If you tuned in to see how Glenn Beck responded to the historic end of the 10-year man hunt for Osama bin Laden hoping for a spectacle, he delivered. Watch the opening of his Fox News show below. He began by addressing a hot-button topic — the New Year’s Eve-type celebrations witnessed last night as crowds amassed in front of the White House, at Ground Zero and Times Square in New York, and on college campuses around the country. As someone who was made uncomfortable by the sight of beach balls and actual cheerleaders performing stunts in front of the White House, I think this is an issue worth discussing. I thought, for a moment, that Beck did, too.

“This is a great day in the war on terror. But as I watched all the celebrations taking place on the streets of America, all over America, you may have — and maybe I’m alone — had a strange feeling,” Beck said. “You may have seen students jumping into the lake in Ohio and rushing to the White House bearing signs and smoking cigars. As I watched these things happen last night, I couldn’t help but be reminded of when the Palestinians danced in the streets and passed out candy after the 9/11 attacks, when they danced in the streets over the killing of five American students and the slaughter of a Jewish family. All of these things, you know and I know, were offensive. All of those victims were innocent. America, we are better than this. We are better than jumping into lakes and holding signs and cigars. I think we’re better than that. I mean, why hand out candy… when you can have cookies, and confetti, and a marching band, huh?” Cue the entrance of the Soul Tigers marching band drum line and Beck dancing around the studio while holding a plate of cookies and confetti dropped.

When the song ended, he spoke again. “That was tasteless and offensive…. My apologies for the marching [band]. No, I’m not gonna apologize for that,” he said. “I actually felt really kind of bad today about some of the grotesque displays, and then I thought, you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” Later in the hour, Beck referenced his opening again. “Every time I think that, ‘Oh, I don’t know if we could do the cookies or the confetti or whatever,’ I see that it’s not marching in the streets for innocent victims. It is celebrating in the streets for a journey that has been and hard and been fought valiantly with honor. And people have tried to do the right thing. And this guy was certainly not innocent….”

Speaking about the assault itself, Beck said we have to give President Obama credit for making it happen. Too bad Beck fell victim to the dreaded Osama-Obama slip while doing so. “Although, I don’t think ‘Hey, yeah, let’s kill Obama,’ is all that tough, I mean, bin Laden, is all that tough of a call. But I’m not the one in that seat, you know,” he said. He did manage some praise for the president: “He did seem a little arrogant in last night’s speech. I’d give more credit to the troops who have been on the ground looking for 10 years. But he did create the condition to allow Osama bin Laden to be killed, and he deserves respect for that and our thanks,” Beck said.