A couple weeks ago, Glenn Beck demonstrated the severity of his cognitive deformity by asserting that he didn’t think Barack Obama is a racist, just that he has a deep seated hatred for white people. Uh huh.
Subsequently, an activist group called Color of Change initiated an advertiser boycott of Beck’s program. The campaign has been wildly successful with three dozen advertisers now declining to buy time on Beck’s show. The remaining list of advertisers reads like a telemarketing wasteland.
In the wake of the boycott, Beck disappeared from the air for a week. There has been some dispute as to whether it was a forced time-out imposed by his bosses at Fox News, but regardless, he returned to work today.
He began his program by beseeching his audience to call all of their friends and tell them to tune in. He told them this would be an important show, an important week, and they should watch closely and even take notes. (Seeing as how this is Beck’s audience, they might want to have someone help them them with that last part). He even announced that on Friday he would have a “plan of action.” Then Beck proceeded to do virtually the same show he has been doing for months. It was his standard formula of innuendo, fear-mongering, and delusional paranoia. At one point he even wondered aloud why he is the only one who is aware of the looming menace.
“Many people will ask you, ‘Well, if these things are so true, why is that only Glenn Beck is saying them?’ Believe me, I have asked myself that question many, many nights. Usually about 2:00am when I couldn’t sleep. Why is no one else asking these questions?”
He might just as well have been asking “Why do only I hear these voices?” It’s a question that only his psychiatrist can answer. Beck doesn’t bother to provide an answer himself, he just leaps into the glassy-eyed speculation that has become his stock in trade. And while the bulk of the show was standard Beck fare, there was a particularly notable segment that consumed a significant portion of the program. It was his way of responding to the boycott without ever acknowledging that it was taking place.
The way Beck does this is to take on the scourge of Obama’s czars, a subject he has fulminated over before. And the first czar to be slandered by Beck is Van Jones, Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Jones also happens to be the founder of Color of Change, although he has had no active role in the group for two years and was not involved in the advertiser boycott. However, it would be naive to assume that it was merely a coincidence that Beck chose Jones as his target on his first day back from an allegedly forced vacation that was partly attributable to the group Jones had founded.
This is typical of the Fox News tactical response to those they perceive as enemies. When Keith Olbermann goes after Bill O’Reilly, O’Reilly escalates the attack to NBC and GE’s CEO, Jeff Immelt. So when Color of Change reacts to Beck’s overt racism with a boycott, Beck escalates his response to the President of the United States. Without even mentioning the growing boycott, Beck strikes back by attacking Jones and the White House.
This is the Fox News version of a “scorched earth” strategy. The problem is that Beck’s violence-ridden rhetoric is likely to produce some actual scorching. Perhaps a better analogy is that of Jonestown. Beck presents himself in much the same manner as the murderously manic Rev. Jim. Like Jim Jones, Beck regards himself as a lonely visionary and the target of unseen foes. And he ministers to a dangerously suggestible flock in whom he stirs ever increasing trepidation. Let’s just hope that reason prevails before tragedy ensues.
They have enjoyed a fair measure of success in the past couple of weeks as raucous town hall meetings and shrill political disputes have dominated news coverage. There have been episodes of chaos and hostility erupting in what used to be neighborly community gatherings. Television pundits are 
I know, the headline is redundant. What’s more, this list is far from comprehensive. It is just intended to spotlight a few recent examples. I couldn’t possibly keep up with them all.
In addition to this overt display of bias, Fox News broadcast another episode of its long-running series of chyron “bloopers.” Normally they are satisfied with merely misidentifying the party affiliation of politicians. In almost every case the error reflects badly on Democrats. But on this occasion they have stepped up their game. By mislabeling Joe Sestak as Joke Sestak, Fox News is blatantly insulting a Democratic congressman and candidate for the Senate. I guess the next step will be to attach devil horns to the the top of every Democrat’s head and replace the audio with commie radio broadcasts.