Saturday, June 23, 2012

Glenn Beck has seen the finger of God, but which one?

By Richard K. Barry

Funny how Glenn Beck has disappeared from national consciousness having been banished from Fox for being too nuts even for them. Like a lot of people, I paid way too much attention to Beck back in the day. It was fun to do that in a weird sort of way. Many of us wondered how much of an impact he was having on the burgeoning Tea Party movement and whether or not his brand of craziness could significantly influence the direction of conservatism in America. And then he was gone.

Of course, he's not completely gone. He's still got a website somewhere in virtual land and I guess some people pay money to hear him rant. I have to assume that because I have totally lost track. And he still goes around the country talking to those who might care as he did recently at a "Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference."

In his prepared remarks he said that if America failed to do what Glenn thought best, God would "withdraw his protection" over the country. He also said that he had "seen the finger of God," presumably meaning that he had seen the work of God manifest in our daily lives (I guess). But I'd prefer to think that if there is a gentle God, a merciful God, the only one of His fingers Beck would likely see is the middle one raised at the end of an extended arm.

Something like this: "Hey Glenn, this is God. Go fuck yourself."

Here's the clip of Beck being Beck. I almost miss him.





(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

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Sunday, August 01, 2010

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Instant Ignorant Dolts: Rick Stengel and Time magazine

By J. Thomas Duffy

I haven't done much on Glenn Beck here.

It's already satire, as soon as he opens his mouth, and we don't want to get into the daily "Look what Beck Said Now" circus.

His prodigious lunacy long ago granted him being grandfather in The Garlic's "Ignorant Dolt" roster.



It would be one thing if a major news periodical, like, say, Time, decided to look into the smegma that is Glen Beck, the lies, the racism, the fomenting of anarchy, and report on that, even acknowledging that the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show eat it up like happy soup.

But no.

Editor Rick Stengel has decided to do a puff, cheerleading piece that gives credibility to Beck's ranting lunacy by using the "straw man" argument that the liberal left is just as bad.

Funny, I don't remember the liberal left foaming at the mouth that The Commander Guy wasn't a U.S. Citizen, or continually depicting him in offensive racial caricatures.

If someone has a tape of "The Cheeseburger That Sweats" (aka Rush Limbaugh - (H/T Barry Crimmins)), singing "Bush, The Hapless Honkie", get it posted asap.

Time's cover story this week, written by David Von Drehle, is "Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?"

You can go read it, and it take some time, as you will have to gather yourself up off the floor, having fallen down laughing so many times, you may end up with some bruises.

Or, you can read Greg Mitchell's deconstruction of it:

New TIME Cover on Glenn Beck Ignores Facts, and Worse


I have no quarrel with TIME magazine devoting a cover to Glenn Beck -- so long as the accompanying story sticks to hard facts and harsh truths. The issue coming tomorrow, online today, sadly fails to do so in an apparent effort to woo the rightwing with a ludicrously "balanced" treatment of equally dangerous and wacko "ranting" coming from left and right.

It starts right away with a first paragraph that claims that only "liberal sources" estimated the protest crowd in D.C. last weekend as about 70,000, while conservatives say up to a million or more. Actually, virtually all mainstream media sources, along with nonpartisan factchecking organizations such as PolitiFact, cite the lower number.

[snip]

There's a scattering of extreme Beck quotes lost in many paragraphs on the money deals. And groups like Media Matters are accused of "cherry picking" the bad ones. But then, they are just part of the "rant industry" on the left. There's a long, long graf quoting Beck on 9/11 and the Freedom Towers but no mention of his attack on the 9/11 widows. It notes his assault on the Obama "czars" and "he has some radical-sounding sound bites to back it up."

Ignorance and possible racism are never raised, despite polls showing that frightening numbers of conservatives believe that Obama was born in Kenya or may, in fact, be the "anti-Christ."

There's more that Mitchell has, and also Glen Greenwald, taking Stengel and Time to task in his "Time Magazine: the liberal bias of facts".

It is also rather odd that Stengel would opt to puff up Beck in this week's Time, considering, just yesterday, Salon ran an excellent expose on Beck -- "Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life: Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him".

Beck is idolizing, and preaching the word of, a man whom both the Republican Conservatives AND the Mormons booted out, not wanting any part of him.

If you can't cut it with either of those two, man, you gotta be so far off-the-planet, the Hubbell Telescope couldn't find you.

Mitchell offers an update in his post:

Just got the print edition. In editor's note, Richard Stengel actually writes, "One of our jobs as journalists is to be the referee, the honest broker who sorts through the accusations and says, This is fact, and this is fantasy." Then explains that's why they put Von Drehle on Beck.

I guess Stengel hasn't gotten around to reading the Salon piece, or anything much else on Beck, and just ran with the "fantasy" stuff.

Rick, how about being that "honest broker" next week, and place on your cover The Garlic awarding you the Ignorant Dolt Crown and Sceptre.

You, Rick Stengel, are today's Instant Ignorant Dolt.


Bonus Links

Jamison Foser: How Time magazine enables Glenn Beck's lies

John Cook: Leftist 'Terrorizer' of Children Is Now Glenn Beck's Official Portraitist

David Weigel: Time Magazine Disputes Time Magazine’s Reporting

Steve Krakauer: MSNBC Forced To Talk About Glenn Beck

Will Bunch: UPDATED: Where Glenn Beck gets his ideas




(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

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