All it takes is a fluke victory in Massachusetts for Fox News pundits predict the demise of the Democratic Party. In the days since Scott Brown won the special election for the Senate the conservative press has been unreservedly giddy. They have proclaimed the end of everything from health care to the Obama presidency. The only problem is that nobody told the voters.
A poll from that bastion of socialist twaddle, Fox News, shows that Barack Obama is preferred over every Republican they surveyed against him.
By 47 percent to 35 percent Obama bests former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The president has an even wider edge over former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (55 percent to 31 percent), and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (53 percent to 29 percent).
On top of that, the Tea Bagger phenomenon is turning out to be the biggest bubble since the tulip mania. As I wrote in The Tea Party Delusion, the popularity of the movement is largely a mirage created by the media (i.e. Fox News). Almost half the country doesn’t even know they exist. In this new poll from Fox, they match Obama against a generic candidate from the Tea Party and Obama wins by more than two to one (48% to 23%). Even amongst Republicans a majority (54%) reject the Baggers.
Perhaps the rumors of the President’s demise are highly exaggerated. The significance of these results in a poll from an overtly hostile source cannot be understated. By the same token, the lesson of the Massachusetts race is that overconfidence is a dangerous extravagance.
The 2012 election is still 34 months away and the stable of potential opponents have a not-so-secret weapon: Fox News. Yes, the network that commissioned this poll actually employs four prospective GOP candidates. In addition to the two surveyed here, Palin and Gingrich, they also have Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum on the payroll. It is unprecedented that a so-called news enterprise would actually employ so many electoral adversaries from the same party, or for that matter, any party. You have to wonder if Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Bobby Jindal feel left out.
The association with Fox could prove valuable over the next two and a half years. The Fox Farm Team will have an opportunity to rack up a lot of free practice time on the air. That exposure, along with the rest of Fox’s advocacy for the rightist agenda, is an expensive asset that will only be afforded to members of the team.
And the coaching staff at Fox is already preparing the field. Fox Nation took the occasion of Brown’s victory to promote a video that portrays Democrats as despondent Nazis being berated by their leader, Adolf Hitler.
In the run up to the 2008 election, and in the year that followed, there were many complaints about the right-wing’s hyperbolic attempts to associate the President with Hitler, Stalin, or Marx, and despite the documented evidence of it, Fox always tried to dismiss it as overzealous opponents. But this video is unambiguously making the Nazi correlation and it is prominently featured on the Fox Nation web site. And it’s not the first time:
The campaign for 2012 is clearly in progress and Fox is implementing their most aggressive and dirtiest game plan. But according to their own poll it isn’t yet having much of an effect. The operative word there is “yet.” If there is one thing that Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, et al have in abundance it is patience. This is just the bottom of the second inning and they have plenty of pine tar left to apply extra spin to the ball.
In one of the worst decisions by the United States Supreme Court in decades, they ruled this morning in favor of Citizen’s United, a right-wing group who sought to distribute an anti-Hillary Clinton film during the 2008 election season. But the court’s narrowly decided 5-4 ruling went much farther than the issues raised by this case. In finding for Citizen’s United, they also ruled that corporations should be free from limits on political spending that have been in effect for more than 60 years.
The consequences of this ruling are monstrous, both in terms of its broad sweep and its destructive impact. The multinational mega-corps that already wield so much power over politics via pseudo-independent, AstroTurf offshoots, will now be able to directly finance overtly political endeavors. While they still cannot contribute to a candidates general fund or PAC, they will be able to throw millions at friendly legislators independently to ensure passage of pet projects. They will be able to threaten legislators with massive negative campaigns should they fail to be cooperative. The only limits now are their balance sheets and the sky. And the disparity between what these multi-billion dollar businesses can raise and spend, and what citizens can do in response, is wider than the Grand Canyon.
In short, our representatives will become wholly owned subsidiaries of wealthy business magnates (even more than currently). They will pursue interests that benefit their new masters rather than the public interest. And many of these masters will be foreigners whose parent entities reside in Germany or Dubai or China. Even when the companies are U.S. based they may still have prominent shareholders and members of their boards from offshore. What ever happened to the conservative cries of “Country First” or the value of sovereignty?
This ruling is an assault on democracy. It makes a mockery of free speech as it gives preference to speakers who are rich. And it elevates the role of the media in partisan politics. First of all, media companies will see a huge windfall in revenue from all the new advertising on the part of self-serving corporations. Then, as corporations themselves, they can reinvest that income to buy their own congressmen and senators. This cycle repeats ad infinitum as media dollars fund the passage of laws that produce more media profits to fund more legislation, and on and on. The same principle holds true for any industry that can now buy laws that increase their bottom lines so they can buy more laws that increase their bottom lines.
Imagine now how this will effect Fox News. They have already contributed millions to right-wing politicians and causes via the free air time they have devoted to them. Republicans are able to make fundraising appeals on Fox News whenever they want. Fox even re-branded the Tea Bagger’s events as FNC Tea Parties while promoting them incessantly in the weeks prior. Going forward they will have much greater latitude to support or oppose candidates with financing that goes directly to advertising that they can buy from themselves. In the end, this makes Rupert Murdoch even richer and more capable of influencing American (and world) governments and spreading lies and disinformation to his readers and viewers.
There needs to be a rapid and forceful response to this abhorrent decision. President Obama released a statement saying:
“With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans. This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington–while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates. That’s why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer has promised to hold hearings within a couple of weeks. Sen. Russ Feingold (of McCain/Feingold fame) has expressed his opposition to the ruling. And so has John McCain. So there may be congressional will to remedy this atrocious stance by the five rightist justices who regard corporations as, not just persons, but preferred parties in the eyes of the law. It is imperative that Congress rectify this error, but they must go further to eradicate the perverse legal notion of “corporate personhood.” If that takes a Constitutional amencment then let’s get started. In fact, some folks already have:
In its perpetual promotion of Tea Baggery, Fox News is now peering into a bowl of tea leaves and divining a thoroughly imaginary movement that can only be seen by faithful disciples of Wingnutism.
The article on their web site (and linked from Fox Nation) utterly reeks of parody. I spent twenty minutes looking for the Onion logo, but eventually had to accept the fact that this is for real:
“Though the movement has attracted criticism for its supposed lack of diversity — MSNBC host Chris Matthews recently called the groups “monochromatic” and “all white” — those minority activists who are involved say the movement has little to do with race, and that it is attracting a more diverse crowd every day.”
Honestly? Supposed lack of diversity? Even one of the black “leaders” profiled in the article describes the Tea Parties as “mostly white.” And now, after nearly a year of overtly racist rhetoric and symbolism Fox News is going to portray Tea Baggers as a bastion of tolerance and diversity? The same Tea Baggers who call President Obama a Lyin African; who accuse Obama and Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor of being racists; who carry signs that depict the President as Hitler or a witch doctor? Those Tea Baggers?
The article on the Fox web site actually only identifies three of the black conservatives they allege are leading the Tea Party – a singer, an author, and candidate for a House seat in Maryland. Setting aside the fact that three people hardly constitutes a vibrant caucus, and the fact that none of them actually have any official leadership role in the Tea Party infrastructure, each of them do have personal interests to exploit. But that just affirms their place in the party of greedy, self-serving, leeches.
Without bothering to support their assertions, the article describes the “enthusiastic involvement of black conservatives in the tea party rallies and trips,” That lie is exposed by pretty much any photograph of an actual Bagger event. And when you see the real leaders of the Tea Party nation, it is unmistakable who this movement is really working for. Like Dale Robertson, the head of TeaParty.org, at left.
It is highly unlikely that Fox can peddle this nonsense to anyone beyond their protected sphere of demented influence. But just the fact that they are trying would be laughable, if it weren’t so ugly.
Despite the drooling fanaticism of Tea Baggers and Glenn Beck disciples, America’s best known quitter, Sarah Palin, is not as well loved as she thought she was. A new poll by CBS shows her support as a presidential candidate to be nearly non-existent.
“Specifically, 71 percent say they do not want the former Republican vice presidential nominee to run for president, while 21 percent say they do want her to run.”
That’s an unusually lopsided result. There are very few polls taken in these highly divisive times that produce such unity. The poll internals reveal that it isn’t just Democrats (at 88%) who are cool to Palin. A majority of Republicans (56%) oppose her candidacy. And the same is true for independents (65%). Even conservatives (58%) don’t want Sarah Palin to run for president. What’s worse is that this dismal showing is actually a decline from previous polling, even though she has been an persistent presence in the media since ditching her job in Alaska, embarking on a nationwide book tour, and hooking up with Fox News. Apparently tweets and Facebook postings have not endeared her to the country.
In addition to this bad news for Palin, the Tea Parties took a hit in this poll as well. The poll confirms prior surveys that show how flaccid the so-called movement really is. I called it the Tea Party Delusion, because majorities of respondents have no opinion, or haven’t even heard of the Baggers. This poll has that number at 69%, including 61% of conservatives.
None of this seems to be fazing Palin or those or seek to bask in her black-light glow. She currently has appearances scheduled for Republican gatherings in Eugene, OR and North Little Rock, AR. She will also grace the Daytona 500 in Florida and a wine wholesalers convention in Las Vegas, NV. And of course there is her highly anticipated keynote speech at the first annual(?) Tea Party conference in Nashville, TN. She stands to make several hundred thousand dollars from these gigs. This doesn’t leave much time for her to fulfill her duties for Fox News, but I’m sure they will be accommodating.
The one part of this poll that I take issue with is the number for Democrats who don’t want Palin to run in 2012. Every Democrat I talk to is fervently praying for a Palin candidacy. Personally, I’m pulling for Palin/Steele. I can’t think of anything that would be more fun, except maybe Beck/Joe the Plumber.
It’s official. America’s most ludicrous, harebrained, unbalanced, politically naive collection of cantankerous, hateful, rightist zealots (Tea Baggers), has spawned its own media association to bring to journalism the same type of biased, counter-factual, willfully ignorant, propaganda pioneered by the AstroTurf lobbyists, evangelists, and politicos who brewed up the Tea Parties in the first place.
[inhale…exhale]
The National Tea Party Convention, where it will cost “average” citizen activists $549.00 to attend and to witness yet another vapid lecture by keynote speaker Sarah Palin, has released a list of those who will be issued press credentials to cover the affair. It is an admirably diverse group that spans the political spectrum from ultra-conservatism to uber-cultist, Patriopathic™ dementia:
Fox News
The Wall Street Journal
Breitbart.com
Townhall.com
WorldNetDaily.com
And that’s it. This coalition of partisan blowhards forms the cornerstone of what I will henceforth call the Tea Party Media Association. The founding members include two Rupert Murdoch mouthpieces. Murdoch, of course, also employs Palin, the confab’s star attraction. The other three credentialed news manglers are notorious purveyors of right-wing disinformation. And WND’s boss, Joseph Farah, is also a speaker at the convention.
The event was originally off limits to the media, but with the addition of Palin as the celebrity draw, the conventioneers have reconsidered. It may have something to do with Palin’s insatiable lust for self-promotion. Or perhaps they just need to find ways to recoup the reported $100,000.00 speaking fee Palin gouged from them.
The rise of the Tea Party Media is not entirely unexpected. It isn’t much more than an extension of the Conventional Media. Whenever there is an exploitable incident the press reverts to its native pack mentality and relies on its basest instincts rather than reason, which is more difficult to convey in sound bites. So whether it involves a celebrity death, a high-speed police chase, or a political dust-up, the media will behave with precision predictability and flood the zone with shallow reporting and analysis.
But the Tea Party Media takes this behavior to new extremes. It is a closed loop of directed storytelling wherein the various participants borrow from, and feed to, one another. What shows up as wild speculation on Breitbart.com is regurgitated as an outrage by Glenn Beck. Then the Wall Street Journal reports that “some” in the media are saying it. Thereafter, the rest of the press sources the Wall Street Journal without doing any research of their own. Finally, Breitbart uses the these media references to certify his original fabrication.
In order to sustain this process it is critical to control media access. That is why the Tea Baggers convention is only permitting the most reliably partisan hacks to cover it. They are palpably afraid of honest observers gaining access. The Tea Party movement itself is cracking from within as rival factions battle for control and authenticity. The Tea Party Express hate the Tea Party Patriots who hate the Tea Party Nation. While most of these groups hate the Democrats, some also hate the Republicans, and everybody seems to hate RNC Chair, Michael Steele. Part of the effort to limit press availability is to suppress reporting of these squabbles and present a united front.
Without a doubt, Fox News is the dominant presence in the Tea Party Media. They brazenly promoted the Tax Day Tea Parties and last fall’s 9/12 rally in Washington, DC. They even re-branded them as FNC events. They already had the Tea Bag King (Glenn Back) on the payroll and now they have hired the Queen Tea Bagger as a commentator. Fox will have to compete for Palin’s time as she continues on her book tour and makes room in her schedule for any speaking engagement that will shell out the big bucks.
Amongst Palin’s upcoming engagements is an appearance at the annual meeting of the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association. It apparently didn’t matter whether their keynoter had any knowledge of the beverage industry. It could also make for some confusion as reports are sure surface that Palin is speaking at a “Whine” convention and people will automatically assume it’s the Tea Baggers. Not to worry, though. The Tea Party Media will set everything straight for the audience of delusional malcontents it serves and everyone will arrive safely at their appointed indoctrination destination.
Looking back on 2009 can be a harrowing experience. There has been much that many people would rather not recollect. It was a year that began with dreadful economic suffering. From there it went on to unprecedented political division, animosity, and disappointment from virtually every perspective. And it ended with a reminder of our vulnerability to violent extremists at home and abroad. For that reason, like the mythical Medusa, it may be best not to look back on 2009 directly.
Nevertheless, News Corpse has compiled some moments that, for our own good, ought not to be forgotten.
Media Malfeasance of the Year: SPINCOM. In 2008, David Barstow wrote an article for the New York Times detailing how television news programs were employing Pentagon-trained military analysts to promote the Bush administration’s agenda for an unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq. In 2009, that article won a Pulitzer prize, a Golden Keyboard from the New York Press Association, and an Emmy nomination. Yet the article and its author never once appeared on television to discuss it. Despite Barstow’s many accolades and awards, the story was blackballed by the same TV producers who hired the phony pundits (who were also enriching themselves as consultants for the military contractors who benefited from the war). And by refusing to report on one of the most egregious examples of propaganda ever directed at the American people by their government, they also covered up their own complicity in cheerleading for the war.
2010 Prediction:
Someone famous will die while fleeing from police in a high-speed TV chase after being caught cheating on a spouse for a new reality show.
The Pimp & The Prostitute
What passes for journalism took a huge hit in 2009 when a couple of rightist activists dressed up for a Halloween expose on what they regarded as America’s most feared enemy: community organizers. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles played the roles they were made for, a pimp and a whore, as they visited offices of ACORN. The results were dishonestly edited videos that were played incessantly on Fox News despite having zero news value. The pair never appeared on any other television news network as they were closely guarded by their mentor Andrew Breitbart, and their patrons at Fox. Sadly, the other networks acquiesced by reporting the story despite having no access to the pseudo-news team.
2010 Prediction: Osama Bin Laden will buy Philip Morris, thus taking responsibility for killing 197,000 more Americans EVERY YEAR than he did that one time on 9/11.
Color of Change We Can Believe In:
After Glenn Beck called the President a racist, a previously little-known group embarked on a boycott campaign directed at Beck’s advertisers. By last accounting Color of Change had persuaded over 80 advertisers to pull or withhold their ads from Becks show. What’s more, they compelled a retraction from the DefendGlenn web site (whose proprietor, Gary Kreep, is a story unto himself) that had been falsely disparaging the boycott efforts.
2010 Prediction: Twitter will fold when its enfeebled users decide that 140 characters is too many to comprehend. It will be replaced by Blather, where messages are restricted to 26 characters and you can only use each letter of the alphabet once. The media will herald it as a phenomenon.
The Tea Party Delusion
What can be said about the year’s most overblown non-story: The Tea Party Movement? Never has there been a less significant amalgamation of disruptive whiners that received more attention from a controversy-challenged media. The Tea Baggers were always just a noisy minority who were fully sponsored by right-wing lobbyists and Fox News. But near the end of the year a poll was released that revealed the truth, even though the true part was ignored. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll hit the airwaves proclaiming that Tea Baggers (at 41%) were more popular that Democrats (35%) or Republicans (28%). What they didn’t report, although it was in the same poll, was that 48% of respondents knew very little or nothing at all about the Tea Baggers. When almost half of the country doesn’t know who you are, you are not much of a movement.
2010 Prediction: Fox News will lie. (I know. That one was too easy, but it’s New Year’s Eve and I have a party to go to).
Undisputed Scumbag Pundit Hall of Shame
This award is a tie due to the presence of two so thoroughly deserving Scumbag Pundits. These despicable cretins earned their awards by claiming a couple of the most repulsive utterings ever contemplated in the press:
Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Ralph Peters: “Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”
Former CIA employee Michael Scheuer: “[T]he only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”
And just for fun, I now present the Comedy Colonoscopy Award for 2009. So far as I know, there was only one entry. But it’s a doozy:
Much has been made this past week about a poll (pdf) by NBC and the Wall Street Journal. It seems that virtually every newsroom in America saw fit to report the astonishing results that showed that the Tea Party movement was viewed more favorably than either the Democrats or Republicans. The poll said that the notorious Town Howlers were viewed favorably by 41% of poll respondents, compared to 35% for Democrats and 28% for Republicans.
First of all, it needs to be noted that establishment politicians are currently about as popular as Rush Limbaugh at a nudist colony (I apologize for the mental image that may have generated). I would venture to say that a Swine Flu Party would be better received than today’s Democrats or Republicans. So Tea Baggers haven’t really got much to be proud of in this respect.
What’s more, in case the press hasn’t noticed, there is no such thing as the Tea Party. It has no candidates or policies to compare with any other party. So the pretense of the comparison is dubious at best.
But the biggest cognitive disconnect in this story is that none of the press accounts that I saw bothered to report the results of another question in the same poll:
14a. How much do you know about the Tea Party movement-do you know a great deal about this, a fair amount, just some, very little, or nothing at all?
Know a great deal: 7
Know a fair amount: 22
Know just some: 23
Know very little: 25
Know nothing at all: 23
So 48% of respondents know very little or nothing at all about the Tea Baggers. Boy, they must really be a powerful force in America. I think it’s a lot easier to register positive poll results if half the country hasn’t even heard of you. And this fact was ignored by most of the media as they clamored to position Tea Bagging as a surging movement.
The fact that the Tea Baggers have failed to create a significant presence despite being bankrolled by some of the biggest and wealthiest AstroTurf lobbying organizations in the country (i.e. FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity), and having the promotional backing of Fox News, illustrates just how unappealing most Americans regard that brand of disruptive griping.
This is typical of how the press distorts trends. They make an observation from a narrowly defined (and usually conservative) vantage point and then extrapolate that to the broadest scope of interpretation. For instance, take a look at how Glenn Beck is viewed within the prism of the conventional media. He is profiled in the mainstream press as a phenomenon who has taken the nation by storm. He is said to command an army of followers and an explosively expanding multimedia empire.
But the truth is he has a program on Fox News that is viewed by about three million people. That’s fewer viewers than SpongeBob SquarePants and less than one percent of the population. Fox News itself is a big fish in a small media puddle with an average daily audience of about 1.3 million viewers. And more to the point as regards Beck’s popularity, or lack thereof, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) conducted in September revealed that 42% of respondents didn’t even know who he was.
There may be a level of intensity that is driving interest in the rightist agenda, but it is strictly confined to the squeakiest of wheels. That intensity corresponds to the fervor currently on display in Republican circles that now show a significantly higher intention to participate in the coming elections. While this may be a red flag for democrats, it is also a natural pattern for a party that swept into power in the past couple of years and is now experiencing a season of self-examination. There are bound to be disappointments in the interplay of politics. Still, taking all of the data into account, it is fair to conclude that the characterization of a right-wing ascension is an illusion, or more accurately, a delusion of the media. Reports that Beck or Fox News or the Tea Party are assuming greater sway over the public are not borne out by the facts.
In short, when 40 to 50 percent of the public cannot even recognize you or your movement, you are not much of a player. It would be nice if the media would report that.
This just in: The Tea Party Nation will be holding their first convention in Nashville, TN, this coming February. This AstroTurf gathering of Baggers should prove to be a lively affair with panels on how to disrupt town hall meetings, forums on the similarities between President Obama and Hitler, workshops on promoting fake issues to protest, and media tutorials led by Fox News anchors.
“The convention is aimed at bringing the Tea Party Movement leaders together from around the nation for the purpose of networking and supporting the movements’ multiple organizations principle goals.”
As a special treat, Sarah Palin has just been announced as their keynote speaker. That should bring the Baggers out in force. The Tea Bagging will be televised. The Baggers are indeed revolting (have you ever eaten with one of them?). And what could be more exciting than to spend three days with these folks:
The Tea Bagger contingent will provide plenty of opportunity to learn about the many important issues facing the nation. And who better than these motivated and engaged citizens who represent the best of the right-wing and the Republican Party. This is, after all, the party for which it has just been revealed that a majority don’t believe that President Obama was legitimately elected. A new PPP poll asked the question:
“Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?”
Amongst Republicans only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% – an outright majority – saying that ACORN stole it. That would mean that ACORN would have stuffed about 10 million ballots. But the Tea Party Nationalists have no more problem accepting such nonsense than they do doubts that the President is an American citizen, or that “death panels” exist in the health care bill, or that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or that Marxists are running loose in the halls of the White House.
All of this insures that the first ever conference of Tea Baggers should be a real hoot. Boy, I wish I could be there.
Jon Stewart is on fire. About two weeks ago, Stewart put together one of the best presentations illustrating perfectly why Fox News is NOT news. Just last week Stewart gave us an hysterical portrayal of Glenn Beck’s diseased psyche. And last night Stewart proved, once again, that he is a far better journalist than most of those who actually call themselves journalists.
Why does Sean Hannity even still have a job? Anyone else, on any other network, would be fired for this sort of deliberate fabrication. Apparently on Fox it is acceptable to show video footage from a rally two months ago and pretend it is from a rally a few days ago, in order to falsely inflate the size of the attending crowd.
The propagandists at Fox are well aware that the nation overwhelmingly supports heath care reform, so they resort to dishonesty in pursuit of their unpopular agenda. If they can’t get enough Tea Baggers to show up, Fox will just falsify the video record to make whatever point serves their venal interests. It is the same disrespect for the truth that compels Hannity to assert, without any evidence, that 20,000+ people turned out to the protest, although neutral sources say it was no more than 10,000. Hannity’s guest, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), put the crowd estimate as high as 45,000. She also said that the event was the result of spontaneous word of mouth. What she left out was that Fox News promoted the affair repeatedly and anti-health care lobbyists like Americans for Prosperity funded the organizing efforts, including some forty buses to deliver the AstroTurfers to the Capital.
What’s truly depressing about all of this (besides Hannity keeping his job) is that the rest of the media has failed to report any of it. When Dan Rather aired a true story that was marred by a few poorly vetted documents, it became a media frenzy that eventually cost Rather his job. But when Hannity blatantly manufactures a false story, the media shrugs its shoulders and turns away.
This is why Jon Stewart is such a treasure and a model of journalistic integrity, despite his objections to being cast in that role. We definitely need more like him. It would be great if they were just as funny, but I’d settle for just being responsible reporters.
More to the point, Hannity’s apology doesn’t pass muster. It stretches credulity to assert that he had merely used “some incorrect video” along with some that was correct. The event he was discussing was current news, footage for which would be at hand in the newsroom. In order to buy his excuse you would have to believe that someone accidentally stumbled into the video archives facility, mistakenly retrieved footage from an event that took place two months prior, and unknowingly spliced it onto the correct footage. Then everyone on the staff – editors, directors, producers, and Hannity himself – failed to notice the mishap even after the multiple viewings that these prepackaged segments are subjected to prior to going on the air. Yeah, right.
Glenn Beck looks to the Book of Genesis for inspiration. But it is most decidedly not of the divine variety.
6:5)And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6:6)And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 6:7)And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 6:13)And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 6:17) And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall DIE.
I guess it had to come to this. Glenn Beck had long ago ceased to be a pundit or talk show host. He had evolved into a preacher and a prophet of doom. He had supplanted the old televangelists with his new age sermonizing on socialists, fascists, and other minions of the evil one who had risen to assume power like that of the oak from an ACORN.
The earth had become corrupted by the flesh of men. The nations of the earth were lost. Our own country had been stolen from us and the cries went forth to take it back. But these were dark days, the most dangerous in a score of generations. The hearts of the fathers, the founders, would have grieved that they had made this nation and for what it had become. It was a time for redemption, for revolution.
Beck:
1:1)I want to announce a change, and maybe it’s just a change in me. But a change in me means a change to the program. So I don’t know exactly what it means yet 1:2)I was thinking this weekend that if Noah were here, if he was around today, there would come a point where he would just stop trying to convince people, “Hey guys it’s gonna rain an awful lot.” He’d probably say, “You want to help, fine. You don’t want to help, fine. I’ve got to go and build the Ark” 1:3)The last few weeks I have this feeling – I just know it – you get it. I don’t need to convince you. If you’re here every night I don’t need to convince you that there are people intentionally destroying our country. Both on the right and the left. 1:4)The rain is coming. I think you feel it in your gut. It is time to build an Ark. It is time to prepare yourself for some tough times. 1:5)In the coming months I’m changing. I’m sensing you are too. I think you know it’s time to build an ark, because the rain is COMING.
Beck is a lonely beacon of the abominations approaching. He is boldly forecasting times of trepidation that we might board his sacred vessel, escape God’s wrath, and sail to salvation. Beck’s call to build an Ark has to be regarded with the same sense of urgency that God impressed upon Noah. Beck knows the Bible story of the flood. He knows that it prophesied the end of all life on earth, except for those gathered on God’s vessel. He knows that God’s fury was due to man’s wickedness and that man deserved, therefore, to be destroyed. He knows exactly what he is saying.
Beck too has observed man’s wickedness. He has proclaimed that these are the most dangerous times for the country in his lifetime. He sees conspirators plotting to destroy America in every shadow – from the White House to the National Endowment for the Arts to the Centers for Disease Control. He sees the evil in the Nobel Peace Prize, the Olympics, and the architecture of Manhattan. He sees it in children’s books and videos, and in the children themselves. Glenn Beck sees things you people wouldn’t believe:
“I’m trying to show you the things that seem to be hidden but they’re not. They are out in plain sight. Those with eyes will not see and those with ears will not hear. You’re awake. You need to see the things that are hidden in plain sight.”
Beck is a seer of a catastrophic future. He believes that all must be destroyed in order to save the righteous. He has previously agreed with the notion that America’s only hope is for Osama Bin Laden to blow us up again. Now it is the flood that will wash us clean. He embodies the mentality of an Apocalyptic cultist who is convinced of his infallibility. And like his cultist predecessors (David Koresh, Jim Jones, etc.), he views himself as a target of the evil that surrounds him and us. While he claims to fear for the country, he fears for nothing more than he does his own safety:
“You ever see those movies where they say, ‘I gave a note to my attorney, and if I’m found dead, open the note.’ I kind of feel like you’re my attorney. If I show up, you know, in Thailand, dead from auto-erotic asphyxiation, don’t believe it.”
“I fear that there will come a time when I cannot say things that I am currently saying. I fear that it will come to television and to radio, and I will stop saying these things. Understand me clearly. Hear me now. If I ever stop saying these things, you will know why. Because I will have made a choice that I can only say certain things, and I haven’t lost all of the rights. But know that these things are true. And if you hear me stop saying these things, it’s because I can no longer say them to you. But hear them between the sentences. Hear them, please. I will be screaming them to you.”
The question then arises, who would Beck assemble and permit to board his Ark? Certainly not the blasphemers who voted for Barack Obama. Nor the liberals who he deems betrayers of traditional values. It would, of course, be the Tea Baggers. those he has praised as righteous. The ones he has said should have received the Nobel Peace Prize. These folks:
The Ark would be a haven for 912ers, the group Beck created to restore the national mood that he cherishes from the day following the terrorist attacks of 2001. That seems somewhat disconcerting to me. On that day I was still in shock. I was disgusted and despondent and afraid. I was consumed with remorse for the thousands of innocent victims. And I was grieving for my country that would be forever changed. There is nothing about that day that I would want to recreate. But for Beck and his disciples it is a day of glorious celebration that reflects some perverse sense of fortitude. Never mind that the determination to bring to justice the perpetrators of that historic crime has gone unfulfilled.
Beck’s Ark would be populated by the most demented, intolerant, sanctimonious, hypocritical, ill-informed, pseudo-patriotic, phonies on God’s formerly green, now fatally soggy, earth. They would be a congregation of crackpots united by a common longing for a bloody and cleansing Armageddon. And they could take the buses straight from the Tea Party Express, now in progress, to the Ark’s gangway. The Tea Baggers have dubbed their current expedition “Countdown to Judgment Day.” So the themes are conveniently in sync.
It’s all about the end of days. The BeckPods are stockpiling food, water, and ammunition. They are fortifying their homes and neighborhoods. They are convinced that the end is near. In fact, they pray for it. And now with Beck’s encouragement they pray for God to smite the earth like he did when the wickedness of Noah’s time required 40 days and nights of torrents. But Beck, with his pious omnipotence, knows the final outcome:
“Because of my faith, I know how this story ends. The truth will set you free! America, you prepare to witness mighty and powerful miracles in your lifetime!”
Beck is promising that God will crush the blasphemers. He will impose his holy punishment on those who betray the values and principles of righteousness. And he will rescue the believers and the Fox viewers who come unto him through the miracle of cable. The gruesome irony is that the prayers of Beck and his disciples are for something that is not unlike what Bin Laden did on 9/11, just with a few more planes and a few million more fatalities.
Update: The day following this naval gazing sermon, Beck switched from floods and Arks to crashing planes:
“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. Most likely it will happen sometime after Christmas. You’re going to see this economy come up – we’re already seeing it – and now it’s going to start coming back down again. And when you see the effects of what they’re doing to the economy, remember these words, “We will survive.” No, we will do better than survive, we will thrive. As long as these people are not in control. They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered.
Scary, isn’t it? Beck is now accusing the President of “intentionally” destroying the economy (just as Limbaugh did a couple of days ago). He must think that Obama has abandoned any interest in running for reelection, because that would make a terrible platform. Nevertheless, Beck tries to remain positive by saying that we will thrive – as long as “these people are not in control.” He does not, however, explain how these people will lose control sometime after Christmas. There are no elections scheduled, so he must be plotting a coup. And why wouldn’t he when he believes that Obama is getting ready to slaughter us?
It must be painful to be a voice in Glenn Beck’s head.
And the coaching staff at Fox is already preparing the field. Fox Nation took the occasion of Brown’s victory to promote a video that portrays Democrats as despondent Nazis being berated by their leader, Adolf Hitler.
Honestly? Supposed lack of diversity? Even one of the black “leaders” profiled in the article describes the Tea Parties as “mostly white.” And now, after nearly a year of overtly racist rhetoric and symbolism Fox News is going to portray Tea Baggers as a bastion of tolerance and diversity? The same Tea Baggers who call President Obama a Lyin African; who accuse Obama and Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor of being racists; who carry signs that depict the President as Hitler or a witch doctor? Those Tea Baggers?
Without bothering to support their assertions, the article describes the “enthusiastic involvement of black conservatives in the tea party rallies and trips,” That lie is exposed by pretty much any photograph of an actual Bagger event. And when you see the real leaders of the Tea Party nation, it is unmistakable who this movement is really working for. Like Dale Robertson, the head of TeaParty.org, at left.
Media Malfeasance of the Year:
The Pimp & The Prostitute
Color of Change We Can Believe In:
Update: Hannity has responded to Stewart’s exposé in a typically smug manner, saying that he had “screwed up” but that it was “an inadvertent mistake.” Then he thanked Stewart and his writers for watching. That’s a little like a heroin trafficker thanking a DEA agent for listening in on his phone calls.
