Glenn Beck

Rupert Murdoch: Glenn Beck Is Right. Obama Is A Racist

Posted by on November 9, 2009 at 2:18 pm. 7 Comments :

News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch gave a wide-ranging interview to his own Sky News Australia. He is apparently not in a very good mood.

The interview touched on the so-called “war” between Fox News and the White House. Murdoch was asked a question about assertions that Fox is “an arm of the Republican Party.” Murdoch responded saying, “Everyone knows that’s nonsense” and charging that White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, is “a very young, inexperienced guy.” Of course, it was White House communications director, Anita Dunn, who made the comment, not Gibbs. Murdoch continued his defense of the fairness of Fox by bashing President Obama. When asked how the President was doing, Murdoch glibly replied with one word: “Badly.” He then claimed that only a couple of commentators on the network were presenting opinions. However, we know that isn’t true. Nevertheless, he falsely asserted that…

“We have on Republicans and we have on Democrats and we have them debate. The other networks only have Democrats, or something to the left of them.”

The truth, however, is that Fox does not have now, nor ever has had, a program hosted solely by a Democrat/liberal. CNN has Lou Dobbs, Nancy Grace, and until a few months ago, Glenn Beck. MSNBC currently has a three hour morning show hosted by conservative former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough. They have also employed Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Michael Savage. Despite the evident dishonesty by Murdoch, he still defends his network’s balance. When the interviewer inquired as to characterizations of the President as Stalinist, Murdoch firmly objected saying,

“No no, not Stalin I don’t think. I don’t know who that is. Not one of our people.”

Oh really?

This screenshot is from the Glenn Beck show wherein Beck displayed pictures of Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin, and asked, “Is this where we’re headed?” But perhaps the most shocking moment in the interview was when Murdoch was asked about Beck calling the President a racist. Despite the widespread condemnation of Beck, the loss of eighty advertisers, and even Murdoch’s qualification that the comment may not have been proper, Murdoch openly and unequivocally declared that he agrees with Beck.

“He [Obama] did make a very racist comment about blacks and whites and so on. Which he said in his campaign he would be completely above. And it was something that, perhaps, shouldn’t have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he [Beck] was talking about, he was right.”

So now we have an unadulterated admission from Murdoch that he believes the President is a racist. If there was ever a time to make Murdoch pay for the blatant bias and hostility for which he and his enterprise are responsible, it is now. If Beck can lose eighty advertisers for calling Obama a racist, what penalty should Murdoch pay?

Two organizations have already embarked on protest activities aimed at Fox News. Color of Change is the group that successfully persuaded advertisers to shun Beck. MoveOn has a petition requesting that Democratic representatives avoid fox News. Both of the groups should now escalate the actions to include all Fox programs and all Democratic and progressive politicians, advisors, consultants, etc.

Fox News, and the rest of the Murdoch empire, has absolutely no credibility or integrity. They do not deserve to be regarded as a news enterprise. They have demonstrated their overt prejudice and their intent on being rightist advocates, not journalists. Murdoch says that he wants to be remembered as…

“…someone who has contributed to the world and has tried to make the world more interesting and better. And used the media to good effect.”

Well he certainly has made a contribution. He has contributed Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and more division and hatred than any media organization before him. And he has used the media to good effect. Well…it’s good if you like people shouting down free speech at town hall meetings and carrying posters of the President with Hitler mustaches. So it is our duty to treat them the same way we would treat partisans like the National Review, the Weekly Standard, WorldNetDaily, the Drudge Report, or any other avowed opponent. It is time to make a stand.

Stay the HELL off of Fox News: Starve The Beast!

Update: Media Matters has started an online petition calling on Murdoch to apologize. I don’t think that he will do so, but I do think it helps to send a message to him and the rest of the media that his remarks are objectionable and inappropriate. So go sign the petition.

Update II: Gary Ginsberg, a spokesman for Murdoch told Politico that Murdoch “does not at all, for a minute, think the president is a racist.” Sort of makes you wonder what he meant when he said that Glenn Beck was right when he called Obama a racist. But Ginsberg refused any further comment.

Jon Stewart Channels Glenn Beck – And News Corpse

Posted by on November 6, 2009 at 2:54 pm. 11 Comments :

In another brilliantly conceived and executed parody, the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart has perfectly captured the dementia that is Glenn Beck. The wonder, the shock, the outrage, the tears, the megalomania, the obsession with impending doom. It’s all there in a hilarious send up of Beck’s traitorous appendix.

Everyday it gets harder and harder to satirize Beck. The patented Beck hysteria is so hysterical all on its own, that it takes a real comedy genius to expand on it. Stewart fits the bill. The only thing missing was a phone on his desk so Beck could call him to deny everything.

It was nice to see Stewart get out the blackboard. It makes everything so clear. It would have been nice if he had given me some credit. He must have seen my Glenn Beck Blackboard Challenge:

Glenn Beck Blackboard Challenge

And it was also nice to see him raise the specter of Beck’s favorite political philosopher:

In other news, Beck’s appendix may not be the only thing that is threatening his life. It appears that the nurses attending Beck were probably members of the Service Employees International Union or (cue scary music) SEIU. As Beck watchers know, the SEIU is an organization that Beck regards as thugs and communists bent on destroying American civilization. They are one and the same as ACORN. They are traitors and defilers of virtue. And they are the union that represents the nurses of every major hospital in the vicinity of where Beck was when his appendix declared independence. I’m not sure I would want to be cared for by people whom I had frequently slandered as Mao loving deviants. Luckily for Beck, these nurses are professional and ethical and wouldn’t think of carrying out a vendetta on a patient who hates them.

Glenn Beck’s Appendix Makes A Break For It

Posted by on November 4, 2009 at 9:08 pm. 20 Comments :

This morning, during his radio show, Glenn Beck suffered a mutiny staged by the only internal organ he has that exhibits any signs of intelligence. Beck’s appendix took the opportunity to escape while his brain was preoccupied with manufacturing excuses for why his candidate for Congress in New York’s 23rd District, Doug Hoffman, failed to stop Bill Owens from becoming the first Democrat to win the district in over 100 years. The best efforts of Beck, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin, fell short of persuading voters that an inexperienced, ill-informed, tea bagger, who didn’t even live in the district, ought to be their representative in Washington.

The strain of having to face his impotence was the perfect opening for his appendix to skip town. Beck was consoled by the fact that his wealth provides him with the best health care that money can buy, a benefit that he is fiercely opposed to for his fellow Americans. In a statement released late today, Beck accused his appendix of being a Mao-loving communist.

In other news, Thomas Frank writes in the Wall Street Journal that the red phone Beck keeps on his desk to receive calls from the White House is just another meaningless prop. The people to whom Beck said he had sent the number told Frank that they were never contacted by Beck and do not know the number. Yet on a daily basis Beck repeatedly holds up the phone and wonders aloud why those he has slandered as commies haven’t called him. Of course there was never any expectation that anyone from the White House would patronize Beck’s dementia by calling, but now we know that it was all a charade and (surprise) a lie. For the record, Beck has still not called me to deny that he idolizes Adolf Hitler as he says in this linked video.

Finally, as if further evidence were required, Beck has once again revealed his overt racism in a comment on yesterday’s program. He was teasing a segment scheduled for Friday’s show (which he will not be hosting now because he will still be recovering from surgery), when he visits Harlem with a Fox News pal.

“If you’re Glenn Beck and you’re in Harlem and somebody taps you on the shoulder and says, ‘Mr. Beck, excuse me.’ You tend to maybe think, ‘Uh oh, I might be in trouble here.’“

So Glenn Beck goes to Harlem and someone taps him on the shoulder – not grabs his arm or shoves him against the wall – but merely taps him on the shoulder. Then the stranger respectfully addresses him as “Mr.” and uses his surname – not “hey you” or “yo asshole.” Finally he courteously requests that he be excused for interjecting himself. And after all of that, Beck considers himself to be in danger, solely because he’s north of 110th Street in Manhattan. What sort of person would arrive at that conclusion? A racist, maybe?

No wonder his appendix would risk it all, even being discarded as bio-waste, just to get away from Beck.

Glenn Beck: It Is Time To Build An Ark

Posted by on November 3, 2009 at 11:40 am. 2 Comments :

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:

Tea Baggers

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.

Bill O’Reilly’s Bald-Faced Lies About His Ratings

Posted by on October 27, 2009 at 8:52 am. 15 Comments :

On his program Monday, Bill O’Reilly had another episode of Ratings Derangement Syndrome. I first reported this malady exactly one year ago when O’Reilly became unhinged at what he believed was a conspiracy by Nielsen to destroy him:

“The bottom line on this is there may be some big-time cheating going on in the ratings system, and we hope the Feds will investigate. Any fraud in the television rating system affects all Americans.”

Of course the Feds have no oversight authority to investigate private polling firms. And O’Reilly had no evidence of wrongdoing anyway. It’s also interesting to note that O’Reilly has no problems with Nielsen’s data now that they are reporting a rosier picture of his program’s performance. But he still has his knickers in a twist over any media critic who dares to question his primacy. This most recent outburst began with a declaration dripping in hyperbole and delusions of grandeur.

“Fox News is now the most powerful news organization in the United States of America, and that means in the world.”

It is statements like that that require linguists to create new adjectives, because supercilious, delusional, and narcissistic, simply don’t cut it anymore. O’Reilly still doesn’t get that Fox reaches a mere 1% of the American public. The vast majority of news consumers are opting to watch programs other than his. O’Reilly was responding to criticism from Time Magazine’s Joe Klein, who raised O’Reilly’s ire by saying that, “Fox News peddles a fair amount of hateful crap.” O’Reilly ought to be grateful to Klein for being so gentle. The truth is Fox News peddles a huge amount of hateful crap. But instead, O’Reilly’s misguided indignation led him to spew a batch of unmitigated lies:

“Look what’s happened. Fox News thirteen years on the air, OK?. Wipes out every other cable network, OK?. It’s not even close. Now, we’re approaching, the Factor is approaching Katie Couric numbers. We’re real close to Katie Couric numbers. We beat everybody else. Good Morning America. Nightline. I think the Today show is a little bit ahead of us, but it’s close.

First of all, Fox News does not wipe out every other cable network. They lead only amongst cable “news” networks. TBS, ESPN and USA, routinely beat Fox News (it’s not even close), but O’Reilly failed to make that distinction.

Secondly, O’Reilly’s contention that he is approaching Katie Couric numbers is laughable. Primarily because it wouldn’t be that much of a feat. Couric is the worst performing broadcast news program. But to compound his comedic dishonesty, he doesn’t come close to Courics ratings. Couric’s average of approximately 5.5 million is almost twice O’Reilly’s 3 million viewers. and the top rated NBC News brings in about 8.5 million, nearly triple O’Reilly.

Finally, O’Reilly doesn’t beat Good Morning America. Nightline, or the Today show. Setting aside the fact that these shows don’t even compete with O’Reilly, and their time periods have an entirely different potential audience, he still fails to best them. In fact, the Today Show also nearly doubles O’Reilly’s numbers even though it is on in the early morning hours while O’Reilly is on in primetime.. He could have claimed a victory over CBS’s perennial loser, The Early Show, but for some reason didn’t bother.

In the end, this is just another display of O’Reilly’s dishonesty and arrogance. And despite his objections, and his egotistical fantasies, he is only illustrating why knowledgeable observers do not regard Fox as a news network. It is merely a platform for self-serving propaganda, manic paranoia and partisan disinformation.

Guilt By Association With Fox News

Posted by on October 26, 2009 at 4:57 pm. 6 Comments :

Much has been made the past week of the so-called “war” between the White House and Fox News. Never mind the fact that there is nothing occurring that remotely approaches being characterized as even a metaphorical war. The administration merely expressed an opinion that Fox is more engaged in partisanship than journalism, a view most objective analysts would regard as obvious.

Ironically, it is Fox itself that has been the most vocal about the dispute. They have devoted more airtime to it and have enlisted their corporate cousins at Fox Nation, the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal to pile on. And at the same time that they bemoan their being the target of a presidential smackdown, their own Glenn Beck offers his conspiratorial thesis that it is all an attempt to distract the public from the administration’s attempt to ram what he calls a socialistic, government-run health care bill through Congress. In a double-reverse, pitchback, fakeout, Beck’s accusation that this spat is nothing but a red herring is delivered even as he dedicates the majority of his own program to the fishy story. He is, therefore, a major contributor to the distraction about which he is complaining.

This is the sort of strategic schizophrenia that makes it difficult to even bother trying to engage with Fox. They want people to believe that they are a credible news enterprise, yet they sponsor anti-Obama tea party protests. They want people to believe that they are fair and balanced, but they populate their air with wall-to-wall propaganda and Republican talking points. They want people to discriminate between what they claim is their news and editorial content, but their news is fully contaminated by the right-wing fungi with which their editorial is fatally infected.

It appears that the only way to relate to Fox is to disengage. That is the course that Jane Hall, an associate professor in the School of Communication at American University, and a frequent Fox contributor, has taken. This weekend on CNN’s Reliable Sources she told Howard Kurtz that she has left Fox and gave as part of her reason that…

HALL: I’m also, frankly, uncomfortable with Beck, who I think should be called out as somebody whose language is way over the top. And it’s scary.

KURTZ: Was that a factor in your decision to leave Fox?

HALL: Yes, it was.

I can’t help but wonder why more people haven’t come to the same conclusion. An association with Fox can only bring derision and ill repute to anyone who actually covets a career in journalism. Being yoked to Fox ought to be regarded as scarlet letter that permanently stains any hope of a reputation for ethical reporting.

It is time to start holding people accountable for the choices they make and for the partners with whom they align themselves. If someone elects to be on the same team as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, that relationship cannot be swept under the rug. They must expect to be identified as the professional comrades that they are. Just as Jane Hall ankled Fox due to her objection to being affiliated with Beck, any others who share that objection ought to do the same thing.

This is not a case of an aversion to being affiliated with a deviant associate who broke the law or violated rules of the company or society. Certainly Katie Couric should not be held to blame because another employee of CBS News was caught blackmailing David Letterman. In the case of Fox, the deviants are celebrated and highly promoted by Fox. They are regarded as treasures and they contribute significantly to Fox’s success. They are not black sheep, they are leaders and they are the most visible icons of Fox’s identity.

For this reason people like Chris Wallace should not be able to set aside his relationship to Sean Hannity. In fact, Wallace has said of Hannity that “I generally agree with him.” Major Garrett cannot pretend to be a journalist when he shares airtime with Bill O’Reilly. In fact, Garrett, formerly of the Washington “Moonie” Times, is amongst many Fox presenters who has written books that are as overtly partisan as O’Reilly’s. And all the other wannabe reporters who rub shoulders with the likes of Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Neil Cavuto, etc., should be made to feel the embarrassment they are due.

Most importantly, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch cannot be permitted to wash the slime from his hands. Rupert Murdoch IS Glenn Beck. They are inseparable and indistinguishable. Murdoch likes to present himself as an old school news publisher, but he is actually a tabloid sensationalist who has done more to tarnish the profession of journalism than anyone before him. His purchase of the Wall Street Journal was intended in part to bring him respect and to co-opt the credibility of the iconic financial digest. But instead of the Journal lending its glow to Murdoch, Murdoch has leeched his bile onto the Journal. From now on the Wall Street Journal is the paper of Glenn Beck. His picture should appear in the masthead. In fact, Glenn Beck’s alternately smirking and scowling visage should grace the cover of every News Corp enterprise. It should be sewn onto the lapels of every News Corp reporter. It should edited into every Fox News program and promo.

It is precisely because the editorial content at Fox is indistinguishable from what they call news, that no one in the Murdoch family of companies should be allowed any distance from the insane ravings of Glenn Beck. From now on it is Glenn Beck’s Fox News, Glenn Beck’s Wall Street Journal, Glenn Beck’s Rupert Murdoch. If Murdoch is happy to sponsor Beck’s program, even as advertisers desert it, then let him be melded to it. If he is proud of his racist and incendiary provocateur, then fasten Beck around his neck and let this be the legacy he leaves. If Beck is what he wants, then Beck is what he gets. And Murdoch will forever be remembered, not as a media baron or press magnate, but as a disreputable exploiter of division and hate. His legacy, in the twilight of his career, is inextricably intertwined with the mugging buffoonery of Glenn Beck. And heretofore, no one will be able to conjure up the memory of Murdoch without being drenched in the spittle and dementia of Beck. Congratulations Rupert.

[Update:] Beck has responded to Jane Hall, calling her “that idiot who left Fox:”

BECK: “Well, don’t let the door hit you on the ass when you leave. I’m going to miss you, I am, whatever your name is.”

Here we have Glenn Beck, a drug-addicted, alcoholic dropout, calling Hall, a Phi Beta Kappa with a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, an idiot. And Beck doesn’t even know her name although she’s been a Fox News contributor for eleven years. No wonder she doesn’t want to be associated with that network anymore. Why would anyone want to be?

Obama Bamboozles Beck And Fox News

Posted by on October 22, 2009 at 6:34 pm. 3 Comments :

Yesterday’s edition of Glenn Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue contained a remarkable confession from Beck. He embarked on an elaborate demonstration to illustrate how political operatives in the White House use misdirection to achieve their goals. In order to convey this concept to an audience he apparently believes are rejects from remedial kindergarten, he performs a hackneyed magic trick wherein a coin astonishingly disappears from one hand and then magically appears in the other.

The lesson Beck hopes to impart is that, through the use of distraction, government can enact some nefarious and secret legislation while the people are entranced by an irrelevant shiny object. That’s actually true and it happens with some frequency. And it even appears to be happening to Beck even as he speaks.

“You know what? They believe that if they can get you to watch the coin, if they can get you to have you watch me and Fox, well then they can slip [health care] by and get it passed.”

So the scheme employed by the White House is to get you to watch Glenn Beck. The cads! And Beck appears to be abetting the scheme. How insidious! Beck then goes on to quote from an editorial in the Wall Street Journal:

“The press corps will mostly ignore all of this [health care] because it is complicated and boring policy, as opposed to the epic drama of Anita Dunn vs. Glenn Beck.”

It’s downright Machiavellian. Beck’s contention is that the “war” that has recently erupted between the White House and Fox News is the shiny object. He wonders why the administration would waste its time and energy attacking Fox News. He asserts that it is a deliberate attempt to sway attention from the more serious issue of health care so the administration’s reform bill will sneak past a beguiled public and into law. This plan is only plausible because health care reform is so completely under the radar. No one in the whole country is aware that it is even under consideration. Are they?

Apparently Obama’s plan is working brilliantly. He has manged to get Beck himself to spend hours, virtually every day since the original volleys in this war, consumed by this distraction that he has said is an attack on Fox News and him personally. He has become obsessed with White House communications director Anita Dunn, placing a dedicated phone line on the stage in his studio with a staffer sitting next to it ready to answer should Dunn heed his pleas to call. He is now signing off every program by saying, “Good night Mrs. Dunn, wherever you are.” Obama has masterfully manipulated Beck into waving the shiny object around for almost two weeks now, even though he knows it’s a ploy to shove health care down the throat of America (in which case America would at least be able to see see a good ear, nose and throat specialist).

His daily sermonizing on delusional associations between Dunn and Mao keep getting more complex. And the larger ramifications he proposes with regard to the end of free speech are getting more absurd. He is frothing at the mouth with allegations of Maoists in the government. Yet he still seems to be serenely oblivious to the connections that his employer, Rupert Murdoch, has with Chinese communists, or to his own admission of idolizing Adolf Hitler. [If it’s not true, Glenn, PLEASE call me]

This campaign of misdirection has taken root throughout the Murdoch empire. Fox News airs frequent segments about their squabble with the White House. The Fox Nation website today has nine separate stories on its home page pertaining to the skirmish, some of which also appear on FoxNews.com:

  • President Obama Fueling War With Fox News?
  • Is WH Coordinating With Media Matters & MoveOn to Smear Fox News?
  • FCC-Church Conspiracy To Silent [sic] Talk Radio And Fox?
  • Why the WH bullies Fox
  • Why the WH shouldn’t play chicken with Fox
  • Fox News as White House Bogeyman
  • Obama Responds to Administration’s Attacks on Fox News
  • Fox News On the White House Enemies List
  • WH Cites Opinion Shows as Basis for Fox News Complaints

So if the goal of the White House is to manufacture a controversy between them and Fox News, with the purpose being to shift attention away from other matters, why is Fox News taking the bait? Why is there more coverage of this distraction/war by Fox than by any other news outlet? Why are Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and numerous other Fox presenters and contributors hammering on this every single day?

Don’t they know that it’s a ruse? Glenn Beck knows. He said so. Yet he’s still playing along. He’s still filling his show with almost nothing but the phony war. Is he in on it? Is he brain damaged? (You don’t need to answer that). What’s clear is that he is so thoroughly outmatched by Obama that he is falling for what he believes is a scam, even as he declares that it’s a scam. How demented do you have to be to do that?

Glenn Beck Idolizes Adolf Hitler

Posted by on October 19, 2009 at 2:28 am. 35 Comments :

Tonight, more truth. More truth that I, quite frankly, am shocked by. I’m going to show you a quote here in just a few minutes, something that will melt your brain. If you’re a regular reader of this web site, you are going to say, “You got to be kidding me!”

There is information that you’re just not going to see anyplace else. I have to first give you a little bit of history, because the context is so important. So, if you just bear with me for a few minutes, I have to tell you a story.

I don’t want to believe that these things are true. I would love to be wrong. I love my country. I think you do, too. I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat. It’s not about party. It’s about our country. What I am telling you now is that there are Marxist revolutionaries who have dedicated themselves to principles that will destroy our nation as we know it! Now, that is a heavy charge, granted. That’s why I put the phone there.

That phone is directly to Glenn Beck. He is the one that Rupert Murdoch has put in charge to lead the campaign against Barack Obama and this web site.

Call me, Glenn. Call me! I’m begging you – call me, correct me. Tell me what I post here is not true. It would help me sleep at night. It would.

…..I haven’t received any phone calls…..

There was a controversy because people said, “You’re going to put Adolf Hitler up there?” Yes, Adolf Hitler. That’s a pretty hefty charge that people in America, in our media, listen to Adolf Hitler. Well, this person is in love with Adolf Hitler. These are Glenn Beck’s own words:

“Oh, you know who my favorite political philosopher is? Adolf Hitler.”

This week, I pointed out that Beck was a fan of the socialists and of the Marxists. Ask yourself, America, please ask yourself: If I am wrong, how is it possible he has not called? You’d think being labeled a fan of a guy who killed millions of people would make you pick up the darn phone. Don’t you think?

So, the reason why this phone hasn’t rung all week is because the most important political philosopher, for Beck is Adolf Hitler. The guy responsible for more deaths than almost any other 20th century leader is his favorite philosopher. How can that man be your favorite anything? He killed millions of people! It is insanity! This is his hero’s work! Millions dead. His favorite political philosopher. That was a quote.

America, how many radicals is it going to take? How many radicals surrounding our media will it take before you understand that when Rupert Murdoch says he wants to “shape the agenda” of the news – oh, he wants to shape it, all right.

[Editor: With a very few modifications, the preceding are Glenn Beck’s actual words regarding White House Communications Director Anita Dunn]

If Glenn Beck Had Common Sense

Posted by on October 17, 2009 at 11:50 pm. 15 Comments :

Glenn Beck likes to imagine himself a student of American history. He (mis)appropriates the symbols of our nation’s past to spin morality plays with lessons that he can use to infect his disciples with his mental dystrophy. He speaks a lot about the Constitution, despite his utter lack of comprehension of it. His TV program is on a recruitment drive for “Re-Founders,” presumably a reference to returning our country to a time when wealthy, white, elitists, like himself, were the only ones who could vote, and could also own slaves.

More recently, Beck has adopted the title of one of our most revered political tracts, “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine. That title on a tome with Beck’s name below it was always perversely ironic. But now, ThinkProgress has published a fascinating excerpt from another Paine tract, “Agrarian Justice.” The title alone brings to mind the movements for civil, economic and social justice – all concepts that Beck maligns as Marxism. But the specific citations noted by ThinkProgress further reveal what a fraud Beck is as an historian or a political analyst.

“It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.”

~~~

“[C]reate a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.”

Essentially, Paine is declaring that all people have an inherent right to the land and it’s product and profit. Those who are granted stewardship of it owe compensation to everyone else. In other words, redistribution of wealth. OMG! Beck is glorifying an avowed socialist who wasn’t even a natural born American. Beck is promoting the philosophy of an illegal alien who aspires to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Beck must therefore be complicit with this plot to destroy the country.

If Glenn Beck had Common Sense we wouldn’t have to be Arguing with this idiot.

White House: Fox News Is A Wing Of The Republican Party

Posted by on October 12, 2009 at 5:50 pm. 13 Comments :

Perhaps I should just forward this to the Department of Redundancy Department. White House communications director, Anita Dunn, appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz and made some rather obvious, though too often unsaid, remarks about Fox News’ role as a right-wing megaphone.

It is about time that the administration articulate what anyone paying attention already knows. The highlight of Dunn’s comments is simple and straight forward:

“The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. And it is not ideological… what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party.”

These remarks were in response to an inquiry by Kurtz about previous comments by Dunn that Fox was “masquerading” as news. Kurtz went further to inquire as to whether Obama would appear on Fox again. Unfortunately, she said that he would. That, of course, would be a mistake for all the reasons she just articulated. Fox News is not a news network, and they no more deserve Obama’s presence than does the National Enquirer. Why would they agree to appear on a network that masquerades as news?

In response to Dunn’s comments, Michael Clemente, Senior Vice President of News for FOX News, said:

“An increasing number of viewers are relying on FOX News for both news and opinion. And the average news consumer can certainly distinguish between the A section of the newspaper and the editorial page, which is what our programming represents.”

The problem with that statement is that Fox’s news is as much opinion as their opinion is. Even their top “news” people, like Bill Sammon, Major Garrett, Neil Cavuto, Carl Cameron, etc., are steeped in personal biases to which ethical journalists would never sink. Another problem with Clemente’s statement is that it contradicts Bill Shine, senior VP for programming, who admitted that Fox News is the “voice of opposition.”

Glenn Beck was moved to spend the first 20 minutes of his program on this matter, and another six minutes later in the show. That’s half of his airtime, during which he characterized Dunn’s appraisal as an assault on free speech. Never mind the fact that Obama, and any public figure, has the right to book their own appearances. That does not in any way impose on the free speech rights of Fox News. They can, and do, continue to spew their partisan views. More evidence of this is that Bill O’Reilly also spent about nearly half of his show grumbling about Dunn’s remarks. Beck and O’Reilly are just whining about being left out, the same way Chris Wallace did when he called the Democrats a bunch of “crybabies.”

At one point, Beck makes the ludicrous claim that it is Fox News who is “standing up for the republic and the Constitution.” He later complains that he was corrected by Dunn on a misstatement he made about Major Garret not being called on in news conferences. It was, of course, true that Beck made that statement and that it was false, but he just laughs it off. Then he goes on to make some more mistakes (otherwise known as lies).

Most notable was his mention of Nixon’s enemies list, about which he said, “That whole thing. That was just about who’s not coming to state dinners.” However, Nixon aide John Dean stated the true purpose for the list as “how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” This meant tax audits, grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, and prosecution. For Beck to so cavalierly lie about what was one the most despicable actions by a leader in our nation’s history says so much about Beck. He probably thinks that the Final Solution was a dish washing detergent.

In the end, Fox’s defense is the best evidence that Dunn’s remarks are are all too true.