This is day four of Glenn Beck’s special, “The New Republic.” In today’s sermon, Pastor Beck sought to inspire his flock with tales of his own decrepitude. He started with a reminder of his past as an alcoholic:
“After I sobered up I admitted that I was a dirtbag, man, I was DIRTBAG!
I have tried my hardest to not be a dirtbag anymore.”
He’s going to have to try harder, because the latest raving installment of his Acute Paranoia Revue is a downhill skid into utter dementia. The premise is that President Obama is recruiting a force of civilian troops that Beck speculates will be aimed at his parishioners, Sarah Palin, Tea Baggers, and most frighteningly, himself. However, A quick glance at the non-partisan Factcheck.org tells us that the “civilian national security force” Obama referenced is not the dark conspiracy imagined by Beck. In fact, Beck appears to have deliberately misrepresented Obama’s remarks on the subject. In the following quote from Obama, note the highlighted snippet in the middle, which is the only part that Beck cited:
“We will enlist our veterans to find jobs and support for other vets, and to be there for our military families. And we’re going to grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy. We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set.
“We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded. We need to use technology to connect people to service. We’ll expand USA Freedom Corps to create online networks where American can browse opportunities to volunteer.”
Obviously Obama was not talking about a military force. He was talking about AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, the USA Freedom Corps (a Bush initiative), and the Foreign Service. Just as obviously, Beck knew the complete quote but chose to play only the bit of it that he could frame as scary. This could not be more dishonest if Beck just declared that Obama was the Queen of England. And this was not an incidental segment, Beck devoted the whole hour to this fabrication even though he knew it was a lie.
At one point Beck asks why no one in the administration is answering his questions. It’s probably the same reason that they wouldn’t answer questions posed by Charles Manson or Fred Phelps. Paranoid schizophrenics are not entitled to have presidents respond to their delusional queries.
Is it any wonder that more and more major American corporations want nothing to do with this nutcase? Today, Color of Change announced ten more companies pulling out of Beck’s show. Here is a the complete list. And for a good laugh, check out the list of advertisers remaining with Beck.
Fox News is pretending that the boycott has no had effect on their business. They’ve said that any advertisers that pulled out of Beck’s show just shifted their ads to other programs on Fox. Even if that’s so, it doesn’t erase the fact that the telemarketing ventures that now make up Beck’s ad clientele are certainly not paying the same rates that Procter & Gamble or GEICO did. And the best evidence that the boycott has drawn blood is Beck himself. He is too cowardly to directly address the matter, but today he made a thinly disguised reference to “powers” that are trying to “drum him out.” And, dagnabbit, he’s not backing down…
“I will use American ingenuity and my ingenuity and I will will pull myself up. And I will find another way to get this message out on a platform that will be a thousand times more powerful. Because of my faith, I know how this story ends. The truth shall set you free. America, you prepare to witness mighty and powerful miracles in your lifetime.”
What I’d like to know is, what is this platform, to which he refers, that is a thousand times more powerful than what he’s currently using? And if he can use it to get his message out, why isn’t he doing so now? And just what is he alluding to when he talks about the “mighty and powerful miracles” we’re about to witness? If I didn’t know better, I’d think he is prophesying the Apocalypse. Nah…He’s no messianic cult leader. Is he?
Having worked in the trafficking (commercial scheduling) department of a local network affiliate, I know (at least as of then) something about ad rates. Generally, it’s not the company per se determining the fee but the time specs (specifications) in which the ad runs, usually broken into morning, afternoon, primetime, and late night (and now, as well, the graveyard shift). Big companies pay big bucks because they can afford to run in primetime, not because they can afford the big bucks. In Beck’s case, if enough advertisers are bailing, I can see FOX forced to lower the rates for the time specs in which his program runs in order to lure them back from an economic perspective, at least the persuadable ones, which I would hope is a minimal number. In which case he becomes a revenue loser retaining his show for entirely non-economical reasons.
That’s true. But you also have to consider how the rates are set for the time periods. It is partly based on demand. If demand is high, the rates increase. If demand is low, as would be the case if fewer advertisers are competing for spots, the rates decline.
The boycott has certainly resulted in fewer advertisers competing for spots. Especially deep-pocketed advertisers.
glenn beck has ingenuity? that moron michael steele could give glenny a better run for his money in that department.
After reading that AARP did a poll that showed that only 37% knew what “public option” meant, I think I’m beginning to understand something about Bush, Beck and the Foxies popularity with their constituents. Of course confirmation bias has a lot to do with it, but I see a big difference in the approach to communication. Obama speaks as if he assumes a greater level of intelligence, using nuance in judgment and articulating ideals. This allows the pundits to play with words and take snippets out of context. As in the creationists using the popular definition of “theory” to attack the scientific idea of the Theory of Evolution.
This is the method that lead to the “Death Panel” and now the “Death book” meme. Words can be made to look like they mean anything, and Beck uses Obama’s tendency to speak formally to spin informal meaning.
Very good analysis. The sad part is that the solution is to tell Obama to talk dumber. And I am only half joking.
Also, that business with mis-defining theory has always bothered me. Creationists have no idea what a theory is. Someone should ask them if they believe in gravity. That’s just a theory too.
I should mention that this idea does not originate with me. It was first articulated on TPM (is it ok to reference another site here?) and it clarified thoughts I have been having for some time on the use of language.
The difference between the Theory of Evolution and that of gravity is that gravity doesn’t pose a threat to Genesis. Words are just words to these people, meanings change as they wish.
C’mon people…argue the facts and quit the name callin’.
GEEZ…