Quote of the Day: Michelle Cottle on Glenn Beck, "the shiniest star in the conservative firmament"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Cottle, one of my favourite writers/bloggers, nails this with pin-point accuracy:

Beck is an absolute hysteric, prone to fits of on-air weeping and end-of-the-world blathering more befitting a deranged televangelist than a political pundit. Like many professional bomb throwers, he spews plenty of hateful, divisive bullshit, but the man doesn't seem to have ideological convictions so much as a nervous condition. You get the sense that this whole Obama presidency has deeply disrupted his mental and emotional balance, rendering him as unstable as a case of aging dynamite.

In many ways, this makes Beck the ideal standard bearer for modern conservativism. Forget the tough-as-nails swagger and smirking self-regard of Dick Cheney or the naked Machiavellianism of Tom Delay: Today's Right is increasingly characterized by whiny paranoia, unfocused rage, and panic-striken hyperventilation stemming from a spiraling persecution complex.

Brilliant.