Tea Party: Losing Ground And Desperate

Posted by on March 8, 2011 at 6:57 pm. 3 Comments :

Tea CrusadesThe ongoing conflict in Wisconsin between an intransigent, union-busting governor and the representatives of average, working Americans is trending consistently toward the position of the people. Despite millions of dollars of Koch Industries lobbying funds, the Republicans and union bashers are, in their own words, “losing ground.”

This is an excerpt from a recent fundraising letter sent by Tea Party Express (TPE) to supporters:

“Friends, new polls coming out in Wisconsin show that the Obama-Labor Union ad campaign against him is having an impact. Governor Walker has started losing ground…”

Actually, the old polls were showing that as well. What is new is that even reliably right-leaning pollsters like Rasmussen are now showing that Governor Scott Walker is viewed unfavorably by nearly 60% of his constituents. The despondent correspondence goes on to say that…

“If we lose in Wisconsin then Republican Governors across America will take the lesson that they should give in and capitulate, and all the progress we have seen from the tea party movement will be undone,”

Indeed. Both sides of this debate recognize the impact that the conclusion will have on similar debates across the country. It’s interesting that TPE is so concerned about a defeat in Wisconsin that they believe it will undo “all the progress” they’ve made. But what is even more interesting is that they are directing this concern to only Republican governors.

That focus is something that I have been addressing for months, and that the media needs to acknowledge: There Is No Tea Party!

When will they get this through their barnacle-encrusted skulls? There are no Tea Party candidates; no Tea Party policies; no Tea Party voters. They are all Republicans. They run as Republicans and vote for Republicans. To pretend that it is something distinct is delusional. And this isn’t just me talking, it’s…

Republican Party spokesmen:
John Boehner, House Minority Leader: There really is no difference between what Republicans believe in and what the tea party activists believe in.

Tea Party spokesmen:
Mark Skoda, Tea Party Leader: This movement is beginning to mature … not as a third party but a force to be reckoned with in the traditional party structure.

Media spokesmen:
Carl Cameron, Fox News: They plan to establish separate spin off political action committees to fund raise for candidates who back Tea Party goals and the official Republican National Committee platform.

See? Everybody agrees that there is no Tea Party. It is journalistic fraud to persist with the charade. This is especially true of Tea Party Express, which was created by the Republican consulting firm of Russo/Marsh. Sal Russo runs TPE as a revenue center for his firm, funneling most of their donations right back into his wallet. And for some inexplicable reason this is the corrupt, phony Tea Party clan that CNN has hooked up with to host a Republican (of course) presidential primary debate.

This is madness. If the press treats the Tea Party as a separate entity and gives them a voice distinct from their Republican source, they are in effect giving the GOP twice as much exposure as the Democrats. To be fair and balanced they would have to regard MoveOn.org or the SEIU as a separate party and hire their spokespeople as news analysts and feature their responses to official GOP dogma – in addition to that of actual Democrats. I don’t see that happening.

In the meantime, the Tea Party is growing noticeably more desperate. Their latest fundraising appeal is evidence of how seriously they take their declining popularity in Wisconsin and the impact of that nationwide. They have never really been a popular movement as most polls have pegged their support in the teens with pluralities having no opinion. And their views have been shown to be wildly out of touch with mainstream Americans.

The media has to be pressed to justify their misrepresentation of Tea Partiers. Either that or put me on every panel where they have a Republican posing as something that doesn’t exist.

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The Haunting: Glenn Beck Sees George Soros In Every Shadow

Posted by on March 7, 2011 at 6:47 pm. 5 Comments :

How does Glenn Beck sleep at night when he knows that his dreams will be invaded by the Puppet Master himself, George Soros. Beck seems to be obsessively fixated on the imaginary threat that Soros is persecuting him at all times.

The latest episode of Beck’s dementia concerns a story last month from the Jewish Internet magazine, Tablet. Liel Leibovitz discovered that Premiere Radio Networks, the radio syndicator of top names like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, offers a service that provides actors to portray callers for their radio program clients.

Many of my liberal peers jumped on the story, accusing the right-wing broadcasters of faking calls to their shows. I laid off because, while the Premiere-On-Call service does exactly that, there was no allegation that any specific host was utilizing the service.

Nevertheless, Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze, has responded with typical paranoid bombast. They posted what they think is a shocking expose titled: Uncovered: Another Soros-Funded Attack On Glenn Beck and Talk Radio. The posting begins by attributing the Leibovitz story to the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) who merely posted a link to the original article on the Tablet’s web site. But that was enough to imply a Soros connection. CJR receives some funding from Soros’ Open Society Institute.

The problem is, CJR did not write the article, nor did they implicate Beck or anyone else as using the phony phone callers. In fact, the original column in the Tablet didn’t implicate anyone either. But that didn’t stop The Blaze from making a wholly unsupported accusation that Lelbovitz mislead his readers. The Blaze criticized Leibovitz for writing about…

“…how stations around the country are using actors to augment their programs but nowhere in the article does he offer legitimate proof or any reasonable semblance of proof that Beck, Hannity, or Limbaugh ever made use of the service.”

That’s true. No one disputes that Premiere was providing actors to stations to augment their programs. And it’s true that Leibovitz offered no proof as to Beck, et al, using the service – because he never made that allegation. Reporters often decline to provide proof of things that were never a part of what they were writing. You may have noticed that I haven’t offered any proof in this article that Sarah Palin is Charlie Sheen’s meth connection.

The Blaze goes on to inquire as to why Leibovitz mentioned only Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck in his article, and then responds saying “The answer to the question is simple, George Soros.” Of course. Soros is the answer to every question in the Beck universe. It couldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that they are the three biggest talkers on Premiere’s roster, and in the nation as a whole.

Finally, The Blaze leaps entirely out of the reality-based world to assert that Leibovitz is “connected to the Columbia Journalism Review” and is a contributor. I cannot figure out how they came to that conclusion. There is no reference to Leibovitz on the CJR web site, and there are no articles attributed to him. None. But without tying Leibovitz to CJR they could not tie him to Soros. So they had to invent the connection in order to advance their conspiracy.

This is how obsessed Beck is with manufacturing controversies that affirm his fear that George Soros is pulling the strings behind every devious, anti-American endeavor that creeps into his diseased brain. And, of course, that includes the assaults aimed directly at Beck. Because in the end that’s all that really matters. The entire structure of western civilization is propped up on Beck’s shoulders, and the only thing that prevents it all from crashing down is Beck standing guard against the defiler, Soros. That puts Beck’s life at risk every day, and every night as well. Even in his haunted dreams, Soros is lurking, waiting to strike. Don’t go to sleep, Glenn. That’s how he’ll get you.


Is Fox News Contemplating Life Without Glenn Beck?

Posted by on March 7, 2011 at 1:20 pm. 4 Comments :

Glenn BeckA column by David Carr in the New York Times is causing a stir in the Mediasphere today. The story concerns the status of Glenn Beck in the media marketplace, as well as at his Fox News home. Much of the article details the rapid decline of what was once regarded as the Beck phenomenon. But with escalating criticisms from fellow conservatives, deteriorating ratings, and advertisers running away, the thrill may be gone for everyone involved. The titillating portion of Carr’s column is a single line where he says that:

“…the erosion is significant enough that Fox News officials are willing to say – anonymously, of course; they don’t want to be identified as criticizing the talent – that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck.”

Is that really so? Carr notes that his sources are anonymous, so it’s difficult to assess their credibility. And the presence of disgruntled colleagues at Fox wouldn’t be a new development. There have been plenty of complaints about Beck, both on and off the record. Jane Hall, a former Fox News contributor, said that Beck was one of the reasons she chose to sever her relationship with Fox. And Eric Burns, the former host of Fox News Watch, quipped that one of the advantages of not working at Fox was that he didn’t have to share an employer with Glenn Beck.

So I would be skeptical that Fox News would be looking to ditch Beck for low ratings. For one thing, as Carr notes, Beck’s ratings may be low compared to his ratings a year ago, but they are still far ahead of the competition (except for last Thursday when Rachel Maddow drew more 25-54 year old viewers). Also, people like Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch, contrary to some assumptions, are not primarily driven by financial concerns. They are ideological animals and the proof of that is that Murdoch has run his New York Post at a loss for over ten years. What’s more, They have never complained about the revenue shortfall resulting from Beck scaring off A-list advertisers.

That doesn’t mean that Beck is safe. There are a couple of other factors that pose much greater risk to Beck’s TV future. One of which is the embarrassment of others at Fox, as noted above. Ancillary to that is the perception that Beck is actually harmful to the conservative agenda that Fox dispenses. The farther Beck goes off the rails, the more the GOP is regarded as out-of-touch, and perhaps Fox News as well. It isn’t just Beck’s ratings that are dropping. And to the degree that viewers associate Beck’s twisted ruminations to the network, he may be at least partially responsible for the overall declines as well.

Therefore, I believe that the potential damage Beck is doing to conservatism is far more likely to get him canned than his ratings. After all, he isn’t going to be replaced by Dennis Kucinich or Michael Moore. Fox will undoubtedly bring in a reliable right-winger who can advance the conservative agenda without Beck’s psychotic, delusional baggage. This is more about message than money.

If Beck is terminated, Fox will have to play it very carefully. If they are perceived by Beck’s disciples as having fired him, or being otherwise disrespectful, they are capable of causing quite a commotion, up to and including vandalism and violence. So look for Fox to steer Beck out the door by either allowing him to self-destruct via doomsday conspiracies and rabid bigotry, or by “discovering” some hideous scandal that would force Fox to throw Beck overboard.

As for Beck, I wouldn’t worry about him (well, financially anyway). He would still have his radio program, his publishing, and his Internet properties. Plus he has already addressed this scenario and declared himself omnipotent (Charlie Sheen’s got nothing on Beck). Here is how Beck responded to previous threats:

“They can take my job and they can take my wealth but that’s okay…even if the powers to be, right now, succeed in making me poor, drum me out, and I’m just a worthless loser – which I’m just about that much above that now – I will only be stronger for it. I will use American ingenuity and my ingenuity to pull myself up, and I will find another way to get my message out on a platform that will be a thousand times more powerful! Because of my faith, I know how this story ends.”

See? He’s winning. And he can’t be stopped by mortal men. The one question I have is, if he has a platform that is a thousand times more powerful, why isn’t he using it now? He must be saving it for his Post-Apocalypse Variety Hour and Praise-a-thon.


Fox Nation Is Religion And Race Baiting – Again

Posted by on March 7, 2011 at 11:38 am. 2 Comments :

If you had the stomach to visit Fox Nation this morning you would have seen some more of the repulsive prejudice that is such a staple of their brand.

Fox Nation Race BaitingLet’s start with the article on Spanish language jerseys for NBA teams. I’m not sure exactly what the Fox Nationalists have against that, other than that they think it caters to illegal alien drug smugglers and narco-terrorists. The fact that the Latino community is a huge part of the NBA market seems to be of no interest to Fox. But they go even further by asserting that “No One’s Impressed.” How they established that is anyone’s guess. There is nothing to that effect in the article to which they linked. So it appears to be nothing more than a gratuitous slur aimed at dismissing Latino consumers.

The funny thing is that Fox itself caters to the Latino market with their “Fox Latino” news web site. However, this article, which explicitly deals with news associated with a Spanish-speaking audience, is nowhere to be found on Fox Latino. Apparently it is acceptable to disparage Latinos on the Fox Nation, but be sure not to post that sort of offensive content on a site that is actually read by Latinos.

Next we have the peculiar juxtaposition of articles involving religious affairs in the White House. The Fox Nationalist editors thought it would fun to place an article alleging that President Obama ignores anti-Semitism right next to an article that notes his praise for Muslims. I’m sure it was just a coincidence.

The article about anti-Semitism (sourced to NewsMax via The Hill) addressed assertions by Republicans that the administration has not given the issue the attention it deserves and has failed to provide adequate staffing. However, unreported by Fox and NewsMax (but in The Hill’s article), Abe Foxman of the ADL said that he has “no complaints” and that “whenever there is a serious manifestation of anti-Semitism around the globe the administration is there.” Also unreported is the fact that the staffing in this administration is identical to that of the previous administration. If Obama’s response has been lacking, it is his silence with regard to the anti-Semitism displayed by Fox News in general, and Glenn Beck in particular. He really should speak out more against that.

The article about the White House praise for Muslims is linked to a story in the Associated Press reporting that Obama sent a National Security aide to “a Washington-area mosque known for its cooperation with the FBI and its rejection of the al-Qaida brand of Islam.” Heavens to Betsy, we sure we don’t wanna be praisin that, does we?

The Islamaphobes of Fox News frequently grumble that “good” Muslims don’t do enough to repudiate the extremists. That has always been a false complaint. But when there is an obvious display of unity with moderate, mainstream Muslims, Fox casts a dark cloud over it by implying some sinister motive on the part of the President.

These are just two more examples of the overt hatred that is disseminated by Fox News. And a stroll through the comments attached to these postings reveals just how harmful it is to indulge these bigots.


The Republican Model Of Shared Sacrifice

Posted by on March 6, 2011 at 10:04 am. 16 Comments :

In these challenging economic times it is common for a nation and its leaders to embrace a sense of community and promote the notion that we are all in this together and are expected to chip in, do our part, and make difficult compromises. The Republican Party is no exception and it has adopted its own model of “Shared Sacrifice.”


The right-wing in America is committed to reducing the deficit on the backs of the middle-class and the poor. They are all for cutting the salaries of teachers and the benefits of seniors. And the rich have to pitch in as well by accepting painful reductions in…..taxes.

That’s right, the beleaguered wealthy amongst us must loosen their belts and be prepared to get fatter and suffer ever more ostentatious privilege. This is a theme that the media adopts as they seek to sustain the position of power awarded to the elite who must surely deserve it or it would not have been granted to them by God.

In the process of dispensing these hardships, working people are castigated if they object that the contracts to which they agreed are being broken in order to pare back their lavish lifestyles. But any suggestion that the Wall Street crooks who created this recession in the first place be asked to forgo their extravagant bonuses, paid for by the people via government bailouts, is an affront to the order of business and the contractual benefits they negotiated with their executive pals.

So remember, when contemplating the value of shared sacrifice, that if you support firefighters and factory workers getting fair compensation, you’re a socialist. But if you support hedge fund managers and insurance company CEO’s getting millions in government handouts, you’re a patriot. That’s shared sacrifice in right-wing America.


Rachel Maddow Beats Glenn Beck In Key Demo

Posted by on March 4, 2011 at 4:11 pm. 17 Comments :

Glenn BeckGlenn Beck’s star has been fading for most of the last year. He has lost about half of his television audience. His radio ratings have also been declining leading to stations dropping his program in big markets like New York, Philadelphia, and Madison. His most recent book, “Broke,” was the first in eight years to fail to hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Over 300 advertisers regard him as toxic and will not permit their ads to air during his program.

Yesterday, another milestone was reached. The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC drew 39,000 more viewers in the key advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds. Beck did manage to draw more total viewers, but even that statistic is revealing. It shows that Beck’s audience is comprised of only 21% of the young demo. That compares to Maddow’s 31%.

This is further evidence of Beck’s accelerating collapse. Last week it was reported that Beck declined 32% (25-54) and 26% (total viewers) year-to-year for the month of February. And that’s on top of a January year-to-year drop of 50% (25-54) and 40% (total viewers).

The public is obviously tiring of this manic-paranoid’s freak show. As a result, many staunch conservatives are becoming bolder with regard to their criticisms of Beck. And some are even recognizing that Beck may be just the tip of the iceberg and that anyone who hitches their wagon to Beck is equally deserving of ridicule and revulsion. That applies particularly to Beck’s primary benefactors, Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch, but also to those who work with and/or defend Beck. They will all learn that this stench is unremitting.

As for Maddow, this is just one day, so it will take some time to see if her strength continues. Pessimists will whine that Maddow’s primetime scheduling gives her an advantage, but the fact is that this is the first time she has outdrawn Beck and that makes it significant. For now she deserves to celebrate and I congratulate her.

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The Paranoid Style Of Glenn Beck

Posted by on March 3, 2011 at 7:40 am. 2 Comments :

Glenn Beck was born on February 10, 1964. Later that same year a professor from Columbia University authored what now appears to be a prophetic description of what that child would become.

From The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter
[Hover your mouse over the highlighted words for Beck’s pearls of paranoia]


The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms–he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millennialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse. (”Time is running out,” said Welch in 1951. “Evidence is piling up on many sides and from many sources that October 1952 is the fatal month when Stalin will attack.”)

As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated–if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.

The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman–sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction (the Catholic confessional).

Scary, isn’t it?


Fox News Suspends Newt Gingrich And Rick Santorum Pending Presidential Campaign Plans

Posted by on March 2, 2011 at 10:51 am. 3 Comments :

Under pressure from within both political and media circles, Fox News has finally conceded that it is inappropriate to continue providing a free platform for presidential candidates who are also Fox News contributors. Well, some of them, anyway.

Bret Baier announced this morning that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will be placed on a temporary suspension for sixty days. After that “their contracts will be terminated unless they notify FOX they are not running for president.”

It’s about time. Fox News has been functioning as the exploratory committee for several GOP candidates who are getting millions of dollars worth of free advertising as they contemplate running for president. The announcement today, however, made no mention of other potential candidates like Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, or John Bolton. So Fox’s solution is partial at best. Yet, by the standards set by Fox, it is more than anyone expected at this point in time.

It is notable that the two prospective candidates who have been suspended are not particularly potent revenue sources for Fox. On the other hand, Huckabee has an existing weekly program with advertisers and everything, and Palin continues to be a draw amongst fans of the network. So it could be surmised that Fox chose to relieve a couple of insignificant talking heads as a gesture, while retaining those who are making them money.

It remains to be seen whether Fox will follow through with Gingrich and Santorum, and whether they will be accountable for the others on their roster. In the mean time we will probably have to sit through more inane blather from the likes of Dick Morris and Monica Crowley to fill the newly created gaps.

You know, on second thought, this may not be such a good thing after all.


GOP Leader Seeks To Reverse Ban On Snipe Hunting

Posted by on March 2, 2011 at 10:13 am. 2 Comments :

SnipeIn a speech at the Akron Sportsman’s Lodge, Republican House Speaker John Boehner promised local game stalkers that he would soon be taking up legislation to remove snipes from the endangered species list. This action is a prerequisite for granting permits for snipe hunts. Boehner told the appreciative audience that he has long advocated this measure and that he believes there is no justification for continuing to protect the elusive snipe.

In other legislative news, Boehner told the National Religious Broadcasters convention that the House would act to pass legislation that would ban any attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. He told the NRB gathering that…

“…some members of Congress and the federal bureaucracy are still trying to reinstate – and even expand – the Fairness Doctrine. To them, it’s fair to silence ideas and voices they don’t agree with, and use the tools of government to do it. […] Our new majority is committed to seeing that the government does not reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.”

Speaker Boehner did not name any of the congressmen or bureaucrats that supposedly want to reinstate the Doctrine. He did not inform the group that there have been no bills introduced or hearings scheduled on the subject. He also did not mention that both President Obama and FCC Chairman Genachowski are both on record opposing reinstatement of the Doctrine. So Boehner is taking a courageous stand in opposition to something that nobody has proposed or is working on.

Boehner also spoke to the NRB about his opposition to Network Neutrality, or as he called it, “the Fairness Doctrine for the Internet.” In the process he repeatedly mischaracterized the matter as a “government takeover of the Internet.” His remarks were somewhat confusing as he sought to define the issue:

“It’s a series of regulations that empower the federal bureaucracy to regulate Internet content and viewpoint discrimination. The rules are written vaguely, of course, to allow the FCC free reign. The last thing we need, in my view, is the FCC serving as Internet traffic controller.”

Of course the truth is that Network Neutrality has nothing whatsoever to do with “content and viewpoint discrimination.” In fact, it is just the opposite as it’s only purpose is to preserve a purely non-discriminatory environment on the web. Not only does it not designate the FCC as a “traffic controller,” it prohibits the corporations who presently have that power from abusing it. Boehner’s position is to deny the FCC a magisterial role that isn’t in the initiative, but allow it for AT&T and Comcast.

To recap: Boehner wants to stop an Internet policy from doing something that it doesn’t do. He also wants to block a broadcast doctrine that no one is proposing. Those are tall orders that should keep him busy in the coming weeks and months while the nation is struggling to recover from an economic calamity and is crying out for solutions to stubborn problems like unemployment, the national debt, and enduring wars.

At least we can wish Boehner well on his snipe hunt – something with which he is apparently well acquainted.


Mike Huckabee Channels Glenn Beck

Posted by on March 1, 2011 at 3:35 pm. 3 Comments :

One of the Fox News in-house presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee, was the guest today with radio Birther Steve Malzberg. In the course of their conversation Huckabee veered off into uncharted territory with a new and ridiculous claim that Barack Obama had grown up in Kenya.

Sure we’ve had Birthers claiming for more than two years now that Obama was born in Kenya, but even those delusional morons never said that he was raised there as well. Huckabee’s journey into Wingnutia was in response to a question from Malzberg about whether he would like to know more about Obama. Huckabee answered:

“I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American. […] If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”

Seriously? This is the caliber of the candidates who are being put forth by the Republican Party and their PR agency Fox News. And Huckabee is often held up as one of the more reasonable of the batch.

Let’s stop for a moment and analyze this nonsense. First of all, there is ample evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii, including a birth certificate authenticated by the state. Secondly, there is no evidence to support the contention that Obama has any animosity toward the British. Thirdly, Obama’s father left the family when he was two years old, hardly enough time to influence him on foreign affairs, even if Huckabee’s assertions about Obama’s family were correct. Obama was subsequently raised by his mother and her parents who were from that mysterious, alien locale known as Kansas. So Huckabee’s thesis is riddled with holes and makes no sense whatsoever.

Where on earth would Huckabee get an idea like this? There’s really only one person who could manufacture such a fancy of dementia; only one mind so diseased: Glenn Beck. It was Glenn Beck who first popularized the notion that Obama hated the British because his grandfather (whom he did not know) had been imprisoned in England for his efforts to secure Kenya’s independence from the British crown. Gee, what other country did that? By Beck’s logic every American must also hate the Brits because they fought us in a brutal and deadly war of independence.

The source for Beck’s mythology about Obama and his upbringing was “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” by Dinesh D’Souza. Beck hosted D’Souza on his show last year where they frolicked through the fantasy world of Obama’s aborning rage. But Beck’s psychoanalysis of the President reveals more of Beck’s own psychosis than anything else. On one occasion Beck dedicated a whole program to Obama’s ancestors and how it turned him into a pinko-loving Marxist bent on destroying western civilization.

Now Huckabee is picking up the crazy baton and waving it furiously for attention. Well, he has our attention. Let’s hope he uses it to announce that he will run for president in 2012, because other than a Palin/Steele ticket, I can’t think of anything more entertaining. How about Huckabee/Trump?

[Update:] Huckabee responded to this idiocy through a spokesman exactly as I expected. He said…

“Gov. Huckabee simply misspoke when he alluded to President Obama growing up in Kenya. The governor meant to say the president grew up in Indonesia.”

That is a brazen lie. In his original comments Huckabee said that Obama’s having grown up in Kenya was what shaped his view of the British who once held Kenya as a colony. That would have made no sense at all if he meant to refer to Indonesia. If you swap out Kenya for Indonesia his original statement is gibberish.

There is no way he “simply misspoke” unless he thinks the Mau Mau Revolution was an Indonesian affair and that Obama’s Kenyan grandfather was persecuted by the British for something to do with Indonesia. It’s absurd, and it’s an obvious lie.