Not that it’s anything new, but Glenn Beck has identified yet another plot by Barack Obama and progressives to bring about the destruction of America.
In this instance of mortification, Beck’s unique insight reveals that our nation’s children are the next targets of progressive evil. He declared with a flourish of panic that “the youth of America are being hijacked.”
It is an interesting observation from someone who is so markedly childish. His evidence for this comes from an appearance on The View by Sen. John McCain’s daughter, Meghan. The deviously young McCain correctly noted that the overt racism expressed by old fogies like Tom Tancredo at the Tea Party convention, would likely repel those of her generation. Beck’s reaction to this is downright psychotic as he damns a whole generation as commie dupes.
Beck: Lenin had a phrase for people like these. They were called “useful idiots.” I think a lot of our twenty-somethings are becoming useful idiots. One of those useful idiots seems to be Meghan McCain. She is John McCain’s like totally awesome like daughter.
Only Beck could find an association to Lenin in McCain’s words. The sentence fragment that Beck extracted to vent his outrage was when McCain said that “revolutions start with young people.” That sent Beck into a frenzy of mockery. He slipped into his “stupid person” voice (which is indistinguishable from his regular voice) and grumbled sarcastically about what idiots old people are. Of course McCain never came even close to implying that. The whole of her commentary had to do with how the lack of young people in a “movement” like the Tea Crusades would doom it to failure.
After relentlessly deriding McCain for several wasted minutes, Beck eventually came up for air and admitted that she was right after all – revolutions do start with young people. But in Beck’s interpretation it was the young who were exploited by elderly radicals. Perhaps Beck, the historian and fan of Founding Fathers, is referring to doddering old revolutionaries like Thomas Jefferson (32 years old in 1775), John Jay (30), James Madison (24), Alexander Hamilton (20), Thomas Paine (38), and that ancient eminence George Washington (43).
The point of Beck’s breakdown seems to have been that Obama and the progressives are trying to turn kids against their parents and undermine the family unit – the foundation of American society. It’s all tied into the battle for the sanctity of marriage and a kind of senior superiority. He belittles the notion that there is anything that adults could learn from their kids. Presumably Crosby, Stills, and Nash were in on this child endangerment plot 40 years ago when they recorded “Teach Your Children” which included a verse aimed at the kids to teach their parents as well.
How sad for Beck and his own kids. I assume they never talk back to him or express (or even form) their own opinions. He appears to advocate a philosophy of parenting that requires children to be obedient and silent. He seems to believe that past generations never had any of the natural tension that accompanies growing up. He regards children as appendages with no inherent value of their own. At one point he reduces the youthful quest for knowledge to nothing more than a lustful obsession and uses himself as an example of how petty and narrow-minded young people are. I’m sure he’s right as regards himself, but he certainly doesn’t have any appreciation for the intellectual curiosity and experiential adventurism that makes youth such a vibrant and fulfilling chapter of life.
Beck played some videos he found on the Organizing for America web site (a DNC project) that showed young folks describing their efforts to get their parents interested in voting. Beck characterized this as an Obama affront to the biblical mandate to honor thy father and thy mother. Those kids should keep their mouths shut and follow their parents’ example. Any exhibition of individuality or free will must be nipped in the bud. And any encouragement of such behavior is, in Beck’s demented eyes, a conspiracy to corrupt the young and produce a generation of socialist drones.
This is yet another Beckian sermon that elevates dogma over free thought. In the name of familial harmony, what Beck is actually promoting is parental tyranny and abuse. This might be a good time to review a bit of Beck’s biographical history. His parents were divorced when he was quite young, thus despoiling the sanctity of his family. He lived with his mother until she committed suicide when he was thirteen. Now, what was that about following your parents example. Glenn?
You really have to wonder how a someone like Andrew Breitbart is held with any sort of respect. Having graduated from the Matt Drudge Institute for Debasing Journalism, Breitbart went on to launch a collection of web sites that he likes to think are “Big.” This week the Daily Beast placed him at #11 on a list of The Right’s Top 25 Journalists. But just to be certain we are seeing the real Breitbart, I went to his Twitter stream so that I could form an opinion of him based on his own words…er…tweets.
What I found has made me question whether Breitbart is suffering from a severe form of Emotional Deprivation Disorder. EDD is a syndrome which results from a lack of authentic affirmation and emotional strengthening in one’s life. A person may have been criticized, ignored, neglected, abused, or emotionally rejected by primary caregivers early in life, resulting in that individual’s stunted emotional growth. Either that, or Breitbart is actually a nine year old miscreant punking the blogosphere. Here a few excerpts from Breitbart’s Twitter stream just in the past 24 hours:
Fuck James Cameron, filth.
Are you a moron?
Who the hell did i compare to hitler, idiot. i compare you to bronson pinchot.
Pol pot is another example of left’s silence on & responsibility for totalitarian tyrants. dunce.
Whata diggety dumbbell.
What a eunuch.
You drive-by loser.
What a dope
Is this the behavior of a mature adult? Is this childish petulance something you would expect from someone who wants to be taken seriously as a journalist? Both his indecency and his obsessive prolificity on Twitter may be explained in part by his Twitter bio:
Bio: If you don’t like the occasional vulgarity, or expletive, my Twitter feed may not be to your standards. I have to cover the sickening freaks at Media Matters.
Oh. It’s Media Matters that impels him to be an obnoxious, foulmouthed, boor. Media Matters should know better than to publish Breitbart’s own words and embarrass him by doing so. Breitbart is completely justified in replacing reasoned arguments with elementary schoolyard taunts because there is clearly no other way to respond to having your public statements documented and exhibited for everyone to see.
The treatment for EDD is to provide the sufferer with a steady stream of affirmation. That’s not something for which I would rush to volunteer. One thing that is abundantly clear is that Breitbart has a screw loose. And now that I have documented his infantile rants I should probably be prepared for some blowback. So in a preemptive move to counter whatever Breitbart might spew my way, I would just like to say…
Posted by Mark NC on February 11, 2010 at 4:43 pm.
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Tunku Varadarajan, national affairs correspondent for The Daily Beast, has compiled a list of what he and 50 academics, politicians, and journalists, consider to be the top 25 right-wing journalists in America. The most enlightening thing we learn from this list has nothing to do with the ranking of wingnuts in the media. What is truly fascinating is how it reveals their definition of a journalist. Here are the top 10:
Paul Gigot, Editorial Page Editor, The Wall Street Journal
Glenn Beck, Fox News
Rush Limbaugh, Radio Talk Show Host
Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal
Bill O’Reilly, Fox News
Michelle Malkin, Fox News/Blogger
David Brooks, The New York Times
Sean Hannity, Fox News
James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal
Matt Drudge, The Drudge Report
To be fair, placing Paul Gigot at the top of the list recognizes a veteran newsman who spent decades with ink-stained fingers pursuing his vocation as a reporter and editor. While devotedly right-wing in his current role as an editorialist and commentator, he also has the resume of a bona fide journalist. And that makes him the ONLY journalist on the list.
It is nearly hysterical that the 50 unnamed participants in this project elevated Glenn Beck to second place; and Rush Limbaugh to third; and Bill O’Reilly to fifth; and … well you get the idea. What’s more, Varadarajan obviously has a soft spot in his heart for his former employer, Rupert Murdoch. Seven of the top 10 are also Murdoch minions employed by either Fox News or the Wall Street Journal. I wonder if some of the few real journalists at those shops are upset that they were ignored in favor of Sean Hannity and Peggy Noonan?
It is rather telling that an assembly of conservative academics, politicians, and journalists, couldn’t actually come up with names of other conservatives who are actually journalists. One of their selections, Limbaugh, has already responded to the list by declaring that he shouldn’t be on it. At least he is honest enough in this circumstance to admit that what he does is not journalism.
Some of the notable non-journalists on the remainder of the list include raging propagandist Andrew Breitbart (11), serial interrupter Neil Cavuto (14), Coulter clone Laura Ingraham (21), and Marc Morano, a virulent Climate Crisis denier and science skeptic.
Overall, judging from this coterie of cranks, I’m surprised that James O’Keefe and Jeff Gannon weren’t given honorable mentions. Perhaps the panel should be consulted again and made aware of some of these glaring omissions. Remember, Joe the Plumber served as a war correspondent for Pajamas Media. How dare they insult these fine conservatives by failing to honor their contributions to the rightist media.
In an epic battle of good vs. evil, the archetypal superhero, Captain America, has come out four square against hysterical protest movements that embrace racism and disseminate disinformation in pursuit of a greedy, intolerant agenda: i.e. Tea Crusaders (It aint no party).
Actually, Captain America attempted to express his revulsion of the Tea Crusaders, but agents working for the rightist cabal succeeded in getting his publisher, Marvel Comics, to apologize and remove the offending comments from future printings.
The controversy involved a short segment of the comic wherein Captain America’s alter-ego, Steve Rogers, was observing a protest march by a group of right-wing, anti-tax, activists. The marchers, in an accurate portrayal of reality, were an all-white mob of angry tea-volutionaries carrying signs that recall the Tea Party actions last year. The part that got the Crusaders all worked up contained this image with a sign saying “Tea Bag the Libs Before They Tea Bag You.”
I’m not sure I understand what the Crusaders are grumbling about. The sign being carried by the comic protester is one that has made repeated appearances at Tea Party events. David Weigel of the Washington Independent captured it on film. It is a sentiment that they readily accept and promote. Now, all of a sudden, they are outraged by their own slogans.
As a result of their bellyaching, Marvel Comics, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, took the exceedingly cautious (i.e. cowardly) move of apologizing. And since there was nothing about the comic that was false or defamatory, the only reason for the reversal must be to mollify prospective comic book readers who may also be Tea Baggers.
The moral of the story is that, while Captain America may be able to defeat the most vile and villainous enemies ever dreamed up in the imaginary world of comics, he was vanquished by a very real enemy, an international corporate media conglomerate. I’d say we need to call the X-Men, but they are already in the employ of super-villain Rupert Murdoch.
It is beginning to set in amongst some members of the press that the Tea Party “movement” is a mirage that attracts far more attention than its paltry numbers deserve. I wrote about this a couple of months ago in The Tea Party Delusion. It is more true now than ever, and it would serve the media well to acknowledge it and report accurately.
Polls show that Americans are divided on their opinions about Tea Baggers. But the more interesting statistic is that more Americans have either no opinion or have never heard of them at all. This finding is consistent across most major surveys on the subject (all pdf files): NBC/Wall Street Journal: 48%; CNN/Opinion Research: 40%; CBS News: 69%; Washington Post/ABC: 64%; even Fox News/Opinion Dynamics: 44%.
Nevertheless, the media treats this ephemeral blur as if it were a political tsunami. They apparently aren’t reading their own polls. The Tea Baggers Ball last weekend brought about 600 registered attendees to the Opryland Hotel. The National Wild Turkey Conference next week is expecting 40,000 at the same venue. Yet there are no news networks camping outside the hotel salivating at the prospect of interviewing turkey aficionados in Revolutionary War garb.
The good news is that some in the media are starting to emerge from their comas. And it isn’t just a few predictable liberals at the Village Voice. Entrenched establishment pundits like Joe Klein and Mark Halperin have begun to recognize that the reality of the Tea Crusade doesn’t remotely resemble the mythology that has been dominating recent coverage. In a comparison of Sarah Palin to the Tea Partiers, Halperin notes that…
“Both have far less support in the country at large than a gullible Old Media seems to understand or suggest. […] Both are the subject of endless fascination by cable TV. […] Both benefit from the extraordinary promotional machine that is the Fox News Channel.”
That last point is particularly salient as Fox News plays a unique role in promoting Tea Baggers and Republicans like Palin. The strategy is to keep their base star-struck, ill-informed, and distracted by tangential, but emotional matters. That’s what makes Palin an important figure in the Tea Crusades. She has the celebrity, the ignorance, and that ability to inspire panic from trifles and lies. Joe Klein observed that what she offered in her convention speech was “drivel” and went on to castigate those who have fallen for her shtick:
“Those who celebrate Sarah Palin’s lack of knowledge as a form of ‘authenticity’ superior to Barack Obama’s gloriously American mongrel ethnicity and self-made intellectuality are representatives of a long-standing American theme–the celebration of sameness, and mediocrity”
This is something I called Elitistism: the practice of discriminating against those who are perceived to be elite. The goal of Elitistism is to drive from public life anyone who diverges from the sacred visage of American Averagism. Because everyone knows that the guy you’d rather have a beer with is the best qualified to be president. Although the cold brew may have been replaced by the tea bag, and the barfly by the Tea Hag™ (i.e. Sarah Palin). And whatever you do, don’t exhibit any qualities of excellence or intelligence. As I previously wrote, in today’s politics those are flaws that separate you from the masses:
“Education is a key component in this new paradigm. It is absolutely critical that you not have too much of it. And never, ever use the word paradigm. Once the American people get the impression that you know more than they do about issues like economics or foreign policy, you’re disqualified from service. Achievement and expertise only spotlight how different you are from ordinary Americans.”
Hopefully more of the media will soon catch on and realize that the Tea Crusades are a fabrication of lazy and/or biased reporting, and dishonest politicos seeking to exploit a disgruntled demographic. As it stands now they are mostly embarrassing themselves by fawning over fake people and phony populists. They spent tens of thousands of dollars on those polls, they ought to use them. It is time they try reporting on reality for a change.
The National Tea Party Convention is over, but the battle for the soul of the so-called “movement” continues. Sarah Palin set the tone at her keynote speech to close the affair:
“The Republican Party would be really smart to start trying to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible because this is the future of our country. The Tea Party movement is the future of politics.”
The “future of politics” is typical Palin hyperbole. Clearly she doesn’t understand what she’s saying. This is a woman who just got through mocking President Obama for using a TelePrompter, while she has crib notes written on her hand for a Q and A to follow her speech; A woman who told her adoring audience not to be afraid of being God-fearing; A woman who told Chris Wallace that Obama could ace his reelection if he were to “play the war card” by attacking Iran. This is the same woman who thinks it would be smart for the GOP to absorb the Tea Baggers.
On that measure she is not alone. Despite protestations from ostensibly neutral players, leading figures in both the Tea Party and the Republican Party believe that they are made for each other. This contradicts those who say that Tea Baggers are non-partisan and are angry with both parties equally. The truth is that the Baggers were always more closely aligned with Republicans and the evidence is their own words:
John Boehner, House Minority Leader: There really is no difference between what Republicans believe in and what the tea party activists believe in.
Michael Steele, Republican Party Chairman: It’s important for our party to appreciate and understand that so we can move toward it, and embrace it.
Mark Skoda, Tea Party Leader: This movement is beginning to mature … not as a third party but a force to be reckoned with in the traditional party structure.
Carl Cameron, Fox News: They plan to establish separate spin off political action committees to fund raise for candidates who back Tea Party goals and the official Republican National Committee platform.
Newt Gingrich, Former GOP House Speaker: If the Republican Party offers a positive alternative in a way that Tea Party activists and independents join them, the tide could turn.
At this point it is inescapable that the Tea Party is a functional subsidiary of the GOP. Much of it’s original organizing muscle was provided by establishment Republican operatives like Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks and GOP PR firm Russo Marsh & Rogers. And now heavy-hitter Republicans like Palin are gripping the Baggers in a polar bear hug. All of this needs to be remembered when lazy or dishonest members of the press try to pretend that partisanship isn’t playing a part in this phony movement.
Icantstandit-Icantstandit-Icantstandit. Sarah’s almost here. OMG!
Tonight’s the night that the Queen Tea Bagger, Sarah Palin, addresses the hive. News reports have indicated a high level of anticipation with some Baggers saying that they only came to see Palin and didn’t care about Tea. I’m a little skeptical because the convention’s web site still says there are tickets available. Maybe they just don’t know how to update their site.
Perhaps the anticipation is really for the potential Queen fight. The Queen of the Birthers, Orly Taitz, showed up in Nashville today and word has it that the media fled in mortal fear of being smothered by her. Those brave enough to stick around are hoping to get a front row seat as the rival Queens battle for camera angles.
This morning featured a stem-winding oratory by Drudge-spawn, Andrew Breitbart. His rabid rant, complete with frothing and spittle, was a non-stop harangue directed at the press – who were dutifully covering the whole thing from the back of the room. Breitbart delivered one contrived applause line after another, and the audience did their part like the good Pavlovians they are.
Outside the convention hall there were demonstrators who alleged that the convention organizers had hijacked the Tea Party movement for their own greedy purposes. It’s not likely they will be well received by the “establishment” Baggers. Especially after saying this:
“We don’t need Sarah Palin to be the face of our movement.”
Uh oh. Sacrilege never goes down easy. Even conservative icon David Frum is less than enamored with the Baggers. he penned a column today titled “Tea Party’s Fifteen Minutes Are Up, based on his visit to the ball.
Andrew Breitbart is introducing Palin. So far he has lauded her for being the first to talk about “death panels” and for referring to community organizers as thugs. Really? This is what she should be hailed for? Lies and insults?
Sarah opened with the courageous twofer that she is “proud to be an American” and a birthday wish for Ronald Reagan. Then she segued to a joke about Obama’s TelePrompter [insert rimshot here] that she read from her notecards.
Don’t wear yourselves out people. Chris Wallace has Sarah for the full hour tomorrow on Fox News Sunday.
This week Fox News discovered a videotape that they have been giving quite a bit of airtime. It features Yasir Qadhi, an American born Islamic scholar who once gave religious instruction to the accused underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab. The video shows Qadhi expressing consternation that under democracy the law of man supersedes the law of God.
Qadhi: Can you believe it, a group of people coming together and voting and the majority vote will then be the law of the land? What gives you the right to prohibit something or allow something? Who gave you this right? Are you creators? Are you all-knowledgeable?
That, of course, is an untenable position that is contrary to the most cherished principles of our nation. It is also precisely the position held by the Christian extremists in this country. It is the philosophy of the American Taliban that is so perfectly articulated by Glenn Beck.
Beck: Endowed by their creator. Not endowed by their senator or their regulatory czar or their president. God is the grantor of rights. No one else. […] If God is somehow or other cut out of the rights process, you get all of your rights from government. That is in essence what our founders fought against. Government bestowing rights.
Beck has the same animus for democracy as Qadhi. They both discount the role of citizens to direct their society in favor of a social order mandated by religious doctrine. Contrary to Beck’s assertion, that is what our founders fought against. But as Fox News flaunts this video of a negligible Muslim teacher, it’s too bad they won’t provide the context for their audience to see that our country has people who hold similarly repugnant views; that dwelling on fringe characters like Qadhi is insulting to most Muslims; and that American theocrats with television shows are far more dangerous.
The assembly of Tea Baggers kicked off with a surprising omission in their Patriopathic™ zeal to commence the festivities. They neglected to praise the Lord with an opening prayer. They also decided to forego the Pledge of Allegiance. In one fell swoop they dissed both God and country. And that’s not all. There were no American flags flying in the convention hall. The organizers blamed the hotel staff for the absence of flags. I wonder if the hotel staff also kept the prayer and the pledge from taking place. Those Opryland hospitality associates are well known socialist sympathizers.
And speaking of socialists, the convention’s opening keynote was delivered by former congressman Tom Tancredo who declared that…
President Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.” [And] “People who could not spell the word vote or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House — name is Barack Hussein Obama”
The Bagger community regards itself as a movement of “regular” folks. Yet they received Tancredo enthusiastically despite his pronouncement that voters are stupid and shouldn’t be permitted to participate in the electoral process without passing an exam (that most Baggers would fail). And they may have missed a history lesson or two if they think it’s a good idea to advocate a return to Jim Crow-era policies.
Voter registration is a big issue with the Baggers. A recent poll showed that 52% of GOP voters think that ACORN stole the election in 2008. So the Baggers are preparing a counterattack. Bridget Geegan Blanton of Smart Girl Politics led a convention seminar on how to avoid registering Democrats. She said in her state of California, she’s required by law to give a voter registration form to anyone who asks, even a Democrat. But she added that she’s not obligated to mail it in for them. In her remarks she was careful to say that she would give the form back to the voter who could then mail it in on his own. But I wonder how many people in her audience left with the impression that Democratic registration forms collected during Tea Party voter drives need not be submitted?
David Weigel, of the Washington Independent reports that there are more than 150 credentialed reporters at the convention. Since there are about 600 registered attendees, that’s one reporter for every four Baggers. But the the most bizarre news about the news media is that Joseph Basel is one of the credentialed reporters. Basel, you may recall, is one of James O’Keefe’s accomplices arrested in the notorious Landrieu Sting fiasco. So Basel impersonated a telephone repairman in New Orleans, and is now impersonating a journalist in Nashville.
For those wondering, the convention web site says there are still tickets available for Sarah Palin’s speech tomorrow night. The Queen Tea Bagger was not able to sell out the hall. If anyone thinks that 600 Baggers is an impressive showing, please note that two weeks from now the National Wild Turkey Federation is gathering at the same venue. They are expecting 40,000 attendees. And this isn’t a blowout of bourbon drinkers (Aside: Did I note that the Tea Bagger affair is “dry”?). It’s a national organization representing wild turkey conservationists and hunters. Do you wonder why Palin is so badly underperforming the turkey enthusiasts? Maybe it has something to do with this:
Or maybe they just think there are already enough turkeys in politics. The Tea Baggers are currently enjoying a significant over-representation in the public discussion. I wrote about Tea Party Delusion last December. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed that almost half (48%) of the country either never heard of the Baggers or had no opinion. A new CNN poll confirms those results, as does this one from CBS (pdf), and even this one from Fox (pdf).
Rest up Tea Baggers. Tomorrow is another busy day.
[Update] Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily closed the day with his patented obsession over Obama’s birth certificate:
“The media, the politicians – all say, no, it’s all been settled. I say, if it’s been settled show us the birth certificate. Simple.”
Followed by a declaration of WAR!
“…take over not only the political institutions, but the cultural institutions, like the press, the entertainment industry, the universities, and yes the churches.”
“Are you ready to engage in a cultural war after we take back Congress?”
Posted by Mark NC on February 4, 2010 at 10:09 am.
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Here’s more proof that Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News empire are anxiously awaiting a terrorist attack that they can celebrate. It has already been established that they are aiding and abetting terrorism by helping to spread the fear that terrorists rely on. Fox wants us to be just as afraid as Al Qaeda does. And in pursuit of that goal they publish lies like this one:
The article linked to by the Fox Nationalists appears in the Washington “Moonie” Times. And both so-called “news” enterprises falsely report the congressional testimony by the Directors of National Intelligence and the CIA. Here is the actual content of the testimony:
Sen. Diane Feinstein: What is the likelihood of another terrorist-attempted attack on the U.S homeland in the next three to six months? High or low? DNI, Dennis Blair: An attempted attack, the priority is certain, I would say.”
Contrary to the sensationalist headlines on Fox Nation and the Washington Times, the administration never said that an attack is “certain.” The operative word is “attempted.” It is a rather obvious and foregone conclusion that terrorists are out there attempting to attack us and others. The question, and the answer, was hardly revealing. But Fox never misses an opportunity to fear monger. And they have a long history of politicizing terror and 9/11.
In an epic battle of good vs. evil, the archetypal superhero, Captain America, has come out 
This is something I called 
The “future of politics” is typical Palin hyperbole. Clearly she doesn’t understand what she’s saying. This is a woman who just got through mocking President Obama for using a TelePrompter, while she has 
