Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck vs Glee/My Chemical Romance

Posted by on April 29, 2011 at 2:49 pm. 4 Comments :

We already know that Glenn Beck is a delusional paranoid whose analysis of world affairs is on a par with a lobotomized baboon (no offense intended to baboons). And we have already witnessed his hallucinatory ramblings about commie-infested art planted throughout Manhattan. But now Beck has assumed the role of music critic and the results are just about what you would expect.

On his program yesterday he set off on a tirade against an episode of Glee that featured the cast performing “Sing” by My Chemical Romance. Of course, he divined a meaning to the segment that could only exist in his decayed brain. His dementia was so complete that he kept going back forth from praising the show as brilliant to condemning it as a nightmare:

“I’ve watched it in stunned horror combined with a sense of admiring awe. It is a brilliant, brilliant show. Very, very, very well done. But it is a horror show.”

With his standard demeanor reeking of shock and fear, Beck attempted to convey the danger that he saw in this evil teenage music. He displayed a few of the lyrics on screen to illustrate the horror that these demonic rockers were imparting to our innocent children:

Cleaned up corporation progress, dying in the process
Children that can talk about it, living on the railways
People moving sideways, sell it till your last days
Buy yourself the motivation, generation nothing
Nothing but a dead scene, product of a white dream.

Reading those words, I couldn’t quite figure out what Beck was so worked up about. Was it the insinuation that corporations were involved in something nefarious? Was it the ambiguous reference to a “white dream?” Beck never really explained it himself. He simply said that…

“This is propaganda and it’s an anthem. It’s an anthem saying, join us. How can you and I possibly win against that?”

Win against what? An anthem calling for what? Joining what? Beck never says. So I went to the source. I looked up the song on a video that contained all of the lyrics. I’ll report, you decide:

So far as I can tell, this is song that inspires self-esteem and the determination to stand up for yourself in the face of critics and bullies and the martinets of conformity. It’s a call for pride in individualism and a rejection of corporate mandates of style and character. It’s a tribute to the honor of outcasts and those whom society regards as defective.

No wonder Beck is afraid. The more kids listen to this message, the harder it will be for them to be manipulated by commercial evangelists like him; the harder it will be to sow doubt and insecurity; the harder it will be sell useless crap that promises to make you popular and desirable. This song is an assault on the crass consumerism that fattens Beck’s wallet and those of his sponsors.

This song’s refrain is seemingly dedicated to Glenn Beck: “Sing it out for the ones that’ll hate your guts.”

[Update] My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way responded to Beck on his blog. My favorite part:

“I’m actually shocked that no actual fact-checking was done on the lyrics. I mean Fox is a major news channel, covering factual topics in an unbiased and intelligent – oh wait-“

Well said.

Piss Beck

Posted by on April 20, 2011 at 11:37 am. 3 Comments :

BREAKING NEWS from the delusional world of Glenn Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue:

Beck: Have you heard this reported yet? Palm Sunday. Four people from an anti-Christian group attacked two pieces of religious artwork in France.


There may be a very good reason why you haven’t heard that reported yet. If you were to go to the Guardian web site that Beck referenced you would find a story that says…

“When New York artist Andres Serrano plunged a plastic crucifix into a glass of his own urine and photographed it in 1987 under the title Piss Christ, he said he was making a statement on the misuse of religion.

Controversy has followed the work ever since, but reached an unprecedented peak on Palm Sunday when it was attacked with hammers and destroyed after an ‘anti-blasphemy’ campaign by French Catholic fundamentalists in the southern city of Avignon.”

You see, it was not “an anti-Christian group” that attacked the artwork, as Beck stated. It was a group of Catholic fundamentalists. So either Beck is lying or he never actually read the article. Furthermore, it is curious that Beck would condemn an attack on a piece of artwork that he surely regards as blasphemous. Is he defending “Piss Christ” as free expression? That would be an enlightened position for him to take and thus, unlikely. In any case, he still shouldn’t accuse anti-Christians of the vandalism when it was Christians who were responsible.

I wonder if Beck would still condemn the vandalism if he knew it was Christians who committed it. I also wonder if Beck will correct this “mistake” as he frequently brags that he will always put his corrections up front. We’ll see.

Flashback: Beck’s last excursion into art criticism was a hilariously demented tour of the art in Manhattan architecture that he said was loaded with subliminal socialist messages. He saw these messages everywhere and particularly in structures built by the notoriously communist Rockefeller family.

Andrew Breitbart Throws Glenn Beck Under The Bus For Throwing Him Under The Bus

Posted by on April 20, 2011 at 10:47 am. 2 Comments :

This just keeps getting better.

Last week the feud between conservative stalwarts Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson became public in a big way with Carlson’s web site citing numerous rightist pundits who claim that Beck has plagiarized them. Beck shot back accusing his critics of jealousy.

Andrew Breitbart was one of those cited in Carlson’s story. Today Breitbart upped the ante by telling the New York Observer that Beck “threw me under the bus” during the Shirley Sherrod affair when Sherrod was defamed as a racist in a deceptively edited video. Breitbart reveals that Beck had worked with him in the preparation and editing of the video.

Breitbart: Next thing I know, I’m under complete attack without the support of Glenn Beck, who I thought was somebody I could count on.

This is a startling revelation. First it’s an admission that there was an intent to misrepresent Sherrod in the video, something that Breitbart has previously denied. And it also casts Beck as a co-conspirator. This is significant because Beck has tried to portray himself as someone who had rejected the Sherrod video when it was first released by Breitbart.

Beck: We defended her and said her side of the story demanded to be heard – because context matters. That’s how we do things.

Not exactly. First of all, Beck only defended Sherrod on his afternoon television program after the video hoax had been revealed. On his radio show that morning he castigated her saying that we “have video tape of a USDA administration official discriminating against white farmers.”

So Beck participated in the dishonest editing of the video with Breitbart, used his morning radio show to promote the phony clip that he helped to create, and by the time his TV show aired later the same day, and the bottom had dropped out of the story, he pretends to be pristine and unaffiliated as he defends the poor victim of Breitbart’s slander and the White House’s knee-jerk over-reaction.

What a piece of ….. work.

Glenn Beck’s Youth Bashing Crushed By Van Jones’ Optimism

Posted by on April 18, 2011 at 8:30 pm. NO Comments :

Glenn Beck has spent much of the past two years dismissing young people as ignorant, brainwashed, and/or “useful idiots.” He regards them as societal appendages whose obligation is to be obedient and silent. Most recently he blamed the uprisings in the Middle East on unruly kids led by Google executives and intent on forming alliances with western leftists and Al Qaeda to invoke Shariah law from Tripoli to Topeka.

Today Beck replayed old clips of Al Gore motivating young environmentalists by telling them that “There are some things about our world that you know that older people don’t know.” That is objectively true for every new generation. If it were not it would mean that civilization is standing still. We are supposed to get smarter as time goes by. Aren’t we?

Not according to Beck. In Beck’s world Gore’s remarks are an appalling affront to parental authority. As is the speech that Van Jones gave at the Power Shift Conference for young leaders this past weekend. Beck played a short video of Jones encouraging members of the audience to be forthright in their advocacy for a clean environment. As usual, Beck cut the video so as to mislead his viewers. What he left was this snippet:

“When you go home, shift the power at the Thanksgiving table. When your Uncle Joe, who loves Fox News, starts talking to you and starts dominating the discussion.”

That’s where Beck cuts it off to insert his response:

“I will tell you this, in a side note. That is why I’m leaving this network. This network has this audience cornered. You are here because it is telling you the truth. We have got to get to the youth.”

First of all, that is not why Beck is leaving the network. He is leaving because he was fired for alienating over 300 advertisers and losing half of the audience. Secondly, Beck doesn’t explain what audience he alleges to have cornered, but presumably it is not the youth audience. In fact, Beck’s viewers, like Fox in general, skew older than any program on cable news. That aside, it is important to hear the rest of Jones’ thoughts to understand the depths of Beck’s intention to deceive. Just following the point where Beck cut the tape:

“When you go home, shift the power at the Thanksgiving table. When your Uncle Joe, who loves Fox News, starts talking to you and starts dominating the discussion, and starts making you feel small, and that your ideas don’t count, and that you’re some kind of bizarre freak, shift the power. Because this movement is not just for Democrats, and it’s not just for lefties. This movement is for everybody. And you have the opportunity to say to your Uncle Joe, ‘Excuse me sir. Don’t you believe in liberty? And if you do, how can you live in a country where every American is forced to be an energy consumer for the rest of our lives?

“Shouldn’t we have the right as Americans to be energy producers?’ Shouldn’t we be able to put up solar panels on our own houses? Shouldn’t we be able to put up wind turbines in our backyards? Shouldn’t we be able, as Americans, to power our own community? Shouldn’t we have the right and the liberty to be energy producers and not be dictated to twelve times a years by energy companies that dictate how much we’re gonna pay for energy, when we’re gonna pay it, how many asthma inhalers we’re gonna have as a consequence? Shouldn’t we have the liberty, as Americans, to power this country in a new way?”

Beck surely knows that the rest of that segment was entirely respectful toward Uncle Joe. He knows that there was no attempt to dishonor the role of parents or elders. He knows this yet he purposefully manipulates the message to cast young people in a negative light. And he has the gall to do this while declaring that he wants to “get to the youth.” That’s a goal he also spoke of in Albany on Saturday, where he said that he planned to build a way to deliver news directly to the youth of America. Does he plan to do that by frightening them as he does his radio and television audiences? Because that won’t work with this demographic. They are far more independent and self-directed. And for all the disrespect that Beck hurls at them, he cannot win them over with lies and fear mongering.

And just for the heck of it, here is Jones’ inspiring conclusion to the speech (which you can watch in full here):

“I love liberty. Given what’s happened with my ancestors, nobody loves liberty more than I do. But the pledge of allegiance doesn’t stop there. The pledge of allegiance says ‘liberty and justice for all.’ ‘Liberty and justice for all.’ And that’s what your movement is about. Liberty, yes, and justice. Justice for the immigrant. Justice for the lesbians and the gays. Justice for the African-Americans. Justice for women. Justice for the rural poor. Justice for the Native Americans. Liberty and justice for all. Shift the power!”

Bitches Brawl: Glenn Beck vs. Tucker Carlson

Posted by on April 18, 2011 at 12:33 pm. 3 Comments :

Glenn BeckA few weeks ago Tucker Carlson’s web site, The Daily Caller, ran the latest phony videos from scam artist James O’Keefe’s dishonest NPR sting. Shortly thereafter, Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze, took apart the videos revealing how deceptively they had been edited. This created a small schism in the right-wing media family.

Today that split has been wedged a little wider. TheDC published a lengthy article that accuses Beck of being a serial thief. He is shown to have appropriated the work of other conservative authors on multiple occasions so that it appears that he came up with the material himself. In some cases he went so far as to erase video logos from the originals in order to hide the source. Some of those whom Beck ripped off were vocally upset:

Andrew Breitbart, Big Journalism: “…sometimes he also uses other peoples’ work without crediting them, making it appear as though it were his own.”

Rebel Pundit: “You’ve got pretty much the biggest guy in the movement take your stuff and actually have his editors spend the time to scrub my name off of it.”

John Sexton, VerumSerum: “He’s used our stuff without any hat tip at all. I don’t understand that.”

Pamela Geller, AtlasShrugs: “I don’t know how to describe such outrageous and proud thievery. I like his work, but he’s a thief.”

Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media: “[Beck’s producers] told me Glenn wanted to handle the issue himself, which means he wanted to appear to be the expert.”

On his radio program this morning Beck and his crew escalated the conflict. They responded to the column in TheDC with a sarcastic reference to the article being an act of vengeance for the Blaze’s takedown on the NPR story:

Sidekick Stu: “Clearly there is no attempt at revenge to come up with a pathetic, horrible story about how Glenn steals from his own employees.”

Then Beck defends himself by saying that there are no original ideas – a justification that implies it’s OK to steal anything. He then proceeds to describe an item on The Blaze that has links to YouTube or some other source material. However, the complaints about Beck’s misappropriation were addressed to his television show, not his web site. And the TV show had no links or other attributions.

Previously Beck has been been called a plagiarist by the popular radio conspiracy guru, Alex Jones. Jones, who has called Beck a whore and a punk, has repeatedly lambasted Beck for stealing his research and twisting it to fit a rightist/GOP agenda.

It’s rather amusing that anyone would want to take credit for the garbage Beck spews, but pride of authorship extends even to nutcases who peddle insane conspiracy theories. If Beck rips them off they are entitled to their indignation. And the skirmishes that ensue ought to be entertaining for those of us in the reality-based world as right-wingers bark at each other. So have at it and may the craziest man win.

Update: Add Mike Huckabee to the list of those with whom Beck is feuding.

10 Reasons Why Fox News After Glenn Beck Will Still Suck

Posted by on April 13, 2011 at 10:38 am. 10 Comments :

“If I were lying I’d be off the air.”
  ~ Glenn Beck, Jan 4, 2010.
“I’m going to be leaving this program later this year.”
  ~ Glenn Beck, Apr 6, 2011.

There has already been a barrage of media analysis and discussion of Glenn Beck’s not-so-surprising separation from Fox News. For the most part that discussion has been focused on speculation as to the cause of the break up and on what will become of Beck. But any suggestion that Beck’s departure polishes Fox’s reputation is pure folly. The worst of Beck’s haunted imagination is securely woven into the Fox News dis-comforter. The trademark Fox invective, sophistry, and bias predate Beck and will outlive him.


Many in the press, however, are more interested in prattling on about the alleged animosity for Beck amongst “serious” conservatives and his colleagues at Fox who think that his doomsday rhetoric and conspiracy theories give the “news” network a bad name. The purveyors of conventional wisdom are very concerned about Fox’s teetering credibility and are scrambling to defend it:

Howard Kurtz, CNN, The Daily Beast: …many senior Fox executives are relieved to be rid of Beck. [and] …some journalists and executives at the network privately expressed concern that Beck was becoming the face of the network.

George Will, ABC News Washington Post: I think that Glenn Beck and his drift into more bizarre and extreme positions was threatening the Fox brand. So I wish Glenn Beck health and happiness but I think the health and happiness of Fox is served by his departure.

Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine: You can’t be a rodeo clown and maintain credibility,

Matt Lewis, The Daily Caller: My take is that while Beck’s show was individually a ratings hit, he also risked tarnishing the overall Fox News “brand”.

Jeffrey McCall, professor of media studies, DePauw University: Beck was no longer just a personality with a show on FNC. He became an easy target for Fox News critics to characterize him as representative of the entire channel.

These august observers have frightfully short memories. The truth is that Fox earned its nefarious reputation long before Beck arrived and there is every indication that they will preserve it after he’s gone. In fact, it’s that reputation that made Beck such a good fit to begin with and lured him to the network despite his admitted reluctance when first approached. The pundits who are advancing the premise that by losing Beck, Fox can be redeemed are, to put it kindly, mistaken. Here is why Fox News without Glenn Beck will be just as bad as Fox News with Glenn Beck:

1) Bill O’Reilly: Before Beck called President Obama a racist, Bill O’Reilly ventured to Sylvia’s in Harlem and expressed his surprise that the mostly African-American patrons weren’t acting like primitives. And when the First Lady was criticized for expressing her pride that America had evolved to the point where they would elect an African-American president O’Reilly considerately declared that “I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence.” Nice choice of words.

2) Sean Hannity: While Beck may suffer from an acute case of Nazi-Tourettes Syndrome (Louis Black™), Sean Hannity is a personal friend of the notorious neo-Nazi schlock-jock, Hal Turner, and graciously hosted him on his program. Turner won’t be be revisiting Hannity for a while because he is presently in prison serving 33 months for threatening judges.

3) Megyn Kelly: No one can spin a conspiracy theory quite like Beck, but Megyn Kelly comes pretty close. For months she’s been peddling a pseudo-scandal that alleges that the Department of Justice deliberately dismisses all charges of civil rights violations when the plaintiff is white. This has been debunked by the House Judiciary Committee’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Kelly also fronted phony investigations into the alleged terrorist ties of funders of the Park51 mosque in Manhattan. Somehow she left out the fact that one of those funders was Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the second largest shareholder of News Corp outside of the Murdoch family. Kelly has a permanently affixed expression of indignation and a vocal delivery that makes every story appear to be shocking. She is the human manifestation of Fox’s ever-present “FOX ALERT!”

4) Judge Andrew Napolitano: There are conspiratorial paths where even Beck fears to tread. Judge Andrew Napolitano has no such fears. He is a frequent guest of proto-conspiratorialist and Beck inspiration, Alex Jones. He is an avowed 9/11 Truther who says that the World Trade Center attack was an inside job. He believes that the health care bill contains provisions for a civilian military force to suppress domestic insurrection. And he also happens to be Beck’s most frequent fill-in host and a leading candidate to replace him.

5) Bill Sammon: Fox News’ Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, has espoused a hard-core conservatism that predates Beck and emanates from the executive suites far above him. He came to Fox from the “Moonie” Washington Times and authored several books lionizing George W. Bush and lambasting Democrats. He was also caught authoring memos that directed his reporters to dispense a brazenly partisan point of view. For instance, he told them to refrain from using the term “public option” during the health care debate because focus group testing proved that the term “government-run” produced a more negative response. Even more disturbing, he was recorded admitting to a friendly audience on a conservative cruise that he “mischievously” cast Obama as a socialist even though he didn’t believe it himself. In other words, he lied to defame the President and rile up his gullible viewers. Beck must be so proud to have worked for him.

6) Neil Cavuto: The glorification of ignorance is a staple of Beck’s brand, but Neil Cavuto has been contributing to the collapse of America’s collective IQ far longer than Beck. He proudly hosts such respected policy analysts as Ted Nugent, Joe the Plumber, and any random Tea Bagger to help him unravel our nation’s dilemmas. One of his favorite idiocies is his insistence that Climate Change is a hoax because it gets cold in the winter. But Cavuto really shines when he brings in guests whose only connection to the segment is a juvenile pun. For instance, in a discussion about whether Tea Party support was grassroots or AstroTurf, Cavuto interviewed the CEO of AstroTurf Technologies, whose expertise with synthetic fiber products contributed nothing to the debate on campaign organization. Cavuto is the prop comic of pundits who delights in interrupting and shouting down Democrats who are naive enough to accept his invitations to appear.

7) Fox & Friends: While there will always be only one rodeo clown in the vast right-wing conspira-circus, there is no shortage of stooges, and three of them are featured on Fox & Friends. First we have Steve Doocy, who wondered “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that [Obama] spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father.” Perhaps because Obama actually never knew his father who left the family when he was two years old. Then there’s Brian Kilmeade who fans the racist flames by saying things like “all terrorists are Muslims.” And don’t forget Gretchen Carlson, who called the late Sen. Ted Kennedy a “hostile enemy” of the United States. All of these vile inanities were delivered without any help from Beck. However, it should be noted that when Beck made his infamous remarks about Obama being a racist he did it on Fox & Friends.

8) Fox Nation: Any good 21st century propaganda outfit has to have an Internet component, and for Fox News it is the Fox Nation. This web site’s sole purpose is to disseminate the most despicably dishonest disinformation it can invent. There are way too many examples to itemize, but here are a couple that represent the ridiculous and the repulsive. Last July Fox Nation featured a story that claimed that the Taliban was recruiting monkey mercenaries. This absurdity was sourced to the People’s Daily in China. Fox Nation also ran an item that speculated about Obama’s death. This article brought out the hate in the site’s readers who posted numerous comments indicating how welcome that would be. Many of the stories on Fox Nation percolate up to Fox News for broadcast and they they are no less deranged than the nonsense Beck comes up with.

9) Roger Ailes: The president and CEO of Fox News sets the tone for the network as a whole. Roger Ailes was a long-time media advisor to Republican candidates prior to launching Fox News. He is the network’s spiritual leader. If you ever wondered how Beck could get away with aligning President Obama (and anyone else with whom he disagrees) with Hitler, your curiosity was satisfied when Ailes lashed out at NPR saying that “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism.” Ailes’ remarks prove that the hate speech at Fox goes from the top down. It’s not now, and never has been, unique to Beck.

10) Rupert Murdoch: Speaking of the top – Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman and CEO of News Corp, is as high as you can get. He is the company’s captain and conscience. Every material decision requires his concurrence, including his employment of Glenn Beck. While Beck may be leaving, Murdoch is not (yet). It is, therefore, important to note that when Beck called the President a racist, Murdoch responded by saying that “it was something that, perhaps, shouldn’t have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he [Beck] was talking about, he was right.”

Murdoch has consistently stood behind Beck for more than two years, defending him at every turn for every scandalous affair and affront. Even as advertisers fled in disgust, Murdoch never conceded an inch. In the television marketplace it is advertisers, not viewers, who are the broadcaster’s clients. Murdoch snubbed his clients in order to allow Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue and Disinfotainment Revival Hour to continue poisoning minds and influencing elections.

More importantly, Murdoch and Ailes together have fashioned a network whose persona is infested with the same conservative extremist ideology popularized by Beck. The examples above illustrate how ingrained that ideology is into the Fox News schedule in all dayparts. And those programs are augmented by an army of propagandists that include Sarah Palin, Stuart Varney, Eric Bolling, Monica Crowley, Dick Morris, Frank Luntz, and many more.

With this dedicated team of activist anchors and contributors in place, Beck’s departure, though gossip-worthy, will change nothing at Fox News. Beck was not cast off because his message was objectionable, but because he was an ineffective messenger who was alienating the audience. His replacement will surely continue the sordid tradition of which Beck was just a small, irritating part. The Fox mission remains intact and any talk of redemption due merely to having thrown off this defective cog is naive and oblivious to the dark reality that is Fox News.

Glenn Beck Endorses 60% Tax Rate And Slavery

Posted by on April 13, 2011 at 9:01 am. 4 Comments :

On his radio program this morning, Glenn Beck laid out the argument for raising taxes on wealthy people like himself. Of course, he didn’t mean to, but the result is the same.

Beck: My total tax burden I bet is about 60% of what I make. And then somebody else pays zero and that’s fair? And that’s still not our fair share, that’s still not the wealthy fair share.

They would say that people like me don’t need it. Well I employ fifty people. How many people have created this many jobs? Since the recession hit – what did we have, ten? I’ve hired an additional forty people. I could easily hire – we’re planning on hiring another fifty people by the end of the year.

Wow! That’s quite a testimonial. Apparently 60% tax rates have not inhibited Beck’s incentive to create jobs and grow his business. Although through most of this rant that is exactly what he’s complaining about. That is, when he isn’t complaining about poor people paying nothing or government workers being slaves.

Beck: What do you think these federal jobs are all about? These federal jobs are not about helping anything. They are about getting people enslaved to the state.

Exactly! Because slaves, you recall, all had good salaries, comprehensive health care, and generous retirement plans. They had vacation and sick days. They were protected from discrimination and hazardous working conditions. They were given opportunities to advance into management (i.e. master) positions. It was exactly the same as having a federal job.

Just think how much better America would be if we raised everybody’s tax rate to 60% and fired all the federal workers so that they could be enslaved by corporations instead of the government. Thank God we have Beck’s dementia to figure this all out for us.

Bill O’Reilly Already Climbing Glenn Beck’s Crazy Tree

Posted by on April 12, 2011 at 11:59 am. 2 Comments :

Glenn Beck hasn’t even left the building and already Bill O’Reilly is angling to take his place as Senior Scare Monger. In his Talking Points Memo segment last night he advanced the idiotic theory that the left is purposefully trying to destroy America.

O’Reilly: The far left wants the government to control the economy, not private industry. That is what is behind The New York Times, Soros and the other uber-left operations.

Very simply, they want a recast of the American economic system, and the only way that can possibly happen is if the system crashes like it did in 1929. In theory, an economic collapse could allow a new system to rise, a quasi-socialistic system whereby Washington would dole out the jobs and money.

Beck: Find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash landing, because this plane is coming down, because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees.

O’Reilly is appropriating Beck’s favorite fear factors including economic catastrophe, socialism and {gasp} Soros. With Beck being shoved out the door, O’Reilly is pouncing on the “Obama wants America to fail” theme before some poser like Hannity latches onto it.

If recreating 1929 is the only way to invoke a “recast of the American economic system,” then the left is three years too late because George W. Bush already did it in 2008. Where was O’Reilly?

It’s clear that the paranoid dementia and deranged conspiracy theories that formed the basis of Beck’s program will be safely redistributed amongst his successors at Fox. Rest easy Beckoids and FoxPods, the message will endure and nothing will change at your favorite indoctrination station.

[Update:] Beck noticed that O’Reilly has come over to the dark side. On his radio show this morning Beck said…

“For two years I have been talking to Bill O’Reilly and trying to get – I mean how many times have we been on planes with Bill O’Reilly and the whole time ‘Bill, Bill…no, no Bill, you don’t understand. They want to collapse the system. They’re not just misguided.’ And he’s never been down that road. ‘No, no Glenn, they’re just misguided. You’re being too pessimistic.’

“This is a huge, huge turning point for Bill O’Reilly. Huge. And, I think, for the country. Cause now it’s no longer – it’s no longer crazy. Now you’ve got it into the mainstream of Bill O’Reilly. That’s incredible.”

If you think it’s funny that Beck thinks O’Reilly’s concurrence means it’s no longer crazy, you aint heard nothin’ yet. This exchange continued with some banter between Beck and his sidekick Stu wherein Stu admits that Beck has a low standard of proof for his ravings.

Sideshow Stu: [O’Reilly] is not into the whole theorizing thing. He’s not necessarily into trying to call the future, he wants to take a – see the evidence that he sees right now and call it as he sees it. And what this means is that there’s a higher – he has to some degree a higher level of – standard of proof.
Beck: No he doesn’t. No he doesn’t.
Stu: I think he does.
Beck: No he doesn’t!

When your own sidekick argues with you that your standard of proof is weak, or at least weaker than your peers, you may want to reexamine who is the monkey and who is the second banana.

Bill O’Reilly: King Pinhead Reclaims His Crown

Posted by on April 9, 2011 at 12:03 pm. 3 Comments :

Bill O'ReillyBill O’Reilly used his weekly column this week to pump up his departing pal, Glenn Beck. Somehow I don’t think his heart was really in it because his argument was barely coherent. And why not? He does stand to regain his throne as the predominant Fox News bloviator after Beck slithers off.

O’Reilly’s chief defense of Beck is that he is just an average schmo – a harmless gadfly who loves his country. O’Reilly whines that…

The hue and cry about Beck is downright hysterical. Why do they care? Beck isn’t an elected official; he’s not even a journalist. He’s just a guy with an opinion. So what’s the beef?

Exactly! What’s the beef? Beck is just your ordinary street corner herald of Armageddon who sees communists in every Prius, thinks atheist Muslims are taking over America, and calls President Obama a racist who hates white people (I presume including his own mother). However, O’Reilly manages to contradict himself a few sentences later exhorting that we…

“Remember that he’s the guy who exposed President Barack Obama’s “green jobs czar,” Van Jones […and…] also drove a campaign against ACORN. […] Those are big accomplishments, the kinds of things that can get all sorts of powerful people upset”

So which is it? O’Reilly is appalled that anyone would complain about a nobody like Beck, then asserts that Beck has had a huge impact on major issues. O’Reilly attributes the animosity toward Beck as the left’s opposition to free speech. He condemns those who criticize Beck as intolerant ideologues:

“Many hard-core ideologues in both camps simply do not want to hear opinions other than their own. And if someone is successfully bloviating views that differ from their orthodoxy, they go ballistic.”

Exactly! And on this matter O’Reilly knows what he’s talking about because he has his own web site dedicated to going ballistic on media with whom he disagrees. This is the classic conservative complaint that grants freedom of speech to right-wingers but denies it to anyone who wants to talk back.

In the end, this is just O’Reilly’s way of patting Beck on the back as he waltzes him to the exit. And O’Reilly is getting a running start on his return to being the King Pinhead of Fox news.

Handicapping The Race For Glenn Beck’s Successor

Posted by on April 9, 2011 at 12:46 am. 3 Comments :

On April 6th Fox News and Glenn Beck announced that his program would be “transitioning” off the air. Reminds me a little of when Charlie Sheen was transitioned off of Two and a Half Men. And so, as the chalk dust settles, it is time to look ahead.


On April 1st, just a few days prior to this announcement, I rather prophetically “revealed” a list of candidates that Fox News was considering to replace Beck. It included such conservative luminaries as Ann Coulter, Andrew Breitbart, and Ted Nugent. Now I would like to offer my own musings on how Fox could fill their 5:00pm slot.

The Favorite: Judge Andrew Napolitano. He is currently the most frequent fill-in host for Beck and holds almost identical views. If anything, he leans even further off the ledge by openly asserting the 9/11 Truther position that the World Trade Center attack was an inside job.

The Gender Card: Laura Ingraham. She has the reliably wingnut views that are a prerequisite for Fox anchordom. More importantly, she fulfills Fox’s blonde quotient. She’s paid her dues filling in for Bill O’Reilly and would bring a sizable radio audience, just as her predecessor did.

The Young Turk: Eric Bolling. He currently hosts a program on Fox’s floundering business network and may be due for a transfer to the mother ship. He has filled in for Beck and appears as a guest on several Fox shows. But this guy may want it too bad. His delivery is that of someone in a permanent state of shock. On second thought, he may have shot.

The Lone Stranger: Juan Williams. Fox shelled out $2 million for Williams when he was booted out of NPR. By giving him his own show they might be able to justify that ridiculous outlay for an occasional commentator. Plus they would fill a dual demographic hole in their schedule by promoting an African-American liberal. However, that is also two strikes against any Fox News hopeful. Even though Williams is barely a liberal, the fact that he isn’t batshit insane might be enough to disqualify him alone. And since Fox’s audience is more than 98% white, the race card isn’t worth much to them.

The Dark Horse: G. Gordon Liddy. This former Watergate burglar would love to bring his radio shtick to television. He has a loyal following and would be able to retain all of Beck’s survivalist products advertisers. He would provide a consistent transition for the American Patriopaths who revere God, gold, and guns.

Of course, there are plenty of other options for Fox. They could poach Rick Santelli from CNBC. He’s the guy who got the whole Tea Party parade marching. Or they could just stretch Bret Baier’s program for an extra hour. That would be cheap and it would refocus the network on news – something which with they have little experience.

And then there’s my favorite contestant: Victoria Jackson. She has Tea Party cred and is guaranteed to never say anything that would go over the heads of the Fox viewers – or their kids.