Advertisers Dumping Glenn Beck After Racist Comments

Posted by on August 6, 2009 at 12:35 pm. 5 Comments :

Last month Glenn Beck appeared on Fox & Friends and accused President Obama of being a racist. He said…

“This President has, I think, exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don’t know what it is […] I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. He has a…This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

Fox News released a timid statement intended to put some distance between the network and Beck, but it simultaneously gave Beck more leeway to spew his repulsive views.

Well, Media Matters is now reporting that members of the advertising community are beginning to regard Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue to be an unacceptable platform for their ads:

Media Matters: Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck — NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance — today distanced themselves from Beck. LexisNexis has pulled its advertising from Beck and says it has no plans to advertise on the program in the future. Both Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.

It’s about time.

A couple of days ago I wrote about Beck’s plea for peace. I found it thoroughly disingenuous and was suspicious of the timing. This may explain it. Certainly his superiors would have put some pressure on him if they were getting cancellations on ads. Especially after releasing quarterly earnings that reported a $3.4 billion loss. Rupert Murdoch must be a very unhappy mogul.

It should be noted that Procter and Gamble is the biggest advertiser in the world. Now, we don’t know where these ad dollars are going. They may just be shifted to other programs on Fox. But over time the network will not be able to remove itself from the taint that people like Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, Cavuto, and the phalanx of obnoxious contributors bring to the airwaves.

Color of Change had taken the lead in protesting Beck’s remarks with a petition that delivered 45,000 173,000 signatures. They are still seeking to apply more pressure to more advertisers. So go there and help out.

Update: Advertisers continue to bail on Beck:

LexisNexis Proctor & Gamble Progressive Insurance
S.C. Johnson Geico Clorox
Men’s Warehouse Sargento Lowe’s
State Farm Roche Sprint
Sanofi-Aventis RadioShack Airware Inc
Con-Agra Travelocity Ancestry.com
Wal-Mart Best Buy AT&T
CVS Allergan Blain Labs
Ally Bank Broadview Security Campbell Soup
Re-Bath Farmer’s Insurance DiTech
The Elations Co. Experion Johnson & Johnson
NutriSystem UPS Stores Verizon Wireless
Applebee’s Bank of America Bell & Howell
DirecTv General Mills Kraft
Regions Financial SAM (Store and Move) Travelers Insurance
Vonage Binder & Binder Capital One
Dannon Company Discover HSBC
ICAN Benefit Group Ins Infiniti Jelmar
J. McKenna Debt Counseling Mercedes-Benz Simplex Healthcare
AmMed Direct Citrix Online Concord Music Group
Diageo Eggland’s Best Equifax
Eulactol USA GetARoom.com Hoffman La Roche
Metropolitan Talent Management ooVoo Overture Films
Scarguard Schiff Nutrition Seoul Metropolitan Government
Subaru Toyota-Lexus Waitrose
Woodland Power Products

Click here to see the advertisers remaining with Beck. It’s pretty pathetic.

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Would You Pay To Read Fox News?

Posted by on August 5, 2009 at 11:06 pm. 6 Comments :

Rupert Murdoch announced today that he intends to convert all of News Corp’s online news assets to subscription services. This news was released along with the quarterly earnings for News Corp that revealed a full year net loss of $3.4 billion, down from a profit of $5.4 billion.

If he thinks that he is going to recoup his losses by shutting the gates to his web properties, and sending that traffic to his competitors, he will be bitterly disappointed. News is not the sort of product that maintains exclusivity for very long. If there’s an earthquake in Peru or a celebrity dies, that information cannot be copyrighted and doled out by a privileged owner. And even when a reporter uncovers a major story after weeks of diligent and skillful research, as soon as it hits the streets it’s just more news and everyone else can pass it on to their audience.

The inherent value of a news enterprise is its credibility, its relationship with the customer, and its advertising reach. By erecting a wall between the publisher and the customer, both of the latter two items are severely squeezed. And if no one is consuming your product, credibility is hardly a concern. Nevertheless, Murdoch seems intent on his strategy for wringing revenue from his web visitors, but his arguments make little sense.

MURDOCH: The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution but it has not made content free. Accordingly we intend to charge for all our news websites.

Of course the truth is that it has made content free – at lease the majority of it, including most of what Murdoch publishes. Part of the reason it is free is due to the many new and inexpensive methods of distribution. If you remove costly production items like paper and presses and warehouses and trucks, you ought to be able to publish with significantly lower overhead. That means that advertising alone should be sufficient to be profitable. Television networks do it, and they have far greater overhead in production costs and celebrity salaries.

MURDOCH: Quality journalism is not cheap and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting.

Again, the media is a unique marketplace that has always given away its content in exchange for eyeballs that can be peddled to advertisers. And with regard to quality journalism not being cheap, that is something that Murdoch has never had to worry about since he doesn’t deal in quality journalism.

Murdoch has been a vocal critic of Google and other news aggregators who he says are stealing his product. He accuses them of benefiting from his company’s hard work without paying for it. But his Fox Nation is doing precisely the same thing by posting links to other news sites without offering them any payment either. So I wonder if he intends to start compensating those sites after he commences to charge for his own.

I still can’t see much of a market for online subscriptions to Fox News, Fox Nation, the New York Post, etc. Murdoch says that the fees charged by the Wall Street Journal are proof that the subscription model will work. But the differential between a subscription to the Journal and the Journal online is only forty cents a week. I suspect that that is not much of a barrier for Journal readers. Consequently, that may account for any success seen in that marketplace (although we don’t even know if there is any success because Murdoch will not release data on the Journal’s online only subscriber base).

In the end, Murdoch will just be doing a favor for all the other online news sites who learn to operate profitably without subscription fees. As the market matures there will be more and more of them. Advertisers will migrate to the web as it increasingly provides a superior return to fading newspapers. And since Murdoch is overweighted in dead-tree media, and his online acumen has been notoriously sub par (witness MySpace), this is just good news all around – the kind even I’d be willing to pay for (but don’t tell Rupert).


Fishy Right-Wingers Accuse Obama Of Recruiting Nazi Snitches

Posted by on August 5, 2009 at 1:12 pm. 3 Comments :

With the Congress in recess, Republicans and their rightist allies have taken to the streets to attack President Obama’s agenda, particularly with regard to healthcare. It has already been well documented that much of the protest has been orchestrated by lobbyists and partisan political groups. Their efforts have also been aided by the rightist media including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, talk radio, etc. The Fox Nation is so heavily involved that it featured eight separate stories on its web site yesterday on the phony town hall disturbances (and four more today).

After observing this all-out campaign by insurance industry-backed rightist mobs to disrupt public discourse in town halls and other public events, the Obama administration responded by having White House Communications Director Linda Douglass set the record straight. The video in which she appears is posted on the White House web site along with an invitation for citizens to help debunk the rapidly spreading disinformation:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Naturally, the right wing lie machine immediately seized on this as an outrageous invasion of privacy and an abuse of executive power. They are casting it as a Big Brother style operation to pit neighbor against neighbor. One Tea Partier said that Obama wants to “turn everyone into a Nazi snitch.” The only problem is that nowhere in the appeal is there anything remotely suggesting that people turn in other people. Furthermore, there is no threat associated with the disclosure of the rumors that the White House is seeking to be apprised of. The only thing they are interested in is the substance of the attacks on their proposals so that they can rebut them.

But that hasn’t stopped the allegations of intimidation from erupting out of the depths of the Tea Bagging brigades. Shock and outrage is being expressed from every direction. The National Review, the Washington Times, Hot Air, and of course, Fox News. Fox News has also aired a segment on this in which they revealed that Rush Limbaugh has joining this parade of paranoia. What’s more, both CQPolitics and the Washington Independent have uncovered plots to commit virtual disruptions by spamming the White House’s email inbox.

Even Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn is getting into the act with a letter to the President in which he alleges that this is a Nixonesque enemies list:

“By requesting that citizens send ‘fishy’ emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights.”

To reiterate, the White House is NOT asking for anyone’s name, email address, IP address, or any other data connected to one’s identity. They are asking only to be informed of arguments against their health care proposals so that they can respond with the facts. Cornyn is reaching new heights of hypocrisy by feigning concern for chilling the exercise of free speech rights when he supports the Tea Baggers who are preventing such speech in local town hall meetings. He further embarrasses himself by saying that he would have also condemned the Bush White House should they have engaged in a similar invasion of privacy. Except that he did no such thing when he voted for warrantless wiretapping.

As it turns out, it is a good thing that the White House now has a facility for reporting the fishy assertions of fatuous fringe dwellers who have trouble with facts. Perhaps we should start by reporting the idiotic claim that the President is recruiting Nazi snitches.


Glenn Beck Orders His Troops To Stand Down – For Now

Posted by on August 4, 2009 at 12:50 pm. 9 Comments :

In what may be one of the most surreal television episodes ever to stumble across the airwaves, Glenn Beck of Fox News concluded yesterday’s program with an appeal to his congregation that raises some serious questions. And while it may have been an unprecedented moment in news programming, it was fairly common for the sort of Apocalyptic cult leaders on whom Beck models himself. He began by saying…

BECK: Now let me give the warning to you. If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would destroy the republic.

This sermon was, on the surface, a call to stand down. Some of his minions may have been acting out a little too aggressively. Just a few days ago, a Long Island, NY, woman with ties to Beck and FEMA camp conspiracies, was arrested outside an Air National Guard base with a cache of weapons. And a few weeks ago, a man in Washington, D.C. shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum on a rampage that was fueled by the fear of a black president who was marching the nation to Socialism.

So now we have the spectacle of a national cable news network’s host admonishing his viewers to refrain from violence. In this video, Beck beseeches his audience to be “forceful, but peaceful” in their fight against a government that he aligns with Marxism; a government that he asserts is destroying our American way of life and consigning us all to slavery. After whipping his followers up into a frenzy with talk of tyrannical doom, he now seeks to spread a layer of calm across their fevered brows. But why now? Does he know something? Has he been receiving more disquieting ravings from his lunatic corps than usual? Or is it because of stuff like this:

“Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President’s Secret Service.”

On one hand, I am glad that Beck may have finally recognized the imminent risk that his rhetorical incitations present. And even if he doesn’t, at least he is yielding to more prudent advice from his bosses and/or lawyers. On the other hand, it is deeply disturbing that there should ever be a need for such an admonition. I can’t think of any other mainstream broadcaster who has had to qualify his lectures by adding “Oh yeah, don’t be killin’ anybody.”

Beck, of course, is a special case. He is more than just a cable TV host. He leads an army of ignorant, disinformed (by him, mostly), soldiers of faith who are unstable and unpredictable. That is why he finds it necessary to assuage their more frightening tendencies from time to time. But even in the act of dialing down the crazy that he and his disciples have come to embody, he still manages to disgust. In his plea to abstain from mass murder, Beck serves up this reasoning:

BECK: Just one lunatic like Timothy McVeigh could ruin everything that everyone has worked so hard for, because these people in Washington won’t pass up the use of an emergency.

Allow me to break this down. Beck is cautioning against committing acts of terror, not because of the tragic loss of life and personal suffering, but because it will harm the movement he is leading – it will “ruin everything.” He is opposed to orgies of homicide, not because it is morally repugnant, but because some unnamed denizens of Washington will exploit the catastrophe for their own nefarious purposes.

What really ought to alarm anyone who is truly concerned about the increasingly hostile and violent language that emanates from Beck and his ilk is that, if he can order his troops to draw down, can he also command them to advance? In fact, is he already doing so? Just last week he told his audience that he is afraid that he might be silenced and that he would have to disguise the true meaning of his commentaries.

BECK: 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.

With that, Beck has given his most depraved disciples permission to interpret anything he says any way they want. Now, take another look at yesterday’s appeal to be peaceful, this time interpreting it from the demented perspective of a Beckian who believes that the government has already commenced suppressing Beck and his message.

BECK: Now let me give the warning to you.
TRANSLATION: Read between the lines at what I am “screaming” to you.
BECK: If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would destroy the republic.
TRANSLATION: Since the republic is irreversibly on the road to Marxism, it ought to be destroyed. Don’t you think?
BECK: Just one lunatic like Timothy McVeigh could ruin everything that everyone has worked so hard for, because these people in Washington won’t pass up the use of an emergency.
TRANSLATION: Just one hero could ruin everything the tyrannical usurpers in Washington have worked so hard for. Is there a hero amongst you?

Beck and his Fox News masters are probably convinced that they have sufficiently shielded themselves from any legal liability in the event of a catastrophic, Beck-driven calamity. But they cannot wash their hands of this so easily. Especially when Beck continues to preach the sort of hateful diatribes that feed the doomsday fantasies of his flock. He can’t keep shouting…

HEY! There is a mob of rabid, pillaging, Satanists on their way to rape your daughters and kill the rest of you. It’s time to stand up and fight back against these hordes who threaten everything we hold dear. They have spit on your flag and blasphemed your God and now they are here for your honor and your lives.

And, oh yeah, when they get here you should be “forceful, but peaceful” with them. After all, I don’t believe in violence.

It is not enough to periodically deny an agenda that you promote on a daily basis. It is not enough to pretend that you oppose what you so vocally advocate. As long as Beck persists in blowing on the embers, he is responsible for the fire that ensues.


Bill O’Reilly Books, Then Bumps, WorldNetDaily Birther

Posted by on August 3, 2009 at 12:57 pm. 7 Comments :

Joseph Farah is the editor of the uber-conservative WorldNetDaily. He is also one of the chief proponents of the Birther Conspiracy that holds that Barack Obama is not eligible to be president because, they hysterically allege, he isn’t a U.S. citizen. This thoroughly caramelized nut case for reversing last November’s election has been debunked repeatedly, but continues to be peddled by dogged rightist reality deniers.

Now, the WorldNetDaily is reporting that their leader, Mr. Farrah, was all set to appear on The O’Reilly Factor until his list of demands was rejected by Bill O’Reilly himself. Here is the list as printed at WND:

  • Though a sober and civil discourse is always welcome, shouting is not;
  • No other guests on during the segment with Mr. Farah;
  • Discussion to be limited to the facts of the story;
  • Accurate, approved description of Mr. Farah and news organization he represents;
  • Screen ID chyron to be approved by Mr. Farah.

If this account is true, then O’Reilly retracted his invitation to Farrah because he objected to constraints on his freedom to shout at people and distort facts. But just the fact that a right wing web editor felt it necessary to itemize a list of criteria that included no shouting, stick with the facts, and chyron approval, for a right wing TV host, is pretty delicious irony. Even O’Reilly’s natural allies don’t trust him.


GE And FOX Agree To Censor Their News Divisions

Posted by on August 1, 2009 at 2:58 pm. 7 Comments :

In a report in the New York Times, the corporate parents of NBC and Fox News were brought together at a summit for CEO’s in an attempt to settle a long-simmering feud. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, and Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp, sat down to try to work things out.

What they were striving to resolve was the eternal and bitter competition between MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Fox’s Bill O’Reilly. This affair has been a rancorous, and often humorous, battle wherein Olbermann frequently awarded O’Reilly his “Worst Person in the World,” trophy, and O’Reilly countered by slandering NBC, GE, and Immelt personally (O’Reilly would never utter Olbermann’s name). According to the Times’ Brian Stelter…

“It was a media cage fight, televised every weeknight at 8 p.m. But the match was halted when the blood started to spray executives in the high-priced seats.”

There are two things that are immensely disturbing about this backroom handshake. First and foremost, the corporate parents of news enterprises ought not to be dictating the content of their news divisions, or the opinions of their commentators. That is especially true if the reason for the ivory tower interference is to dampen any blowback on the parent company’s business or executives resulting from controversial positions. This is about the best example of why it is unwise for corporations with vested interests in broader business and government affairs to own news publishers to begin with.

Secondly, the result of this inter-cable warfare is precisely what Fox News wanted. MSNBC is caving in to a deliberate tactic designed to halt criticism of Fox and its personnel. It is a one-sided victory for Fox that comes at the expense of MSNBC’s best interests and dignity. It was less than four months ago that Fox News CEO, Roger Ailes, laid down the threat from which they are now reaping the harvest. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post reported the tantrum Ailes threw in response to the escalating on-air debate:

“Ailes warned that if Olbermann didn’t stop such attacks against Fox, he would unleash O’Reilly against NBC and would use the New York Post as well.”

That’s precisely what happened, and it didn’t even take two weeks for Fox to follow through on its threat. Now we see this truce in effect at least partly because Immelt doesn’t like being called “a despicable human being” by O’Reilly. And the worst part is that Fox’s blatant bullying is being rewarded with a complete capitulation by MSNBC.

For these networks to enforce this agreement is nothing short of censorship. Olbermann responded with an email that said that he was not a party to any agreement, but he also seems to have halted his once routine attacks on O’Reilly and Fox News. As for Fox, their position now is that it is appropriate to direct their commentators to steer clear of certain topics. But that appears to apply only to topics that negatively impact the company brass. Just last week, after Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist, Fox released a statement that said that beck had merely…

“…expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions.”

That freedom, of course, has limitations. From the Fox News point of view, it is alright for one of their hosts to comment disparagingly on the President of the United States, but it is not OK to comment on the president of the company. The company, after all, is sacrosanct and its interests are superior to those of the nation.

It is disheartening to see this sort of corporate thuggery imposed on what should be independent news divisions. One can only hope that the truce will fail and free expression will prevail.

Update: Olbermann returned from vacation and struck down any notion that the network brass would dictate the content of his program. To prove it, he returned Bill O’Reilly to the “World’s Worst” list and reprised his old “Bill-O the Clown” routine. Apparently, news of a network truce were exaggerated. That’s good news.

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Fox Nation Touts Grand Theft As A Fun New Sport

Posted by on July 31, 2009 at 11:23 am. 5 Comments :

Fox Nation - Smart CarsThere is an item today on Rupert Murdoch’s The Fox Nation that links to an article in Murdoch’s English newspaper, The Sun. The Sun’s report concerns Dutch victims of criminal vandals who are stealing and destroying automobiles. What sets this apart from conventional crimes is that the perpetrators have singled out owners of Smart Cars for their felonious conduct. The Sun dismissively refers to the thieves as “pranksters,” but that is not nearly as bad as Fox Nation who ran with the headline: Fun New Sport? Flipping Smart Cars.

So the right-wing, Republican, law and order, traditional values, pretenders at Fox Nation think that it’s “fun” to steal the property of innocent people and destroy it by, amongst other things, throwing it into canals. This obviously creates a burden for the victim, but it is also impacts the insurance companies, the car dealerships, the municipalities charged with retrieving the vehicle, and the police who must allocate resources to the case.

What amuses the Fox Nation hypocrites is the fact that the targets of the criminals’ animus are people who have elected to purchase environmentally responsible vehicles. Apparently these folks deserve to be victimized. I wonder if Fox would regard it as equally humorous if vandals went around slashing the tires of SUVs? Of course, when Earth Liberation Front activists torched Hummers on dealer lots (not private owners), they were labeled “eco-terrorists.”

The article in The Sun quotes a Smart Car dealer who points out that they do not want to give these incidents too much attention for fear that it will inspire additional criminal activity. So Murdoch’s people promptly publish it in the The Sun and on Fox Nation. They are virtually promoting more crime by describing it as “fun” and a “sport.” They clearly have no regard for the victims or any sense of decency. This fact is affirmed by some of the comments posted at Fox Nation vilifying environmentally conscious consumers. But it gets even worse than that…

This blatantly racist comment should not surprise anyone familiar with Fox Nation, Fox News, or the rest of the Murdoch Korporate Klan. There are many similar examples of such hostility to be found on Fox enterprise assets. But you would think that calling President Obama “Buckwheat” and referring to his “death certificate” would raise the ire of Internet values enforcers like Bill O’Reilly who often castigates sites like Daily Kos or the Huffington Post for what he calls hate speech.

If there is still anyone who has not concluded that Fox is a hate factory disguised as a news channel, they must now be regarded as lost souls who have irretrievable succumbed to the doctrine of loathing and ignorance that is Pastor Murdoch’s domain.


Sarah Palin’s Radio Career Canceled Before It Begins

Posted by on July 30, 2009 at 4:28 pm. NO Comments :

Earlier this week there was some industry speculation that Sarah Palin was shopping herself around for a talk radio gig. But before you can say “You Betcha” her hopes of radio stardom were quickly dashed.

Broadcasting & Cable:“While you might assume Palin would be a better fit for conservative radio than the less partisan world of syndicated broadcast TV, my sources say the country’s biggest radio conglomerate, Clear Channel, has already passed on her.“

It must be an especially difficult defeat for Palin to be rejected by Clear Channel, an outfit whose standards are low enough to admit Glenn Beck. But their reasoning is sound. There is little evidence that Palin could hold listeners for three hours of her gibberish.

So where does this leave the former half-term governor? Only one option ever really existed for her: Fox News! Since she can’t speak extemporaneously for the duration of a daily radio show, and she wouldn’t appeal to the broader audience necessary to succeed in television syndication, she would have to find a situation where she would have the comfort of a prepared script and an pre-selected audience of rightist lemmings who would worship her every word (and wink) no matter how asinine. Ergo, Fox News.

I predicted a Palin show on Fox News last year, even before the she lost the election. And earlier this month, when she announced that she was quitting her job in Alaska, I said…

A Palin show on Fox News has always been a good fit for both her and Fox. Neither have an interest in, or reputation for, honesty or accuracy. And both have profited from exploiting controversy and sex. Plus, she wouldn’t be the first potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate with a show on Fox, would she, Mike Huckabee?

What more could Fox ask for than a former beauty queen who cheerfully calls the President a Socialist who pals around with terrorists? And what more could Palin ask for than a network gig that allows her to spew nonsense and practice her fancy pageant walkin’?

I think that about covers it.


Glenn Beck: Fox News Evangelist Of The Coming Obama-Pocalypse

Posted by on July 29, 2009 at 9:01 pm. 13 Comments :

Glenn Beck’s unique brand of asylum-spawned demagoguery has drawn comparisons to some notable cranks in history and fiction. Most often he has been likened to either the 1930’s fascist radio priest, Father Coughlin, or to the prototypical, paranoia-crazed tele-pundit, Howard Beale, from the film “Network.”

While both of those models contain poignant resemblances to Beck, neither by themselves comes close enough to capture the full spectrum of his dementia. They don’t even begin to explain his silly costumes and props; his facial tics and nonsense, gurgling noises; his panic-laden admonitions of doom. This is a man who, every day, adds new items to his list of things that cause blood to shoot from his eyes. Were he to be taken literally, he would be severely anemic by now, and his studio would be a quarantined biohazard zone.

However, I think I have just found someone with whom Beck shares a more striking resemblance. I was watching Beck at his white board, attempting to connect everything he hates to everything he fears. It was a ludicrous spectacle that never approached making a sane point:

And it was then that my recollection of another televangelist came to mind:

Dr. Gene Scott broadcast something that he regarded as a study of life’s most pressing dilemmas as they related to Bible teachings. But his show was also intended as entertainment that included rock music and self-produced videos of him riding his award-winning horses.

Is it going too far to compare Beck with a fringe religious cult leader? Not when he seems to invite the comparison. Beck has not been shy about his spiritual rebirth. He often relates the story of his descent into alcohol and drugs, and how his surrender to a higher power saved him from desperation and suicide. His conversion may be less than sincere (he confessed to John Stossel that he only became a Mormon because his then girlfriend, now wife, would not have sex with him unless they were married), but he nevertheless peddles his piety like a used car salesman. At one point during today’s program he beseeched his viewers to get down on their knees and pray. At another he mocked the President as “the all-knowing Messiah.” At the beginning of each and every show he implores his audience to “Come on, follow me.” Plainly religion is at the heart of his crusade.

I would not be the first to observe that the rhetoric of Beck has escalated to dangerous levels. His ravings are so far beyond reasonable discourse that even his bosses at Fox News had to distance themselves from him (albeit in the weakest manner imaginable). What may be more worrisome is that he is also beginning to display the traits of Apocalyptic cult leaders like David Koresh and Jim Jones. It appears that he views himself as an embattled beacon of God’s truth who is besieged by the forces of evil. He frequently prefaces his conspiracy theories with laments like “Is it just me…?” He wonders aloud why no one else can see the doom on the horizon that to him is so evident. And, like any good Apocalyptic cult leader, he imagines that he is a target and that his time on Earth is near an end.

Beck 5/12/09: “If I’m ever in a weird car accident, or I commit suicide or something, after the media stops celebrating my death, could they check into it? Because I’m not suicidal. And I’m a pretty good driver.”

Beck 7/27/09: “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.”

Are these words a foreshadowing of another Jonestown? Does Beck really believe that unseen forces are amassing to oppose and silence him? It should be noted that Beck’s family has a record of suicide (his mother and sister). Beck himself has publicly stated that he has been suicidal on at least two occasions. How far off would it be for him to imagine that a step toward eternity was really a bid for martyrdom? He could go out in a blaze of Patriopathic™ glory on behalf of the country he loves so much it brings him to tears.

I hope somebody’s watching him – and monitoring his meds.


Irony Alert: Glenn Beck Says Obama Is A Racist

Posted by on July 28, 2009 at 12:51 pm. 2 Comments :

Fox News freakshow and rodeo clown, Glenn Beck, appeared on Fox & Friends this morning and had an amusing exchange with the mental deficients that inhabit the A.M. program.

“This President has, I think, exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don’t know what it is.”

When the brown haired guy who isn’t Steve Doocy challenged Beck by noting that “70% of the people we see everyday” from the Obama administration are white, Beck clarified his remarks:

“I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. He has a…This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

That should explain it for all the liberal media weasels out there who want to smear Beck. He is definitely not saying that Obama “doesn’t like white people.” He is merely saying that Obama is a racist who has a “deep seated hatred for white people.” Two completely different things. No?

Update: Fox News VP Bill Shine released a statement distancing the network from Beck’s remarks:

“During Fox & Friends this morning, Glenn Beck expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions.”

What I find interesting is that he never thought it necessary to release a similar statement when Fox News contributor Ralph Peters said that the Taliban should execute an American soldier. Or when Michael Scheuer said that America’s only hope was for another attack by Bin Laden.