Glenn Beck and his defenders have fiercely denied allegations that he is a racist or has incited racial hostility on his radio and TV programs. But the evidence of his animosity toward people of color is abundant since the election of a black president.
Looking back on Beck’s crusades since the inauguration (which, coincidentally, was also the inauguration of his show on Fox News), Beck began with an attack on ACORN, a group of community organizers who advocated on behalf of poor and minority populations. Then he went after Van Jones, an African-America who sought to bring jobs and environmental justice to disenfranchised communities. Then it was Mark Lloyd, an African-America working to insure diversity in the media in his role at the FCC. Then it was Valerie Jarrett, the African-America aide to President Obama. The it was Shirley Sherrod, an African-American woman who was slandered by Beck and Andrew Breitbart in a phony attempt to cast her as a racist.
Now Beck is attacking Dolores Huerta, an Hispanic labor activist with a legendary resume. She co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez. She is presently working with the Department of Labor to insure that workers are not exploited by employers seeking to pay them less than they are entitled to under the law. Presumably Beck would like to bring back indentured servitude.
The real question is why are the targets of Beck’s attacks so often people of color? Even though there is the occasional Caucasian like Cass Sunstein (who is Jewish), the racial scale for Beck’s tirades is heavily weighted toward minorities. Anyone who doesn’t recognize the significance of that fact is dwelling in deep denial. With this assault on Huerta, Beck continues to prove that he is overtly discriminatory in his selection of enemies.
On a tangential point, the Obama administration has a pretty poor record of standing up for its people. They let Van Jones go. They forced Shirley Sherrod to resign (before apologizing). They never defended ACORN, even after they were absolved of any wrongdoing. If they permit Beck to railroad Huerta out of the Labor Department they are going to see the last remaining remnants of their support from progressives, and others on the left, drift away. So my message to the administration: Don’t be stupid.
This was the big weekend for Glenn Beck, and allegedly, America. He went from the Kennedy Center Friday night to the Lincoln Memorial Saturday, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream Speech.” That’s three murdered progressive heroes in two days. Is there a name for that sort of psychosis?
On today’s segment of America Live on Fox News, host Megyn Kelly presented a segment (video below) about the developer of the Park51 Islamic community center near ground zero. It was promoted as an expose about the person responsible for the project and suggested that there would shocking new information about its financing. Of course everything Kelly reports appears to be shocking because it is a permanent part of her vocal delivery. She is the human manifestation of Fox’s ever-present “FOX ALERT!” Here is how Kelly introduced the segment (bearing in mind that it is impossible to convey in text the panicky cadence of her voice):
Well now we know precisely where some that funding came from. It has 
In a notice posted today at 
Today on Fox Nation the editors featured a story that further demonstrates how out of touch they are and how desperately dishonest. The Fox Nationalists decided to go after the beautiful and talented Sheryl Crow for her audacity to exercise her First Amendment rights. The headline in their entertainment section was “Increasingly Irrelevant Sheryl Crow Sings Anti-Palin Tune.”
Oh, wait a minute…..Fox News does get millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia. In fact, the biggest shareholder of News Corp stock outside of the Murdoch family is Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of the Saud family.
