upon returning to the United States. “I met with people from Serbia, Georgia, and Italy and London and Berlin.”

Beck recalled that a member of the Italian Tea Party told him that his country’s history, from Caesar to Mussolini, is devoid of examples of small government. Others told him that America, which does have that history, is now exporting communism to their communism.

“If the Left is global, so we too must be global,“ Beck said.