Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck’s Ratings Sink into Irrelevancy

Posted by on December 2, 2010 at 5:37 pm. 26 Comments :

If there is one thing for which Glenn Beck deserves some measure of credit, it is his ability to promote himself and inflate his influence on the media, and in society, outside of all proportion to reality. The way he is portrayed in the press would give a neutral observer the impression that he is the most beloved public figure in the country with a growing following that dwarfs his contemporaries.

Of course the truth is that Beck is hated as much as he is loved. And in most polls the highest percentage of respondents are those that have no opinion or haven’t even heard of him.

The most recent ratings for his Fox News program bear out these statistics. Even though Beck gets far more attention than his Fox colleagues, his program is not a top performer and it is not growing. In fact, it is the network’s biggest loser.


In the past year Beck has dropped from 2.67 million total viewers to 2.30 million, down 14%. In the key 25-54 year old advertising demographic it’s even worse. He sank from 678,000 to 434,000, a drop of 36%. Keep in mind that the mid-term elections this year ought to have made his program more pertinent and compelling to his audience rather than less, yet he still underperformed last year’s numbers by a huge margin.

Beck’s deteriorating numbers came on the heels of his vaunted “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington, DC. Apparently that did nothing to restore his ranking. And two months later Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert rubbed salt in his wounds by hosting an even bigger rally. It is also notable that in the same time frame both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow improved their ratings.

During the past year Beck trotted out some unusual news that some cynics may regard as attempts to boost viewership. On one program he announced that he might be going blind. A few weeks later he disclosed that he was being treated for some sort of nerve ailment that resulted in a loss of feeling in his hands and feet (the Stigmata?). He has said nothing about these traumatic incidents since.

The scope of Beck’s ratings failure is not trivial. his decline far exceeds those of his Fox comrades. He routinely places fourth in the Fox lineup behind O’Reilly, Baier, and Hannity. That is pretty low for someone who is being hailed as the network’s star attraction. His ratings are a full 40% below Bill O’Reilly, who doesn’t get nearly as much press as Beck, at least since Beck came aboard. That’s gotta buzz Billo’s beak.

Along with Beck’s dismal ratings picture, he is also a money drain on Fox News. Over 140 American advertisers have pulled their ads from Beck’s show. In the UK Beck has been airing for months with no advertising at all.

You have to wonder why Fox News keeps Beck around when he is neither a source of ratings or revenue. And increasingly he is the network’s greatest source of embarrassment. His ravings are becoming ever more distant from reality (see Glenn Beck Unhinged for copious documentation). The range of his dementia begins with the eminently mockable frightfest he hosted surrounding his assertion that the government is plotting to induce mass starvation via the Food Safety Act. But just when he seems like the rodeo clown he calls himself, he veers into the repulsive bigotry and overt anti-Semitism of his disgraceful and lie-riddled series on George Soros. It would be naive to dismiss him as the joke he often appears to be when he is also capable of incendiary hate speech that has already incited real world violence.

There are only two plausible excuses for keeping someone like Beck on the air:

1) Beck represents the views of the people who employ him and their determination to advance those views supersedes their obligation to produce popular or profitable programming. That would fit the profiles of both Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. Ailes is unambiguously partisan and has crammed the Fox lineup with staunch conservative activists in the role of reporters and hosts. At least four potential candidates for the GOP nomination for president are currently on the Fox News payroll. Murdoch has demonstrated his preference for ideology over profit by deficit financing many of his notoriously biased news operations for many years. And the disclosure of his million dollar donations (via News Corp) to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Governor’s Association remove all doubt as to his activist intentions.

2) Beck’s bosses are afraid to terminate him due to the rabid idolatry of his fan base. Even though Beck’s audience is relatively small and shrinking, they are an unstable lot and they would make a fierce roar of anguish were Fox to cut Beck loose. Whether that would manifest violently with threats to the network or its principles is unknown, but not implausible. They would certainly create a media maelstrom. The cultish worship of Beck approaches Messianic proportions. He even speculates on air that he is the target of death threats and that evil, clandestine forces are gathering to silence (crucify?) him. Just imagine how he would spin his cancellation as persecution, and all of his disciples would believe it.

If the suits at Fox News had any integrity they would cancel Beck tomorrow. That’s how television networks work. You bring in either money or viewers or you get the axe. It’s not censorship. It’s called a free market, and I thought right-wingers were supposed to support that. News Corp and Fox executives have a fiduciary duty to shareholders to return profit on their investments, but they are shirking that duty for either ideological of cowardly reasons.

Perhaps it is the shareholders who should revolt and demand that action be taken to restore fiscal responsibility. Either Beck goes or the brass that are too incompetent to do what’s right and necessary do. I’m holding my breath starting . . . . . . . . Now.

UNHINGED: Glenn Beck Thinks Government Wants To Starve You

Posted by on November 30, 2010 at 9:57 am. 7 Comments :

Glenn Beck UnhingedIn a rant that raises Glenn Beck’s delusional factor to unprecedented heights, he is now accusing the United States government of seeking to control the people via food safety programs with an ultimate goal of deliberate starvation. If you think that is hyperbole, here are his exact words: “This is about control and, in the end, starvation.”

This hallucinatory screed was spurred by a Senate bill (S.510) that would give the FDA additional authority to address food safety matters. The bill has received bipartisan support in response to the numerous cases of food recalls the past year (peanut butter, spinach, cookie dough, etc.) due to pathogens like E.coli and salmonella that have sickened thousands of Americans and led to dozens of deaths. Beck shrugs this off by asking “Is there a big problem that I don’t know of?”

No Glenn, there isn’t. You DO know, you’re just lying about it. [FYI (pdf): Each year, about 76 million people contract a food-borne illness in the United States; about 325,000 require hospitalization; and about 5,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] And that’s not all you’re lying about.

Beck: Do you know where the FDA’s Deputy commissioner for foods used to work? Just a wild coincidence. The Monsanto company. And guess who the second largest holder was, you know, last quarter, the shares of the Monsanto corporation…George Soros.

Not true. George Soros is not now, and has never been, the second largest holder of Monsanto stock. He has never even been in the top ten. His fund does own approximately $312 million worth of Monsanto stock, which is less than 7% of the $5 billion fund.

As for the FDA official whom Beck didn’t bother to name, it is Michael Taylor, who did indeed work for Monsanto for three years – ten years ago! For the 35 years before and after that he worked for either the FDA or Department of Agriculture. He was also a professor at George Washington University. It appears he took a short break from government service to cash in as a lobbyist. I won’t defend that but, the bottom line is that, whatever his association with Monsanto, it wasn’t recent enough to reasonably assert that he is still lobbying on their behalf.

On a side note, it’s interesting that Beck should take such an antagonistic tone toward Monsanto when his employer engaged in a notorious and unusual defense of the company a while back. In 1997, a couple of local Fox reporters, Steve Wilson and Jane Akre, produced a story on rBGH, a synthetic growth hormone developed by Monsanto that boosts milk production and is associated with an increased risk of cancer. After a letter writing campaign by Monsanto to Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News, disputing the story and hinting at a lawsuit, the story was shelved and the reporters were fired, despite all the evidence that the story was accurate.

In subsequent litigation Fox argued that under the First Amendment broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox has since taken full advantage of that right by lying and distorting the news every single day. And their lead distorter is, of course, Glenn Beck.

[This Just In:] Despite Beck’s urging that his viewers call Congress and protest, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the Food Safety Act 73-25, including 15 Republican votes. That still means that a majority of the GOP voted against the bill, but it is more bipartisanship than has been seen in the past two years.

Fox Spews: Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly And The Simpsons

Posted by on November 23, 2010 at 4:00 pm. NO Comments :

Fox Spews: An irregular column featuring selected morsels of regurgitated nonsense from everyone’s favorite propaganda pit.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska Ratings Plummet
 

After setting a TLC ratings record last week, Sarah Palin’s reality show plummeted for its second episode.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska fell 40% on Sunday night to 3 million viewers.

Not many were in the key adult demo either. Only 885,000 viewers were ages 18-49, dropping 44% from last week.

In fact, the median age of the show is 57 — that’s 15 years older than TLC’s average.

Gee. Who would have guessed that a program featuring a failed VP candidate and half-term governor, whose public approval is on par with herpes, would have trouble holding a television audience?

Glenn Beck’s Media Conspiracy Unraveled
 

During Glenn Beck’s Week of Soros, Beck advanced his theory that Soros was attempting to take control of the media. He offered as evidence a glimpse of a blackboard that he never showed close enough for the audience to see the elements of Soros’ alleged media empire. Well, I finally tracked down the source for Beck’s allegations. Wouldn’t you know, it was an article on Andrew Breitbart’s notoriously dishonest BigJournalism.

Beck’s Blackboard and BigJournalism’s media map (click images to see full size):

For the record, the Soros empire consists of NPR and a collection of mostly Internet media reform organizations. There is not a single prominent radio station or TV network or newspaper. Some empire. For comparison, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire consists of Fox News, Fox Business, the Fox Entertainment Network, FX, Fox Radio, the Fox TV Station Group, 20th Century Fox Studios, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Harper Collins Publishers, MySpace, Hulu, and much more domestically and internationally. Which one sounds like a mogul trying to take control of the media to you?

Bill O’Reilly Strikes Back At The Simpsons
 

Last night The Simpsons took another swipe at their Godfather Rupert and Fox News. The segment had Murdoch arriving at a meeting of media moguls in a helicopter with the Fox News logo and the motto “Not Racist, But # 1 With Racists.” Not surprisingly, Bill O’Reilly took offense at this saying…

“Continuing to bite the hand that feeds part of it, Fox Broadcasting once again allows its cartoon characters to run wild. Pinheads? I believe so.”

Presumably O’Reilly is disturbed that the folks at one Fox division would disparage another. So his reaction is to do the same thing. How is O’Reilly calling the producers and writers of the Simpsons pinheads any different than what the Simpsons did? Except that the Simpsons were joking and O’Reilly was serious. It seems to me that it is O’Reilly who is “biting the hand that feeds” him. And it’s a much bigger and more profitable hand because the Simpsons routinely get about twice the ratings that O’Reilly does.

Glenn Beck Goes Full Blown Contrailer

Posted by on November 20, 2010 at 2:06 pm. 6 Comments :

These are boom days for conspiracy theories. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one. And who do you think killed the cat? Hmm?

We’ve seen the Birthers who demand to see President Obama’s birth certificate. We’ve seen the Truthers who allege that the U.S. government was in on 9/11. We’ve seen the Tenthers who cite the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution as justification for declaring everything from health care to income taxes as unconstitutional.


Now we have the debut of the Contrailers. Let me have Contrailer Creator Glenn Beck explain it to you:

Did you see the story today about the Chinese missiles and military? How many submarines they’re buying and how many missiles they have? And how they can destroy everything here in America with their missiles?

Do you really believe that that was an airplane contrail off the coast of California? Do you really believe that? Really?

That was a two stage missile. And don’t take that from Glenn Beck. Take that from Glenn Beck who knows an awful lot of people in the military.

Who launched that missile? Do you thinks it’s the military? I told you when that happened I don’t know enough about missiles.

Oh I do now. Oh I do now. And I talked to some military experts who know all about missiles.

What they’re telling you on television is bullcrap.

Really? That’s an airplane. Hmm. That’s an airplane. Shooting right out of the water. That’s an airplane. Why is it that it had the little…It had the little flame at the end?

I mean I lived in Florida. I’ve seen space shuttles launch before.

Come on. Two stage missile. That’s what that was.

Beck goes on to offer his theory for what the mysterious trails were:

China launches a missile to let everyone in the world know, including the United States of America, and especially the president of the United States of America, know how impotent you are.

There you have it. China somehow managed to navigate a submarine into the Los Angeles harbor without anyone catching on. Then they fired off an ICBM into the Pacific. And they took that risk and expense in order to emasculate the President. Makes perfect sense. Except for this.

You do know that insanity runs in his family, don’t you?

Fox News Pimps Megyn Kelly To GQ

Posted by on November 19, 2010 at 6:35 pm. 35 Comments :

Megyn Kelly
Much has been made about the curious “coincidence” that almost every female Fox News anchor is a young, attractive blond. I’m sure there is an innocent explanation for it. But anyone at Fox who complains about them being characterized as eye candy hired to exploit their sexuality had better first take a look at Megyn Kelly’s new spread for GQ Magazine. It’s not exactly a play for journalistic integrity.

Setting aside the cheesecake, Kelly is hardly a journalist. She makes headlines out of trivialities and seeks to sensationalize items that would be cut from the National Enquirer. Her stories about the New Black Panther Party never put into context that they were a tiny band of gadflies that no one took seriously. Her reports on the financing of the non-mosque that was not at ground zero were embarrassingly devoid of any evidence of the allegations she made. If you’re wondering why she hasn’t reported on that lately, it may be because her correspondent for the story, Charles Leaf, is in jail awaiting trial for sexually assaulting a four year old girl.

The feature in GQ includes an interview wherein Kelly reveals how seriously she takes her job as a journalist:

GQ: You sit behind a glass table that shows off your legs.
Kelly: Well, It’s a visual business. People want to see the anchor.

That must be why Bill O’Reilly wears those low-cut blouses. In another example of her commitment to news, she was asked…

GQ: Do you think the act of deciding what to cover and what not to is in itself a political act?
Kelly: It’s not political. Television is a service but it’s also a business. And in choosing what you’re going to put on your program, you have to figure out what’s going to appeal to your audience and what’s going to rate.


That explains the incessant bashing of liberals as well as the glass table. But how pathetic that she anchors a so-called news show and thinks that ratings should be the measure of what constitutes news. She goes on to boast about Fox being the number one cable news channel. But somehow she is not familiar with her colleagues on the network. She asserts that “I really don’t know much about the Glenn Beck empire.” However, she supports his right to free speech. To this GQ asked…

GQ: There’s the First Amendment and then there’s spreading obvious misinformation.
Kelly: That happens at a lot of channels. I think some of those allegations against Beck may have foundation and that some are blown up by detractors.
GQ: Which allegations have foundation?
Kelly: I’m not going to get into specifics.

That’s swell. Kelly just declared that at least some of the allegations about Beck spreading misinformation are true. Let that sink in for a minute. One news network anchor is accusing her colleague of saying things on the air that are obviously false. Can you imagine the uproar if Anderson Cooper were to have said that about Wolf Blitzer? But my guess is that no one will even notice this. After all, everybody expects to be misinformed if they’re watching Fox News. It hardly matters if it’s Beck or Kelly or Hannity or Cavuto or O’Reilly. In fact, Kelly can hardly complain because she is just as guilty as Beck of misinforming her audience.

I suppose that if you believe that misinforming viewers is no big deal, and that ratings should decide news content, and that partisan, sensationalism is a reasonable substitute for honest reporting, then it shouldn’t surprise anyone when you pose for risque centerfolds for men’s magazines. Just please don’t ask to be taken seriously as a journalist.

The Nazi Talk On Fox News Starts At The Top

Posted by on November 18, 2010 at 11:28 am. 13 Comments :

If you have ever wondered where Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity et al, get their propensity for accusing every liberal or Democrat of being a Nazi, the mystery is solved.


Roger Ailes is the chairman and CEO of Fox News. As such he can be considered the role model for his staff and the authority on the network’s journalistic doctrine. In an interview this week with The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz (Part 1, Part 2), Ailes demonstrated precisely the sort of example he hopes to set for his team. In response to a question about Juan Williams’ departure from NPR, Ailes said:

“They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.”

That’s right. The folks at NPR are synonymous with a genocidal regime that murdered millions and sought to create a vast tyrannical empire for a “master race.” I always suspected that Lake Woebegone’s predominately white, Christian residents were secretly fascists.

This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. He said it three times. And if this is what he says in public to a reporter for The Daily Beast and CNN, just imagine what he says privately to direct the activities of his news producers, correspondents, and anchors. And what must Mara Liasson, an NPR correspondent and Fox News contributor, think of Ailes trashing her primary employer this way?

Ailes is guilty of a typical anti-Semitic tactic of trivializing the Holocaust in an attempt to dampen its historical impact and ultimately deny its existence. This is illustrated further when Ailes defended Glenn Beck’s atrocious smear of George Soros as a Nazi collaborator. Ailes dismissed the criticism directed at Beck by disparaging an imagined cabal of…

“…left-wing rabbis who basically don’t think that anybody can ever use word, Holocaust, on the air.”

Of course, there is no support for that statement. The Jewish organizations that condemned Beck’s programs are not averse to using the word, they merely object to it being used to slander actual Holocaust survivors, and to turning it into a colloquial insult. However, Ailes apparently believes the word should be used more frequently, no matter the context, and aimed at any progressive individual or institution that he doesn’t like. And his network is evidence of that belief. (See Lewis Black’s Nazi Tourettes)

The interview revealed several other examples of the inherent bias of a network that calls itself “fair and balanced.” On President Obama, Ailes advanced the notion that he is somehow “foreign” saying that…

“He just has a different belief system than most Americans.”

That must be why most Americans voted for him and still prefer him to every potential Republican opponent. They also prefer him to our previous president, George W. Bush, whom Ailes praised saying…

“This poor guy, sitting down on his ranch clearing brush, gained a lot of respect for keeping his mouth shut.”

I may have to give him that one. Keeping his mouth shut may be the only way Bush could ever gain respect. However, Ailes must not be paying attention because Bush hasn’t set foot in Crawford since he left the White House. His faulty attention span also missed some critical facts regarding Rupert Murdoch’s political contributions:

“Rupert Murdoch’s worked for 60 years. He’s the biggest media mogul in the world. I don’t think anyone can tell him what to do with his money. That’s sort of his right.”

Except that the millions of dollars that Murdoch donated to partisan GOP campaigns didn’t come out of his pocket. It was from News Corp, so it was the shareholders who were paying for his electoral largesse.

Finally, Ailes couldn’t help taking a swipe at a perennial foe whom he apparently thinks is another enemy of America: Jon Stewart.

“He openly admits he’s sort of an atheist and a socialist. […] He hates conservative views. He hates conservative thoughts. He hates conservative verbiage. He hates conservatives. He’s crazy.”

OK, let’s just set aside his hyperbolic derision of Stewart’s faith and patriotism. Ailes casts Stewart as crazy and hateful toward conservatives. But he sure gets along well with Bill O’Reilly, Newt Gingrich and many other conservatives who have been guests on his show. But here’s the fun part:

“If it wasn’t polarized, he couldn’t make a living. He makes a living by attacking conservatives and stirring up a liberal base against it. He loves polarization. He depends on it. If liberals and conservatives are all getting along, how good would that show be? It’d be a bomb.”

Couldn’t you make almost the exact same comment about Fox News? Just switch liberals and conservatives as the objects of attack and you have the Fox business model. And he’s right. Without the constant liberal bashing and polarization Fox would bomb. That’s because they don’t have any actual news to support their network.

Ailes exhibits a stunningly dense appreciation for reality. He is oblivious to what every objective analyst sees with crystal clarity. But the worst part remains his personal affinity for the sort of rhetoric that divides our nation. His embrace of Nazi and socialist slurs is a crucial part of the broadcast philosophy of Fox News, and now no one can wonder who set that repulsive and hostile tone that the rest of the network emulates.

Update: Roger Ailes has issued an apology of sorts. He sent a letter to Abe Foxman of the ADL saying that he regretted his use of the term “Nazi attitudes.” However the rest of the letter was a surreal justification for his language.

First he blamed it on his anger at NPR for having fired Juan Williams. Then he shifted gears and blamed it on a couple of rabbis with whom he had met to discuss Glenn Beck’s frequent comparisons of Nazis to Democrats, progressives and other Beck targets. He also defended Beck’s Smear-laden programs on George Soros by saying that his “Brainroom” had found the programs valid. For an apology he sure had a lot of other people to fault for his wrongdoing.

But the real flaw in the so-called apology is that Ailes sent it to the ADL. But it wasn’t the ADL whom he had called Nazis. It was the folks at NPR. I don’t think you can call it an apology if you don’t address it to the people you actually offended. It was more of a cowardly PR gesture.

ANNOUNCING Glenn Beck Unhinged: The Web Site

Posted by on November 17, 2010 at 10:34 am. 1 Comments :

Today is the official launch of the latest News Corpse production that is predicted to alter the course human civilization:

Glenn Beck Unhinged: A compendium of crazy/hate speech from America’s #1 fear mongering tele-pundit/pastor.


Glenn Beck has proven himself to be a wildly dishonest purveyor of doomsday scenarios and an inspiration to violent nut cases everywhere. His repeated abuses of civility and thinly disguised advocacy of violence would have resulted in his cancellation from any reputable television network. Lucky for him he works at Fox.

Nevertheless, it is important to take action in the face of such irresponsible behavior. At Glenn Beck Unhinged you can peruse the collected discharge of mental decay that gushes from the mind of Beck. It is a one-stop resource for Beck’s demented psychobabble. Plus, you can join the growing chorus of Americans calling for Fox to fire Beck and for advertisers to refuse to sponsor Fox News until he is gone and they repudiate the dangerous and divisive rhetoric he personifies.

While this new web site is presented with a healthy dose of humor, its goal is serious and necessary. Glenn Beck has already been cited as the motivation for several violent incidents, and his language is deliberately provocative and incendiary. No one here is attempting to suppress free speech. Beck is, of course, entitled to be as hostile and racist as he likes. But free speech is for everyone, and reasonable people are also entitled to express their disgust and make their opinions known.

To those who think that lobbying for Beck’s program to be canceled is inherently censorship, you need to learn two things on the subject. First, censorship, as prohibited by the Constitution, refers to the government infringing on speech, not private enterprises. Secondly, the right to free expression is not a right to a television show. If it is, then I want mine to be weeknights at 7:00pm.

We hope this new site will become a valuable resource for people interested in learning more about Beck. And we hope that you will feel free to participate, via the “Submissions” link, with additional occurrences of his vile eruptions, as well as news, entertainment, and action items.

NOTE TO GEORGE SOROS (and everyone else): You can help support Glenn Beck Unhinged by making a donation. Every donor will receive as free gift a set of stickers of the artwork above as appreciation for your generosity and your commitment to sweeping hateful filth off the airwaves.

Uh Oh – Glenn Beck And Sarah Palin Tied To George Soros

Posted by on November 12, 2010 at 3:28 pm. 3 Comments :

No one saw this coming:

Justin Elliott at Salon has uncovered evidence that one of Sarah Palin’s top aides has been on Soros’ payroll for years:

“That would be Republican lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, Palin’s foreign policy adviser and a member of her small inner circle. He runs a Washington, D.C., consulting firm called Orion Strategies. Scheunemann and a partner have since 2003 been paid over $150,000 by one of Soros’ organizations for lobbying work, according to federal disclosure forms reviewed by Salon. The lobbying, which has continued to the present, centers on legislation involving sanctions and democracy promotion in Burma.”


Look for Glenn Beck’s upcoming week-long special exposing himself as the REAL danger to America.

Glenn Beck’s Soros-palooza Day 3: The Reckoning

Posted by on November 12, 2010 at 1:40 am. 3 Comments :

In the concluding episode of Glenn Beck’s hallucinatory documentary on George Soros, Beck apparently had completely run out of fresh smears so he spent most of his time telling his viewers not to listen to him…

“Go and find the truth yourself. Do not take my word for any of it.”

…and not to kill him…

“In the end, you go against that kind of power you will be destroyed. I get it.”

And in an uncharacteristically honest declaration, not to believe him…

“In these last three episodes I’m not making claims, I’m not asking questions, I’m not telling you statements of fact.”

That’s painfully obvious, but it’s still nice of him to admit it. As an example of a statement that doesn’t contain facts, Beck played a video wherein Soros was asked about whether there should be “more foreign influence into the United States.” Beck’s analysis of the answer was that Soros was advocating a vote for foreigners in Congress. Where Beck strayed from the facts was when he played the answer but cut off the video before Soros had finished it. Here is the part of the answer that Beck played:

“I think you put your finger on a very important flaw in the current world order, and that is that only Americans have a vote in Congress. And yet, it is the United States that basically determines policy for the world. That is a flaw in the current setup.”

And here is the part he cut out:

“I don’t think you can correct it by giving the Chinese government a vote in Congress. But it is a flaw, and I think this is where American leadership is needed, to take into account and respect the interests of others as well, in order to retain the dominant position we currently enjoy.”

Notice that the part that was excised actually reveals that Soros was saying precisely the opposite of what Beck insinuated that he was saying. And yet, Beck can still claim that he was just playing back Soros’ own words. Just like I’m only playing back Beck’s own words in this video that shows him declaring his admiration for Hitler:

Beck’s final thoughts contained a lot of frightening advice to prepare for something horrible that’s coming. This, of course, is something he’s been doing for months. He warned that you should have a year’s supply of food stored up. He made a vague but ominous prediction that “next year we’re not gonna just change our self, we’re gonna change the world.” And he topped it all off with another errant slice of honesty:

“More and more propaganda is coming in the days and weeks ahead.”

Thanks for the warning, Glenn. But it’s pretty much what we were expecting from you anyway.

In response to a barrage of criticism from Jewish groups appalled at Beck’s latest excursions into anti-Semitism, Joel Cheatwood, a senior vice president at Fox News, took the time to issue a statement of support for Beck’s hate speech:

“[I]information regarding Mr. Soros’s experiences growing up were taken directly from his writings and from interviews given by him to the media, and no negative opinion was offered as to his actions as a child.”

Indeed, the information was taken from Soros’ own writing in much the same way as demonstrated above – edited, out-of-context, and deliberately misrepresented. And if Cheatwood thinks the opinions offered were not negative, I’d hate to see what he does think is negative. Personally, I would not regard a blatantly false assertion that a 14 year old boy participated in throwing his fellow Jews into gas chambers to be a particularly positive opinion. But that’s just me.

Now, stay tuned for Beck’s next shocking expose. The follow up to “The Puppet Master”, coming soon, will be “The Muppet Pastor.”


It will feature Beck using funny voices he heard on Sesame Street to preach his antediluvian gospel. You’ll delight to watching Beck play with dolls, eat cookies, and draw on chalkboards. All these and more of the classic antics that prove Beck’s contention that he will always treat his viewers like adults.

The ADL Must Revoke Rupert Murdoch’s Award

Posted by on November 11, 2010 at 10:38 am. 5 Comments :

Rupert Murdoch Puppet MasterIn light of the brazen anti-Semitism displayed throughout Glenn Beck’s special programs attacking George Soros this week, the Anti-Defamation League must now answer for their tribute to Beck’s employer, Rupert Murdoch.

Last month the ADL gave Murdoch their International Leadership Award citing “his commitment to promoting respect and speaking out against anti-Semitism.” The press release announcing the award noted the presence of ADL’s National Director Abraham H. Foxman and Fox News President Roger Ailes at the award ceremony. However, it didn’t manage to offer a single example of Murdoch speaking out against anti-Semitism. The only representation of Murdoch’s opinion on the matter that appeared in the press release was this:

“When Americans think of Anti-Semitism, we tend to think of the vulgar caricatures and attacks of the first part of the 20th century,” Mr. Murdoch said. “Now it seems that the most virulent strains come from the left. Often this new anti-Semitism dresses itself up as legitimate disagreement with Israel.”

So the only justification for the tribute to Murdoch cited in the press release is one that attacks liberals who have been the most committed opponents of Anti-Semitism. That’s a pretty thin (and biased) resume for tribute.

The awarding of this honor to Murdoch was suspect from the start as Murdoch’s television and newspaper properties have a long history of conveying overtly negative impressions of Jews and other Semitic peoples. But now that Beck has embarked on his crusade of hate directed at a Jewish philanthropist and a true hero of international tolerance, the ADL has to take a stand.

The ADL cannot dismiss this as the ravings of a TV pundit whose views are distinct from Murdoch. Beck has said on several occasions that he would not be able to make the statements he does if Murdoch disagreed:

Beck: Who owns this network? Rupert Murdoch. Do you know how much money Rupert Murdoch is … you know he’s got all these things going on. Do you think he’s going to let a guy at five o’clock say a bunch of stuff, put this together, it’s completely wrong, and stay on the network? Do you think he became a billionaire because he’s stupid? No, so that’s not it. Because Fox couldn’t allow me to say things that were wrong.

Beck is declaring unambiguously that Murdoch permits his hateful, hostile rhetoric specifically because he agrees with it. And Murdoch has never disassociated himself with Beck’s views or the assertion that Beck’s presence on the network is affirmation of their agreement. Therefore, Murdoch is vouching for Beck and his repugnant commentary.

The question now is whether the ADL still thinks that Murdoch is deserving of the award they presented to him. In an article in The Jewish Week published today, Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors castigated Beck for his “monstrous” allegations. Amongst them was the ADL’s Abe Foxman who said:

“For a political commentator or entertainer to have the audacity to say, there’s a Jewish boy sending Jews to death camps, that’s horrific. It’s totally off limits and over the top.”

Beck’s comments ‘were either out of total ignorance or total insensitivity,’ he said.”

I think it’s fair to say that Beck’s comments encompassed both ignorance and insensitivity. And in Beck’s own words, Murdoch would fire him if he thought Beck had lied or said something wrong. Since Beck still has a job we can conclude that Murdoch is comfortable with Beck’s “over the top” remarks.

So what will Foxman do about it? Will his comment to The Jewish Week be the whole of his protest? Will he hold Beck or Fox News accountable in any way? The one thing that he can do immediately is to announce that he is revoking the award he gave to Murdoch, an award that wasn’t deserved in the first place. By revoking the award Foxman would be making a statement that the sort of hate speech that Beck peddles will not be rewarded or tolerated. It would make a statement that media barons who promote this garbage are equally culpable.

There is simply no reasonable argument that absolves Murdoch from the responsibility he has for his network and its personnel. Foxman must not stand with Murdoch. He must have the courage to do the right thing. He must demonstrate that he is man of integrity and principle. And if he doesn’t he should just drop the “man” from his last name and be properly branded as another flunky for Murdoch and Fox News.

Feel free to let the ADL know how you feel about Murdoch being the recipient of an award for opposing anti-Semitism while his network promotes anti-Semitism.

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