Glenn Beck

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.

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.

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?

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.

The Problem Is Bigger Than Glenn Beck

Posted by on February 26, 2011 at 11:05 am. NO Comments :

Glenn BeckI have been writing about the cerebral rot virus that is Glenn Beck for quite a while. And in all of that time I have striven to note that, as bad as Beck is, he is but a parasitic wart on the butt of the rightist media. Almost two years ago I wrote an article that showed how “Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party.”

You simply cannot grouse about Beck in a vacuum. He has a media machine that makes his brand of lunatic harangue possible. It starts with Fox News and Premiere Radio Networks and extends to the web of deluded defenders he has attracted – from conservative media moles like Andrew Breitbart to political unreality stars like Sarah Palin.

Lately some on the right have had the cobwebs brushed from their eyes. Reliable conservatives like Bill Kristol have found the courage to step away from Beck and the mental short circuit that defines his world view, but they continue to see him in isolation.

This week in the Washington Post, conservative Jennifer Rubin came a little bit closer to the source of the rhetorical shock doctrine that is electrifying the gray matter of America’s right wingers by saying…

“Conservative groups and candidates should be forewarned: If they host, appear with or defend him they should be prepared to have his extremist views affixed to them.”

That’s true, but what she just barely missed is that it isn’t just conservative groups and candidates who are infected by exposure to Beck. It is also his so-called “news” associates attached to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Roger Ailes and Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Murdoch himself are covered in Beck’s detritus.

Conor Friedersdorf has realized these broader truths and articulated them nicely in his article at the FrumForum observing the necessity to confront…

“…the fact that Fox News under Roger Ailes knowingly broadcasts factually inaccurate and egregiously misleading nonsense every day.”

And…

“It’s going to be very difficult, however, to persuade conservatives to start regularly evaluating Fox News and talk radio on the substance of the rhetoric offered, and policing its absurdities.”

And…

“Those writing as if Beck is an extreme outlier in the conservative world should use their newly opened eyes to survey the rhetorical landscape. Yes, his style is singular, and his conspiracy theories are particularly colorful. But is his brand of conspiratorial nonsense really any more blinkered than some of what’s uttered by other conservatives in good standing?”

Exactly. The diversion from reality is not limited to rodeo clowns like Beck. It has spread throughout the Rightosphere and threatens to make a mockery of everyone it touches. And Fox News in particular must be held to account for the “factually inaccurate and egregiously misleading nonsense” it feeds its gullible audience.

For our part, the left should make a point of connecting the dots between the crazies and the conservative mainstream who think they can profit from the controversy to which they contribute without bearing responsibility for degrading the discourse. And, as Rubin said, everything that the Beckoids say must be affixed to his enablers, particularly Murdoch and Ailes, until they take explicit steps to inoculate themselves.

The Perfect Storm: A Glenn Beck Delusion

Posted by on February 24, 2011 at 10:28 am. 7 Comments :


If the above picture frightens you…good! We are at a crucial time in not only our nation’s history, but also in the history of the entire Western world. There are powerful forces at work that, when looked at individually, are still quite serious but each seems somewhat manageable. However, when we examine these events and the possibility that they could happen collectively, well–then my friend, we’re facing something I like to call The Perfect Storm

[Note: I removed the link to Beck’s “Perfect Storm” site because it was generating a security warning. Visit at your own risk: http://archive.glennbeck.com/perfectstorm/index.shtml]

That is Glenn Beck’s introduction to the web site dedicated to his Apocalyptic prophesy of the End of Days for America and beyond. The page is a collection of unrelated links to news stories of crisis points in the world that add up to some imaginary and coordinated global catastrophe. Are you scared yet? Even though a couple of weeks ago Beck said that “I don’t ever want to frighten you,” he must not have meant it because that’s almost all he ever does. And, as he states above, he thinks it’s a good thing. So don’t get too comfortable when he attempts to pacify your fears, because the worst is still to come.

In recent weeks Beck has proffered his vision of an impending doom. It is, says he, being triggered by a series of foreboding occurrences that he describes alternately as an “Archduke Ferdinand moment” or “The Coming Insurrection” or, of course, The Perfect Storm (…orm…orm…orm…ormmm).

This terrifying event, in its most recent manifestation, consists of a wave of international unrest from Cairo, Egypt to Madison, WI. In Beck’s spaghetti-tangle of a brain, all of these uprisings are a part of the same global conspiracy to impose a worldwide Caliphate ruled by Sharia law under the tyrannical direction of the Puppet Master, George Soros. And if there is one thing of which Beck is certain it’s that The Perfect Storm that he has been warning about is upon us. He made that specific declaration this week:

“It’s called The Perfect Storm. And I can’t honestly believe that we’re finally here.”

Perhaps the reason that Beck is wallowing in some measure of disbelief is that he was equally certain that The Perfect Storm had arrived on a few prior occasions (h/t MMFA):

01/31/11: I’ve been talking about The Perfect Storm [and] an Archduke Ferdinand moment […] I believe that Tunisia or Egypt may be that moment.

11/30/10: The time that I told you would come of The Perfect Storm is here.

11/15/10: This is The Perfect Storm I told you about five years ago.

08/12/10: I told you five years ago, Perfect Storm. It’s here.

05/03/10: It is The Perfect Storm theory that I told you five years ago. I told you a year ago it is coming on shore. Here it is, gang.

03/25/10: I’ve talked about almost — gosh, probably eight years now. A Perfect Storm would come. It’s here.

04/28/09: [T]there is a Perfect Storm that has come onshore. I’ve been talking about it for years, and it just came onshore.

11/24/08: I’ve been talking about The Perfect Storm for five years. It has come to shore and everyone has said to me, “You’re right, it is crazy.”

11/21/08: We are headed for dangerous times and this is The Perfect Storm that I have been warning about.

07/15/08: We’re in The Perfect Storm that I’ve been warning coming, we’re in The Perfect Storm.

06/30/08: I’ve been predicting The Perfect Storm for months. But now with oil prices soaring and stocks plummeting, the storm is finally coming ashore.

So that’s a dozen declarations in two and half years of the advent of the Judgment Day that Beck has been prophesying for five years, or eight years, or a few months, depending on which declaration you choose to believe. It appears that his storm falls somewhere short of perfect. Beck is like the street preacher with the sign insisting that “The end is near,” who has been parading up and down 6th Avenue for thirty years. He’s like the evangelist who says that Jesus will return on Friday, and then spends Saturday scrambling to come up with a new date.

In February of 2009, Beck addressed his fixation in a letter to his congregation:

“The ‘Perfect Storm’ message has been tough for me to bring to you. It takes a toll on me and I know it takes a toll on you. Several of my closest friends and colleagues told me that if I didn’t shut-up with all the ‘gloom and doom’ talk my ratings and advertising would suffer—they were right—but I owed it to you to keep bringing you the message, and I did.”

Indeed, Beck did keep bringing the message…and bringing it, again and again. And his ratings and advertising did suffer. He’s lost about half his audience on Fox News and more than 300 advertisers have refused to permit their ads on his show. But did that stop him? Of course not. He is divinely inspired. He is also supported and protected by Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch who have made him the face of their so-called “news” network. On his Perfect Storm web site Beck promised that he would…

“…do my part by keeping this page updated and making sure you have access to the most current information.”

The page was last updated in May of 2008. I guess managing the fate of mankind has interfered with his promise to do his part.

Pope Glenn BeckYet his disciples continue to have faith in his vacant pronouncements. They follow blindly, convinced of his infallibility. How many times does he have to get it wrong before people will throw up their hands and stumble off to find another Snake Oil peddler? Is their faith in St. Beck so powerful that he could tell them that Obama is the Anti-Christ and they would buy it? To be fair, Beck hasn’t made that allegation yet. He merely hosted the author of “What Obama and the Antichrist have in common” on his program to explain the connection between Egypt and Wisconsin.

As Beck continues to sermonize on the evils of democratic uprisings in the Middle East, and the danger of the Madison Brotherhood and teachers’ unions in Wisconsin, remember that he is only seeking to protect the world from what he says is the single, unified goal of all the enemies of mankind: KAOS! (Where is Maxwell Smart when you need him?)

So beware, America, and stock up on water, guns and gold. Nail shut your bunkers and get down on your knees and repent harder than you’ve ever repented before. Because The Perfect Storm is here and it will wash away all the sinners and non-believers. And then it will brew a lovely pot of tea.

WTF: Glenn Beck Says Reform Jews Are Like Islamic Radicals

Posted by on February 22, 2011 at 2:55 pm. 2 Comments :


In yet another exhibition of clueless hate-spittle, Glenn Beck declared this morning on his radio show that Reform rabbis are just like Islamic radicals (i.e. terrorists):

“When you talk about rabbis, understand that most people who are not Jewish don’t understand that there are the Orthodox rabbis and then there are the Reformed (sic) rabbis. Reformed rabbis are generally political in nature. It’s almost like Islam – radicalized Islam – in a way to where radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics.”

First of all, there is no such thing as “Reformed” rabbis. Perhaps he is confusing them with reformed drug and alcohol abusers like himself. There are Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis, and all of them are practitioners of faith. They are all also permitted to participate in political affairs and there are as many Orthodox rabbis as Reform who do so.

Beck’s ignorance is both offensive and dangerous. He is deliberately misinforming his audience and fomenting hatred. What does he think the result will be when his disturbed congregation “learns” from him that most American Jews (because Reform Jews are a plurality (pdf) in the U.S.) are just like Islamic radicals? Does he think that will endear his followers to their Jewish neighbors?

This sort of anti-Semitic rhetoric is common amongst hate mongers who seek to demonize Jews and divide them from the community. It is how societies throughout history have advanced irrational prejudices and instigated Holocausts. And while many people recoil from Nazi analogies, the comparison here is just too close to ignore. You simply cannot associate a group of people with those who are your mortal enemies and expect to be excused.

Beck has a pattern of disparaging Jews and others he regards as different. He recently made a list of the nine people whom he said most contributed to the 20th century being the Era of the Big Lie. Eight of them were Jewish. His attacks on George Soros as a tyrannical “Puppet Master,” another common derogatory insult aimed at Jews, are infamous. And Beck has even perpetuated the intentionally incendiary allegation that Jews killed Jesus.

How is it that Beck doesn’t understand why people think he’s an anti-Semite? Even more perplexing, how is it that this repulsive, psychotic, purveyor of paranoid conspiracies and undisguised hatred manages to stay on the air despite dwindling ratings and scores of advertisers refusing to permit their ads to be aired during his hour of malevolent madness?

As disgusting as Beck is, we cannot let his protectors off the hook. Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are just as culpable for providing the platform for Beck to disseminate his vile ravings. And so is Steve Lehman and the apologists at Premiere Radio Networks. They know full well what he is doing and have repeatedly expressed their support and agreement. On any other network, someone spewing the lies and hate that Beck does would have been fired long ago. Lucky for him he is employed by people who share his disdain for Jews, African-Americans, Muslims, Latinos, and anyone else they consider to be outside their exclusionary club.

Glenn Beck is a repugnant bigot with a diseased brain who needs to be, not just removed from the airwaves, but ostracized from society along with his Klan. Let him live in a mountainous compound with a militia of morons who believe he’s the Messiah, as he does himself. I am as strong an advocate of free speech as there ever was but, as we know, there are exceptions for incidents that incite imminent harm. Beck has already incited several cases of violence and we should not permit him to use the mass media to recruit more soldiers for his demented cause.

Now Beck has expanded his campaign of hate to tarnish a broad subsection of Judaism as akin to terrorists. A sane and compassionate culture ought not to tolerate this racist, Apocalyptic idiocy.

[Update:] After having his remarks denounced by the Anti-Defamation League as “bigoted ignorance,” and by the Union For Reform Judaism as “profoundly offensive,” Beck has issued an apology in which he concedes his ignorance and blames his repulsive comments on not having “done his homework.”

“To Abe [Foxman of the ADL] and everybody else, if I offended you it was not my intent. I see how I did that and I apologize for the action and the words. Nuff said.”

Nuff Said? Oh OK. Everything’s fine now and all of the other examples of bigotry, and the pattern of hate he has exhibited, is forgiven and forgotten. The attacks on George Soros, Francis Fox Piven, Cass Sunstein, Ezekiel Rahm, and his frequent use of Nazi and Holocaust analogies, none of which he has ever apologized for, are now wiped from the blackboard of accountability. Yeah sure. Beck’s apology wasn’t half bad until he got to the “nuff said” part. But it should be noted that he directed the apology to Abe Foxman and some vague “everybody else” rather than the real victims of his vitriol, Reform Jews. This shows that he is more intimidated by the ADL than he is remorseful toward those he offended.

Why Won’t Glenn Beck Say Lara Logan’s Name?

Posted by on February 17, 2011 at 3:23 pm. 12 Comments :

In the past couple of days, Glenn Beck has latched onto a gruesome story about CBS correspondent Lara Logan. While covering protests in Egypt she was the victim of a brutal sexual assault by an unidentified mob.

The story was widely broadcast by many news outlets on TV, radio, and print. But there was only one place where it received a peculiar treatment that served to dehumanize the victim.

Glenn Beck raised the subject on his television program on Wednesday, not to empathize with Logan’s suffering, but to confirm his belief that the worst isn’t over in Egypt:

“While everyone was saying, ‘Oh listen, this is great,’ in this crowd, we found out today, that an American woman was being sexually assaulted – sexually assaulted – by 200 men in this crowd.”

And later he tried to tie Logan’s ordeal to progressives in the U.S. by insinuating that they were all responsible for the repulsive remarks of an individual in New York:

“I told you about a woman who is being raped in that crowd. On Friday, a woman who has sexual assault, an American. How is that tied to the universities? Well a fellow at NYU has stepped down now, after the sexual assault of the American in Egypt that we mentioned earlier.”

Today Beck again referred to “an American woman” who was sexually assaulted in Egypt. That was at least the fifth time that Beck referred to Lara Logan without ever mentioning her name. He would only refer to her as the American, the woman, or the American woman. He never even noted that she was a reporter working on a story, nor her position as Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for CBS News.

Beck certainly knows who Lara Logan is. He even identified her and her affiliation with CBS News on his radio program. But she was invisible on his TV show. It wasn’t enough for Beck to merely demonstrate overt disrespect for an accomplished professional journalist, he went further to deny her humanity by refusing to acknowledge her identity. This information was not private. CBS had issued a press release outlining the details of the assault. But Beck decided to wrap Logan in a metaphorical burka and ignore her suffering and the risk she took on for her work.

Why would he do this? Why would he repeatedly refer to her cryptically as “the American” when he knew her name and used it on the radio earlier the same day? Was he hesitant to give her publicity because she was on a competing network? I don’t know. I just know that it was curious and jarring to hear him struggle so mightily to hide Logan’s face from his viewers.

The Real Reason Glenn Beck Is Bashing Google

Posted by on February 16, 2011 at 7:40 pm. 5 Comments :

It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with Glenn Beck’s conspiracy delusions. If it isn’t health care reform being a backdoor to reparations for slavery, it’s Cash-for-Clunkers being a plot to let the government take control of your computer. Or food safety regulations being an excuse to raise prices so that people starve. Or that chemical trails from airplanes are actually missiles from a Chinese submarine off the coast of Santa Monica.

Lately Beck has taken to accusing Google of somehow being in cahoots with the federal government to foment unrest around the world or recruit our youth into socialist conclaves or … who knows what. He is certain that whatever it is, it is evil. On Monday’s program Beck gave this ominous warning to his legion of disciples:

“May I recommend, if you’re doing your own homework, don’t do a Google search. Seems to me that Google is pretty deeply in bed with the government. Maybe this is explaining why Google is being kicked out of all the other countries? Are they just a shill now for the United States government?”

Beck continued his assault on Google today, accusing it of being a hard-left enterprise with ties to many of his favorite enemies. These include FreePress.net, the Tides Foundation, MoveOn.org, Van Jones, and (gasp) George Soros.

So what got Beck’s panties in a bunch over Google? Is he really disturbed by its size and lack of respect for privacy? He never really cared that much about those issues if it were Koch Industries or Microsoft. In fact he ordinarily celebrates large, successful, intrusive business like banks or insurance companies as representative of America’s opportunity. Is it his innate distrust of technology and youth culture? He clearly has an animosity toward young people and an affinity for an analog past that favors blackboards over digital displays.

These things may tell a part of the story, but there is something more fundamental that may explain Beck’s Google bashing. His boss, Rupert Murdoch, has had it in for Google for about a year now. He believes that Google is appropriating his content and failing to compensate him for it, and he has taken this battle to extremes asking, “Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?”

Of course, Google is doing no such thing. They are simply aggregating news from many sites across the web. They are providing links to Murdoch’s web sites, and others, that actually increase traffic and revenue. And this is something he could stop easily at any time with one line of code that would block Google from including his sites. What’s more, Murdoch does the very same sort of news aggregation on many of his own sites like Fox Nation. But the issue is that Murdoch wants to force Google to pay him for the extra business they send his way and Google had the audacity to decline.

Another wrinkle involves Murdoch’s brand new iPad-only application, The Daily. Murdoch has high hopes for this fee-based news product. He has said that it is the future of news and that it will be the cornerstone of his news empire going forward. He launched it in conjunction with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who will also share in the earnings. Apple also announced that it is offering a new service that will provide access to other news and magazine publications on a subscription basis. That service will be competing with a similar service recently announced by Google.

Google is also competing with Apple on cell phones and cell phone operating systems, Internet browsers, advertising, and even computer tablets. So Murdoch’s partner and publisher, Apple, will be going up against Google in numerous businesses, including his cherished iPad app, The Daily.

Glenn Beck is a notorious profit whore. He exploits every type of media available. And he sells, not just advertising, but his own endorsement, to gold dealers, survivalist gear, and right-wing lobbyists. Should we be suspicious that Beck is now attacking Google when his employer is in fierce competition with them? Well, only if we are already suspicious of Beck for being otherwise obsessively driven by a profit motive, so you tell me. Do your own homework.

[Update 2/17/11:] Beck is apparently feeling the heat after embarking on a another paranoid journey down a conspiracy riddled path with regard to Google. He must have gotten some complaints because now he is backtracking and attempting to soften his stance. He whined on his radio program this morning that he is being wrongly accused of advocating a boycott of Google.

It is true that he told his TV viewers yesterday that he was against boycotts and wasn’t calling for one. But can you really assert that you are not calling for a boycott after ranting that Google is in bed with an evil government; is aligned with radical leftists; is fomenting violent uprisings; and is engaged in espionage? Then he explicitly told his audience not to use Google, and even posted a video on his web site instructing people on how to find alternatives. But he’s not calling for a boycott? He must have another name for it.

This is similar to how Beck incites violence and then denies that he has done so. He tells viewers that Francis Fox Piven, or George Soros, or whatever enemy he is fixated on that day, that they are evil incarnate; that they are working to destroy America; that they are determined to harm you and your family, and to blaspheme your God. Then, after building a frightening case for imminent danger on your doorstep, he says that he doesn’t believe in violence. Yeah, right. But you should do your own homework. If you believe in violence, well then…..

Flip Flop: Glenn Beck Embraces Community Organizing

Posted by on February 14, 2011 at 4:29 pm. 2 Comments :

Glenn BeckThere are a number of words and phrases that are repeated incessantly by Glenn Beck as he pontificates against the menagerie of menaces that haunt him. He is driven into a near panic by the mention of “social justice” or “transformation.” And because Barack Obama used the word “change” in his presidential campaign, anyone else who ever uses it in any context is immediately pegged as a member of the progressive cabal that seeks to destroy America.

But no other phrase is as foreboding to Beck as “community organizer.” He has spent years demonizing the notion as some sort of secret society mechanism that can only produce harm. He frequently disparages the President as the “Community-Organizer-in-Chief.” On his radio program on July 27, 2009, Beck said that…

“If you want to understand Barrack Obama (sic), you’ve got to think like a community organizer – one that is transforming America into some sort of a thugocracy, and in the process trampling on and erasing our individual rights.”

A few days ago Beck advocated the need to “rebuild our communities, and not through community organizing.” But he has now taken an abrupt turn to the enemy camp. In a shocking fit of betrayal Beck told his listeners that…

“Community organizing is going to change the world. And last week I said to you, before I found out about the Freedom Connector, if you’re not organized you lose. Why did this thing happen in Egypt? Because of organization. It is community organizing on a global scale. […] Community organizing is the answer. They’re doing it and they are way ahead of us. You must, must, must connect.”

So Glenn Beck is now a community organizer. The problem is, he doesn’t really grasp the concept. The “Freedom Connector” he mentioned is a new system he was announcing to help his Tea Party disciples clasp hands and fend off the nasty progressives and radicals that have infiltrated America. He teased his audience last week that he would be introducing this organizing tool that was brought to him by a couple of guys he had met with last year.

Beck never mentioned the names of the “guys” with whom he had met, but we now know who they are. The Freedom Connector turns out to be a project of FreedomWorks, the right-wing lobbying group led by Dick Armey that was instrumental in creating and bankrolling the Tea Party. I don’t think that wealthy lobbyists coordinating AstroTurf offshoots of the Republican Party qualify as community organizers. But that’s Beck’s version of it.

The revolutionary idea behind Freedom Connector is that it enables people to find friends and form groups of like interest. Gee, I wonder why no one ever thought of that before. It’s like a big social network where people can post their personal profiles and….oh, wait a minute. I guess Facebook has too many liberals and foreigners for the Beck/Tea Party crowd.

Technology is not a strong point for conservatives. There are too many young people associated with it and Beck hates those darn kids. On today’s program he actually escalated his assault on a Google employee who had helped to coordinate the protests in Egypt. Beck implied that Google was somehow responsible for this individual’s activities. Therefore, Beck advised his viewers not to use Google when researching his crackpot schemes. (Did Bing’s servers just get a traffic spike?)

I really am beginning to think that Beck may be attempting to preempt Jon Stewart and The Onion by coming up with stuff that is too crazy to satirize.