The conservatives blogs are angry about the damn liberals besmirching the name of Fox News host Glenn Beck. Right Wing News event went so far as reforging the forged police report accusing Beck of heinous crimes (not to be named explicitly by me but to be linked from this site) so that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton’s names would appear.
The irony is lost on these commentators who take the satirical attacks at face value and do not see the same methods that Glenn Beck uses to avoid slandering people. His ability to imply that the president is supporting militias or to imply that the country’s greatest industrialist somehow directly supported favorite Beck target Van Jones are being used (quite hilariously) to turn the tables on him.
This is, of course, not the most mature way to handle the situation, but as a reader of Talking Points Memo noted:
We howled with laughter at teabaggers after the stimulus only to have them brandish guns and become players at townhalls. We rolled our eyes at Palin’s Death Panels, only to have month long national discussion over whether Obama wants to kill grandma and now veterans. Now we’re going to discuss whether it’s “appropriate” for the President to speak to schoolchildren? Really?
Enough is enough. Images of Obama as Hitler are now commonplace and, seemingly, unremarkable. It has become customary and usual for senior GOP officials to make outrageous, disparaging ad hominem remarks about the President. The crazy is becoming mainstream. Obama is in a real, tangible way now being delegitimized as a person and a leader.
Update: Keith Olbermann doesn’t find it amusing either.
Update 2: Welcome Other McCain readers! To clarify, I don’t support this kind of satire from either side of the spectrum but this was more of a pissed off Internet stunt than a left wing conspiracy. These people are like the Internet equivalent of your annoying little brother–just looking for a rise out of you.
Nice site, Cris….
Not since Joe McCarthy shuffled off this mortal coil in 1957 has anyone made a career by accusing people of being communists. Glenn Beck has resurrected the practice. Not only has he found a cabal of secret communists, he has uncovered an entire communist corporation chock full of commies. The name of this company, you may ask?
THE NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY!
You heard me right, boys and girls. The network that gave us Uncle Miltie and Ma Perkins has apparently been secretly sending subliminal messages endorsing Marxist doctrine since it was formed in 1926. This would make perfect sense to me. Every time I watched the Rockford Files I had an unexplainable desire to read Das Kapital. But seriously, folks. Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, red baiting not only seems silly, it’s also kind of nuts. It’s not-at-all surprising that an organization would give this idiot a forum (after all, he’s on FOX Noise). What’s really stunning is the fact that his ratings are relatively high and that so many Americans take his word as gospel.
All kidding aside, half-witted ideologues are a dime a dozen. What separates Glenn Beck from his peers is the fact that he is doing some serious damage to the country he professes to love so much. For all of the comparisons to the Nazis he likes to make with respect to Liberals, Beck’s program has much in common with Adolf Hitler’s 1923 screed, Mein Kampf. Eighty-six years ago, Hitler attempted to arouse the anger of his fellow Germans by spouting half truths and utter nonsense – exactly what Glenn Beck is doing in 2009. So much of the insane dialogue that has been spewed forth at these Town Hall meetings across the country in recent weeks might have been lifted straight from a transcript of Beck’s program.
Beck and his strange ilk have done the impossible. They have deflected the blame for America’s current economic distress from where it should be aimed toward a man who is trying to clean up the mess that was created – in large part – by people like Glenn Beck. They have also let loose with a vengeance the very worst angels of the American nature. Opening Pandora’s box was relatively easy. Closing it might prove to be a bit of a problem.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
GB you are a put down to the democrats and republicans, you tell too many fictional stories, stop being a lair, and stop putting down Obama, fox news tells too many lies, GB you are a hypocritical man and need help! And GB stop lying about history!!