{"id":1377,"date":"2009-08-25T18:59:53","date_gmt":"2009-08-26T01:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1377"},"modified":"2009-08-25T19:12:22","modified_gmt":"2009-08-26T02:12:22","slug":"is-glenn-beck-losing-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1377","title":{"rendered":"Glenn Beck: Arguing With An Idiot (Himself)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know, the question of Glenn Beck’s sanity was settled long ago. But what is happening now is more than just a question of sanity. Beck seems to be losing what remains of his cognitive ability. On his radio program today, Beck staged a little play as a retort to a Jon Stewart segment that demonstrated Beck’s hypocrisy with regard to health care.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object>In this video Stewart plays clips of Beck repeatedly asserting that health care in the U.S. is the best in the world. Then he plays a clip wherein Beck trashes American health care as a nightmare. It’s pretty routine Stewart brilliance, but Beck takes exception<\/a> on his radio show.<\/p>\n

At the outset, Beck has his second banana, Pat, question Beck as to how he could both praise and disparage America’s health care system. Beck responds by saying…<\/p>\n

“So to a 45 year old man with a wife, four kids, who have dealt with the medical system hundreds of times in their lives, your main argument to debunk the quality of our entire healthcare system is to bring up my one bad experience?”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clearly Beck’s rebuttal is that the health care system is nearly perfect. He asserts that he’s had a lifetime of exposure to a system that has only failed him or his family on a single occasion. Then Pat, surprisingly, nails Beck with the “nightmare”<\/em> quote that confirms that Beck was talking about the whole system, not a single, exceptional incident. Beck’s response to this was…<\/p>\n

“The idea of being drugged and cut open to avoid dying of, you know, something else, then waking only to deal with paperwork and recovery is a nightmare, but like our legal system, or our political system, it’s the worst system in the world… except for all of the others.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So in the course of a minute or two, Beck has asserted that our health care system is nearly perfect and rarely has any problems, and that it is riddled with problems but they aren’t as bad as every other country’s problems. He even explicitly says that our system is “far from perfect.”<\/em> Which one is it, Glenn? Do we have a system that in 45 years made a single mistake? Or one that is far from perfect?<\/p>\n

After this cognitive disconnect, Beck has the gall to say that Stewart “doesn’t bother trying to make sense of his arguments.”<\/em> Well, that’s something Beck should know about. But it gets even curiouser. The subject changes to Beck’s upcoming book, “Arguing with Idiots”<\/em> (something else Beck should know about). Beck declares that it is “the best book we’ve ever done.”<\/em> Mighty high praise from a guy who seconds later can’t remember the name of the book and has to ask his radio sidekick. Shortly thereafter, Beck forgets the name of the 2nd Amendment expert that he quoted in the book. And then he can’t recall when the book is being released.<\/p>\n

But what’s really funny is that Beck claims that he wrote this book for the youth, high school and college students who he says are riddled with ADD. Plus, he has an even larger purpose for the book:<\/p>\n

“We’re trying to have we’re trying to make this interactive so when you’ve read the book and then you’re standing there and you’re at a town hall meeting and they’re like, yeah, well, healthcare… you just dial some digits and the arguments will come right to you because you’ll read it if you don’t take it with you all the time, you’ll read it and you’ll be like, oh, my gosh, I’ve got to remember that. So we’re trying to give you a way where you can just dial digits and they will be e mailed to you instantly to give you some of the arguments.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You see? It is his way of funneling talking points to his town hall proxies. He even admits that his goal is to give his disciples a litany of arguments that they can deny came from him:<\/p>\n

“Everything is footnoted in this thing so you can go to the original source and find out exactly, that way your kid doesn’t have to say, ‘I learned that from Glenn Beck”<\/em> and immediately be discredited.’<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At least he is self-aware enough to recognize that any data attributed to him lacks credibility. But there is still cause for concern when this guy can’t remember pertinent things about his brand new book or form a coherent argument detailing his own health care experience. And he apparently believes that his audience has the same cognitive deficiencies, which resulted in his writing this book for them. It’s pretty sad when you think about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know, the question of Glenn Beck’s sanity was settled long ago. But what is happening now is more than just a question of sanity. Beck seems to be losing what remains of his cognitive ability. On his radio program today, Beck staged a little play as a retort to a Jon Stewart segment that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,361,16],"tags":[82,33,44,1142,83],"class_list":["post-1377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-healthcare","category-wankery","tag-daily-show","tag-fox-news","tag-glenn-beck","tag-healthcare","tag-jon-stewart"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-md","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1443,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1443","url_meta":{"origin":1377,"position":0},"title":"Jon Stewart Channels Glenn Beck – And News Corpse","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/6\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3102,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3102","url_meta":{"origin":1377,"position":1},"title":"Stewart And\/Or Colbert Restore Sanity And\/Or Fear","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/31\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Today was the day that many historians will record as the day that sanity was restored to America. And the rest of the historians will mark it as the day fear was kept alive. Then the two warring groups of historians will pelt one another with eggs. That's just the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1645,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1645","url_meta":{"origin":1377,"position":2},"title":"Glenn Beck Fears The Rise Of Obama Cannibalism Or Something","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/15\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In an attempt to deprive Jon Stewart the opportunity to mock Glenn Beck's paranoidal delusions, and to prevent Stephen Colbert from further exploiting Bill O'Reilly's egotistical sanctimony, Beck and O'Reilly came together to deliver their own satirical presentation of each others psychoses. And it's comedy gold. While discussing Miranda and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1319,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1319","url_meta":{"origin":1377,"position":3},"title":"3-2-1 Beck: Another Bin Laden Attack Is America’s Only Hope","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/1\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's come to this...Glenn Beck and his guest Michael Scheuer have finally admitted their deepest yearnings. The ticking clock at the beginning of Beck's show takes on a whole new meaning. It is a suggestion for a remedy for our diseased nation that is so far gone now that there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3803,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3803","url_meta":{"origin":1377,"position":4},"title":"Glenn Beck’s Sanity Questioned By (Almost) Everyone","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/3\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are thinking about getting a net and a straight-jacket and trying to capture Glenn Beck so that he can be admitted to an asylum.....get in line. For years Beck has been alienating even those who would be regarded as ideological allies. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs denounced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2416,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=2416","url_meta":{"origin":1377,"position":5},"title":"Glenn Beck Refudiates Glenn Beck And Opposes His Own Rally","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/17\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again Jon Stewart has embarrassed the Conventional Media by conducting better research and placing current events in more relevant context. This time the subject is the New York City non-mosque that is being planned for not-ground zero. Here is what Beck had to say about America's role in motivating\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}