Rand Paul thinks dog marriage is next

By Frank Moraes 

As you all know, I have major problems with real libertarians -- to a large extent because most of them have a good understanding of the problems of governing and I don't see why they don't recognize their very clear blind spots. But people who claim to be libertarians who don't understand the philosophy and just throw the word around because it sounds cooler than "conservative" are another matter. I hate them.

The most prominent pretend libertarian is Rand Paul. This doesn't mean that I don't agree with him from time to time. Hell, I agree with Rick Santorum now and then. One nice thing about real libertarians is that you can usually predict where they stand on any given issue. But not so with Paul. He is anti-abortion, for example. Now I understand that some libertarians are anti-abortion. But I don't get it. A 16-cell zygote has equal human rights to the mother? Really?!

But there are many more clear examples. He isn't, for example, in favor of drug legalization -- just cannabis. Now, I'm all for legalizing cannabis. But at this point, the argument isn't the libertarian one that people should be allowed to make their own choices. It is the (true) conservative argument that cannabis is no more dangerous than other legal drugs. At least Paul's father, Ron Paul, acts like a true libertarian in this regard.

And now, Rand Paul is making the media rounds to complain about the Supreme Court's overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. He was on Glenn Beck's show (another pretend libertarian) warning that same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy. I actually agree with him that this ought to lead to polygamy. I'm very much a libertarian on this issue: people should be able to enter whatever contracts they want with each other. But Paul brought this up as a note of caution: polygamy is bad.[1] This is clearly not a man who believes that people's lives are their own.


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Can't buy me love

By Mustang Bobby 

Via The Atlantic:

Former FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey revealed that the Tea Party group paid Glenn Beck about $1 million to say "nice things" about the group on his radio show, and that it got a negative return on that investment, in an interview Friday — with the liberal group Media Matters, of all places. It's the latest strange revelation in the FreedomWorks civil war. Armey reportedly tried to stage an armed coup last fall, but his reign didn't last long, and donor Richard J. Stephenson agreed to pay Armey $400,000 a year for 20 years to go away. Apparently that didn't come with a non-disparagement clause.

After the liberal magazine Mother Jones posted a copy of a FreedomWorks document about its fundraising, Armey reached out to Media Matters to explain how the group wastes money by trying to raise money through radio hosts Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Armey said FreedomWorks paid Beck $1 million to say nice things about the group to raise more cash, but Beck’s appeals raised considerably less than that.

This is comical on two levels: first, that these folks thinking that buying off Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would help their cause with anyone outside of the wingnut base, and second, that they think they know how to fix the economy by cutting back on waste, fraud, and abuse... which basically describes both Mr. Beck and Mr. Limbaugh.

The fact that it didn't work is just the icing. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Armed and dangerous

By Mustang Bobby 

John Cole has posted the interview that Piers Morgan conducted with gun enthusiast Alex Jones. Mr. Jones has started a petition to have Mr. Morgan deported because the CNN chat host advocates for gun control.

Mr. Jones is pretty expressive, and John, along with a few others, is saying that he represents the extreme end of pro-gun advocates. But if you've been reading any of the blogs where gun control issues are being discussed, you'll find that Mr. Jones pretty much sounds like a lot of people on the side of unlimited access to guns. He's just louder.

As one observer noted, "Jones made a fool of himself, giving the left the perfect poster boy for their attempts to paint every logical conservative as an extremist nut job."

That's from Glenn Beck, who is himself an authority on extremist nut jobs.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

How right-wingers took over Wikipedia

By Marc McDonald

Wikipedia is one of the most useful sites on the Web. It's a fantastic reference source that provides an incredible wealth of data on an endless variety of topics.

A big strength of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit any article. If, for example, an expert on quantum mechanics happens to notice a small factual error in the Wikipedia article on that topic, he or she can easily fix it on the spot. By harnessing the power of the knowledge of millions of people, Wikipedia has grown into the world's biggest reference resource.

However, Wikipedia's strength is also its biggest flaw. The very fact that anyone can edit an article means that errors, spin and bias can easily creep into the Wikipedia database.

If you're looking to read up on millions of disparate topics, from aardvarks to Frank Zappa, Wikipedia can offer you an enormous amount of helpful info that is reasonably free of bias.

But there's one big exception: articles on current political figures and topics.

Here, Wikipedia falls woefully short in its goal of providing a "neutral point of view."

Increasingly over the years, literally thousands of Wikipedia's political articles have gradually and quietly been given a right-wing spin. And thousands of articles on political figures ranging from Ronald Reagan to Glenn Beck have been either sanitized, or given a pro-GOP slant.

From A...

Normally, the open nature of Wikipedia prevents such mischief. Typically, if someone introduces biased, or incorrect information into an article, it is quickly corrected by other visitors.

But this process has clearly failed on Wikipedia when it comes to thousands of articles on current political topics.

The reason is obvious: the right-wing "contributors" are ferociously tenacious. They will go in and sanitize and slant an article over and over until it reads the way they want it to. These people are well-organized, ruthless and determined and they usually eventually get their way, via sheer blunt force. In this respect, they're much like Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio in that they believe if they simply repeat something over and over, it becomes "fact."

To be sure, from my experience with Wikipedia over the years, I've seen some of this behavior from progressives as well on Wikipedia -- but it is nickel-and-dime compared to the massive, sweeping efforts made by right-wingers to bend reality to suit their point of view.

I first started noticing Wikipedia's right-wing spin in 2008 when I accessed the main article on George W. Bush. I was looking for some quick info about Valerie Plame. I was surprised to find zero mentions of Plame in the Bush article.

I then tried to raise this issue on the article's "Discussions" page and I found that merely typing in the word "Plame" triggered a text robot that blocked any posts from mentioning Plame on that article. Clearly, a Bush-friendly editor was very determined to sanitize the article of any and all mentions about Plame.

I found this truly astonishing. Whatever one thinks of the Plame affair, it's incredible that Wikipedia's main article about Bush would contain zero mentions about this case. It were as though Karl Rove himself had edited the article and had carefully airbrushed out anything that could possibly have a hint of negativity about his boss.

By contrast, the Wikipedia articles on various Democrats could have been written by Rush Limbaugh himself.

For example, at the same time Wikipedia was blocking any mentions of the Plame affair from the Bush article, the main Wikipedia article on Bill Clinton included a massive, seven-part "Controversies" section. This section rounded up every single right-wing nutcase allegation ever made against Clinton (quite an impressive feat when you consider all the crazed conspiracy theories that swirled around Clinton in the 1990s).

By contrast, at the time, no "Controversies" section existed in the Bush article (although there was a modest two-part "Criticism and public perception" section).

Of course, Wikipedia's contest is dynamic and fluid and a lot of what I found in 2008 has now changed. For example, there is now a very brief mention of Plame in the Bush article.

But it's clear that the ongoing right-wing spin process continues to contaminate Wikipedia articles.

A recent example is the Wikipedia article on Glenn Beck.

Do you remember Beck's controversy from May 17, 2005? That was the day Beck made astonishing and chilling remarks about killing Michael Moore. His exact words were: "I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could."

Beck's remarks (understandably) created a firestorm of controversy. Moore even opened his 2011 book, Here Comes Trouble: Stories from My Life with the Beck quote, as an example of the crazy, violent rhetoric that he has faced over the years from the wingnut crowd.

It's important to note that at no time did Beck ever claim he was joking, or making the comment in jest. And Beck never apologized or faced any consequences for his remark.

No doubt, after a while, Beck just wanted the whole issue to go away. And today, it's clear that he's gotten his wish. In fact, seven years later, it's as though the incident never occurred.

If you read the Wikipedia article on Beck, there is absolutely nothing about Beck's comments about killing Michael Moore. Not one word. In fact, the article is largely sanitized of Beck's long history of making inflammatory, crazy remarks.

For example, do you remember Beck's controversial 2010 Tides Foundation remarks? That episode too, has been completed omitted from the Wikipedia article on Beck. In fact, the article reads like a big, wet sloppy kiss and a Valentine to Beck.

Of course, the article on Beck is hardly the only slanted article on Wikipedia. A casual scan of topics ranging from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton also shows a heavy right-wing spin.

One of the very few exceptions is the Wikipedia article on global warming. After a long, ferocious back-and-forth struggle over the years, Wikipedia's editors finally locked down that article to prevent tampering from the wingnut climate change deniers.

On that article, one currently finds a detailed FAQ on the discussions page that answers all the questions that weary Wikipedia editors have had to answer, over and over, in disputing the Rush Limbaugh crowd. As a result of this policy, the "global warming" article is one of the few major Wikipedia articles that hasn't been subjected to right-wing spin.

...to Z.

The problem is, thousands of other Wikipedia articles are open to editing by anyone -- and as a result, virtually every article on a right-wing figure has been carefully sanitized. At the same time, most Wikipedia articles on Democratic figures tend to read like they were edited by Fox News.

The Wikipedia articles on everyone from Bill and Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama round up every single nutcase right-wing allegation ever made against these people. And if the likes of progressive commentators from Ed Schultz to Michael Moore ever did or said anything in the least bit controversial, you can be sure to read about it in detail on Wikipedia.

One quick example to prove my point: at different times in their careers, both Schultz and Beck have gotten into trouble for using the word "slut." But while the Wikipedia article on Schultz details the controversy his comment created, the Wikipedia article on Beck completely avoids any mention of the time Beck called Cindy Sheehan a "slut." As ever, the double standard on Wikipedia is blatant and sickening.

Of course, since Wikipedia's content is fluid and dynamic, the situation may have changed by the time you read this. But if that's the case, you can be assured that such content won't survive long on Wikipedia before it is eventually deleted or altered by right-wingers.

As I said, the right-wingers are tenacious and determined. They'll do whatever it takes to bend Wikipedia to suit their reality.

Today's right-wingers know exactly what they want. And they'll play hardball to do whatever it takes to win. For example, we saw this in the 2000 elections, when the GOP brownshirt thugs staged riots and intimidated the Florida voter counters, while Al Gore's people just sat around politely waiting for the phone to ring.

The right-wingers may not have the facts on their side. But they do have the determination and will to get what they want by brute force. And as a result, Wikipedia, the world's largest and most popular reference site, now has a right-wing slant on thousands of its articles.

(Cross-posted at BeggarsCanBeChoosers.)

Finding Keith Olbermann

By Richard K. Barry

For a brief moment, I thought I might post today on how little attention we pay to Glenn Beck since he left Fox. For a while there, we wrote about him, we howled about his stupidity and obnoxious behaviour, we basically invested far too much in the endeavour. I was actually going to go to his website to see what foolishness he was up to. I even had a great title for the post. It was going to be called: "Glenn Beck, Still Crazy After All These Months."

And then sanity overcame me and I realized I no longer cared. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to pay any more attention to the creepy little man.

But all of this reminded me that I haven't heard much at all from Keith Olbermann for some time, as I remembered that Keith used to be one of my favourites when he was on MSNBC every night. Always a little over the top was K.O., but these times are not normal times, and a little excitement coming from the left has always been okay by me.

I think it's possible that I am unable to get my fix of Olbermann because the particular cable channel on which he now broadcasts is unavailable in my local viewing area (as they say). No, I don't think we get Current TV in these parts (these parts being Toronto).

I take it that one can watch a fair bit of Olbermann's show, still called Countdown, on the web here. I guess I'll have to settle for the occasional clip and maybe scan the transcripts from time to time until my service provider wises up.

Of course, it's entirely possible that my general incompetence with audio visual technology is the only thing keeping me from watching the show, and not my service provider at all. That's possible too.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Glenn Beck's Fox departure now has a date

By Richard K. Barry

I just couldn't help but mark the news that Glenn Beck's departure from Fox News now has a date attached to it. According to Mediate, it has been confirmed by the network that his last day is to be June 30th.

There was a time when I would get home from work and actually tune in to the crazy little man mostly because I could not believe that anyone was seriously buying his act for anything other than comic relief. I slowly had to come to the realization that there are those out there who believe that he talks sense. I am told that many people have even been scared senseless by his warnings of the imminent demise of the America we all know.

I have been amazed by the chalkboards and lines drawn from one "radical" to the next proving beyond a doubt, or so he tell us, that a grand conspiracy is afoot and that we must be ever vigilant to protect ourselves against threats foreign and domestic.

But I will tell you what really amazes me. It is the thought that there are so many people in the world so easily fooled by this snake oil salesman, that so many are this hungry for such a simplified explanation of a frighteningly complex world that they will turn to this idiot for answers.

Those of us who follow politics closely like to believe that most people are reachable with rational arguments, that even if we can't convince others of the correctness of our own opinions, everyone has a desire to be swayed by the force of the better argument.

And then we come upon people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, who believe no such thing. They are people stuck in a looped sound track full of nothing but meaningless platitudes. They don't want to be convinced of anything because they already know everything.

That people like that exist and that they have a significant following scares the crap out of me.

I go back and forth between believing that people like Beck and Palin are just charlatans in it for the buck or that they may actually believe the things they say. Maybe both are true.

If they didn't have such an impact on the quality of our discourse, it would be best to ignore them. In Beck's case that may now be somewhat easier. I look forward to the day when it will also be easier to fully ignore the half-term governor from Alaska. Please God let it be soon.

(Cross-Posted at Lippmann's Ghost)

Elephant Dung #26: Glenn Beck calls Huckabee the worst thing possible... a progressive

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By R.K. Barry 

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

In Glenn Beck's vocabulary, there is no dirtier word than "progressive." All the villains in his warped understanding of history can be shown to carry this particular banner: Wilson, FDR, TR, LBJ, WJC, and, of course, the current occupant of the White House. Their shared sin is some variant of the claim that they use government to devise schemes that ultimately oppress the people. Nazis, Communists, New Dealers, Great Society advocates -- progressives each and every one. It's not very clear how it all works, and it usually involves a chalk board and diagrams, but that's the charm that is Mr. Glenn Beck.

Fascinatingly enough, he has recently taken to calling Mike Huckabee a progressive.

Judging from the audio clip you can access here, it seems that Huck started his slide when he supported Michelle's Obama's anti-obesity campaign. Go figure.

Many of us have been saying for some time that the radical right will get tired of simply going after liberals. At some point, which seems to be happening now, they will go after those putatively within their own ranks who they deem not pure enough -- not conservative enough.

Huckabee has a show on the Fox network, as had Beck until recently, so maybe this is a sort of parting shot at his old company. The truth is that for ideological purists like Beck and Tea Partiers no one is truly safe and everyone must be scrutinized, even as their own circle becomes smaller and smaller.

As I have said before, this is what has been called the tyranny of virtue.

Any willingness to believe that one's opponents might just have something to offer, that they might have something reasonable to say, that they might be of value as human beings, is proof of one's own unworthiness to continue on in the ranks of the anointed. You will recall that former Republican Florida Governor Charlie Crist was thrown overboard as a potential Senate nominee for having once hugged President Obama. Tough crowd.

We see this with the Tea Party v. the Republican leadership. And now Glenn Beck, the high priest of the conservative revolution, has just banished one who the rest of us thought was among the elect.

The only question now is, who's next?

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Why did Fox News fire Glenn Beck?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Because, let's face it, a firing it was, despite the happy-talk press release announcing that Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, will continue to "work together to develop and produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News' digital properties."

So why was he fired? Declining ratings? Concern that Beck would make Republicans look really bad heading into 2012? Recognition that he's a loose cannon and not exactly a team player? Embarrassment among the rank and file, if not throughout the entire organization?

Does it matter? Do we care?

Normally, I'd turn this over to R.K. Barry, our resident Beckologist, but from what I understand he seriously injured himself yesterday doing a series of backflips upon hearing the news. Initial reports that it was his groin seem to have been overblown. I suspect it's his back and that he's now on some serious meds.

Can you blame him? We won't have Glenn Beck to kick around anymore. Well, not really. He'll be around, but his days as an unavoidable right-wing media personality are probably over.

Then again, it's fun to kick Glenn Beck around, and, yes, he did make Fox News and everything else on the right look bad. And he's been great for business, the business of those of us who oppose him and everything he stands for.

And we won't have Jon Stewart doing Glenn Beck, which he's doing right now, as I type. Hilarious stuff. (Ah, Jon just said he's been good for business, too! I suppose a lot of us are saying that.)

I'm tempted to say that his firing/departure will be good for America, and for American political and cultural discourse, but of course he's only departing his daily show at Fox News. He'll still be on the radio, and he'll still have his legions of followers (even if most of them are old).

But I do think we ought to celebrate his firing. As Alexander Zaitchik, author of Common Nonsense, puts it (quoted by Weigel):

Moving forward, I see him turning into a sort of hybrid-figure, part Limbaugh, part Breitbart, part Pat Robertson, maybe a little Ben Stein on the documentaries front. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that his days as a heavy, constant presence in the mainstream conversation are over. Whatever media shape-shift he's about to perform post-Fox, he's a greatly diminished national presence for those who aren't "Insider Extreme" members at glennbeck.com. Which is a blessed, blessed thing.

Indeed it is.

Glenn Beck uncovers new evidence of worldwide leftist conspiracy

By R.K. Barry

Yes, it appears that even Little Bunny Foo Foo is conspiring with Google to take over the world. When will this madness end?

All together now!

Beck goes bonkers: Communism is coming to the U.S.

By Nicholas Wilbur

Glenn Beck is worried. Not quite trembling, and not yet so crazy that he's barking at squirrels, but worried. The uprising in Egypt marks the beginning of the end. Communists and Islamic extremists are mounting an offensive against the Western world.

As proof of this "communist revolt," Beck cited a story in The New York Times:

This is what I've been called nuts for for the last two weeks. And basically, it's on the front page story, "Wired and Shrewd, Young Egyptians Guide Revolt," and what it talks about is how the Islamic extremists have gotten together with socialists and communists and they have sown the seeds of revolt.

It goes without saying that people who watch Beck's show on Fox News aren't big fans of The New York Times. Probably many of his fans (literally, fanatics) were offended by Beck's reliance on the unpatriotic, anti-American, and undeniably traitorous manifesto as evidence of this "insurrection" heading to the United States.

In the interests of context, I have lifted the following passages from the above-referenced news article, which Beck cites as proof of a communist-socialist-Islamic extremist movement:

• They are the young professionals, mostly doctors and lawyers, who touched off and then guided the revolt shaking Egypt, members of the Facebook generation who have remained mostly faceless — very deliberately so, given the threat of arrest or abduction by the secret police.

• In the process many have formed some unusual bonds that reflect the singularly non-ideological character of the Egyptian youth revolt, which encompasses liberals, socialists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

• Islam Lotfi, a lawyer who is a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Youth, said his group used to enlist others from the tiny leftist parties to stand with them in calling for civil liberties, to make their cause seem more universal. Many are now allies in the revolt, including Zyad el-Elaimy, a 30-year-old lawyer who was then the leader of a communist group.

Mr. Elaimy, who was imprisoned four times and suffered multiple broken limbs from torture for his political work, now works as an assistant to Mohamed ElBaradei, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the International Atomic Energy Agency. In turn, his group built ties to other young organizers....

• Most of the group are liberals or leftists, and all, including the Brotherhood members among them, say they aspire to a Western-style constitutional democracy where civic institutions are stronger than individuals.

But they also acknowledge deep divides, especially over the role of Islam in public life. Mr. Lotfi points to pluralistic Turkey. On the question of alcohol — forbidden by Islam — he suggested that drinking was a private matter but that perhaps it should be forbidden in public.

Asked if he could imagine an Egyptian president who was a Christian woman, he paused. "If it is a government of institutions," he said, "I don't care if the president is a monkey."

Okay, so to be clear there are, as Beck professes, communists, socialists, and members of the Muslim Brotherhood behind the organized rallies that, as of February 11, 2010, successfully overthrew an oppressive and corrupt dictator in Egypt.

But as the article clearly shows, these are not anarchists, radicals, or extremist Muslims aspiring for some new world order run by a fundamentalist Caliphate, as Beck believes. They are college-educated professionals, "mostly doctors and lawyers" (one of whom is Wael Ghonim, "a Google executive who was detained for 12 days but emerged this week as the movement's most potent spokesman") who were "born roughly around the time that President Hosni Mubarak first came to power... and [who] all have spent their adult lives bridling at the restrictions of the Egyptian police state – some undergoing repeated arrests and torture for the cause." Their cause being "a Western-style constitutional democracy."

If, as Beck claims, there are "communist revolutionaries who are willing to band with anyone here in America" and who are ready to spread their "cause" across the world, then America better brace for its own revolution. "It will come to America," according to Beck.

Grab your tinfoil helmets, pull out your Bibles, and sharpen your bayonets, folks. A "Western-style constitutional democracy" is heading this way.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Elephant Dung #13: Beck and Kristol trade insults over Egypt

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

The right has had a hard time figuring out where to stand on the situation in Egypt.

Or, rather, it has had a hard time coming up with a unified position, simply because there isn't one, what with some conservatives backing Mubarak (and U.S.-friendly dictatorships generally), some of them because they support Israel no matter what and Israel backs Mubarak, others lashing out against Islam as the great threat to America and asserting, without a shred of convincing evidence (the Muslim Brotherhood is not evidence), that the pro-democracy movement in Egypt is basically Iran-style Islamism, others, on the other side, still buying into Bush's democracy-promotion agenda and approving the prospect of change in Cairo.

Conservatives like to stick together. You know, like with "taxes are bad," "abortion is wrong," etc. The Iraq War ultimately exposed huge fault lines on the right. And now, with Egypt, conservatives are actually coming to blows, including two of the most prominent, Krazy Bill Kristol and even crazier Glenn Beck:

Fox News's Glenn Beck lashed out at Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on his radio show this morning, accusing Kristol of betraying conservatism and missing the significance of what Beck sees as an alliance between Islamism and socialism.

"I don't even know if you understand what conservatives are anymore, Billy," Beck said in his extended, sarcastic attack on Kristol. "People like Bill Kristol, I don't think they stand for anything any more. All they stand for is power. They'll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they'll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched."

Kristol this weekend took Beck to task for the latter's skepticism of the Egyptian uprising:

When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He's marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.

Kristol's words drew an approving nod from National Review's Rich Lowry, a rare public repudiation of the influential Fox host from a conservative elite that quietly dislikes him. 

And all this at the time of the Reagan birth centennial. What was that about some 11th commandment?

Now, there's really no contest between Kristol and Beck. Kristol's a smart guy who often knows what he's talking about, while Beck is paranoid and insane. And Kristol is right that Beck is "marginalizing himself" with this conspiracy-theory nonsense. It's good to see that Kristol, a vicious Republican operative who has never shied away from spewing nonsensical and utterly ridiculous talking points, isn't even pretending to play along with Beck.

But, you know, Beck is sort of right, too, isn't he? I mean, Kristol may talk principle but he's really all about power, about getting Republicans elected and keeping them there. Think back to the '90s, when he was the source of the Republican opposition to "Hillarycare," all because he didn't want Bill Clinton to have a victory on a key, and historic, social policy issue.

And yet Kristol isn't necessary all about power. He isolated himself in 2000, for example, with his support for the renegade John McCain and he has certainly spent much of his career in Washington, and inside Republican circles, pushing a specific neocon agenda, specifically around a neocon view of American global hegemony. That's about power, too, but national rather than personal, and I suppose Kristol has at times been willing to run counter to the prevailing winds in the Republican Party, even if, in public at least, he is generally a good team player.

Anyway, it's fun to see these two go after each other. And yet it's not just about two prominent conservatives trading insults, it's about a serious divide on the right, with Republicans unable to land on a coherent message, let alone one they can all agree with.

The situation in Egypt will slowly drift away from American consciousness and will likely have no play at all in next year's Republican primaries, but this divide and others will remain, and deepen, and Republicans, divided against themselves, might just unravel into all-out civil war.

Enjoy.

Glenn Beck is crazy, but he's one of the Democrats' best friends

By R.K. Barry

I usually get home around six and almost immediately turn on MSNBC and pretty much keep it on as background noise through most of the evening. If you watch MSNBC with any regularity, you will know that show after show presents the day's political events from a relatively mild liberal-left perspective – at least from my point of view. 

Lawrence O'Donnell, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, etc. are on the roster. If there is one thing I wish they would do it's compare notes a little bit better because it seems that night after night they all cover pretty much the same stuff. Now, I know when world-changing events such as are happening in Egypt occur, it's impossible for any political pundit to refrain from commenting and that's fine.

But last week, on one given night, every single show did a little rant on Glenn Beck's recent fearmongering, conspiracy-theory claim that the events in Egypt are prelude to a generalized takeover by Muslim extremists in all parts of the Middle East as well as Europe and, who knows, even perhaps the United States. His claim is typically supported by an argument that radical socialists and communists will make common cause with radical Muslims because, as he argues, they have a common enemy – capitalism and freedom-loving people everywhere.

Having said all of that, I must also quickly say that I don't give a fuck what Glenn Beck thinks, though apparently a lot of people who reject his views still seem pretty focused on them.

What I struggle with is the extent to which I should pay any attention to this fool at all. More often than I can say I have either written or otherwise commented that I no longer want to write about or think about Glenn Beck. But here I am again.

When his lies and idiotic theories put the life of a hard-working, civic-minded, academic in jeopardy, simply because she is on the left, in the same way that a lot of us are, we have to call him out. This is just dangerous nonsense and we have to address it. I am of course referring to what he has been doing to City University of New York professor Frances Fox Piven, which you can read more about here.

But typically what he goes on about is so stupid and without any intellectual value that I want to ignore it. Then I think about the impact that he and Rush Limbaugh and others on the radical right are having on our national debate and have to rethink my willingness to call it fringe behavior unworthy of attention.

We do notice that Republican politicians are loathe to criticize Beck and Limbaugh and others, knowing that, if they do, those who watch such programming and are influenced by it are highly motivated and inclined to punish at the polls anyone who attempts to challenge the passionately held, albeit nutty, views espoused by these guys.

And this is the point. Right-wing extremism in the media, through the power of a focused and unrelenting message and the reach of media conglomerates, has by now a pretty good track record of motivating a significant segment of the conservative base to influence nominations and general elections. But as we also know, the outcome has not always been a happy one for the conservative side.

The reason for their mixed success is that so much of politics, especially in nomination contests, happens at the margins. Nomination contests are frequently about motivating true believers to care about yet another layer of political contest, which is where extremism can flourish.

This is why we end up with incompetent and unsuccessful candidates like former Republican Senate nominees Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. This is why Sarah Palin can say any number of really stupid things and the Republican establishment has to pick its spots very carefully if it wants to criticize her. Establishment Republican candidates don't want to piss off those who are likely to be motivated enough to get involved in nomination battles, either as activists or voters. I don't know what percentage of the Republican base this characterizes. I don't know what percentage would be unhappy hearing their media heroes criticized by potential Republican candidates. Is it 5%, 10%, 15%? Whatever it is, it would be a big number in politics.

In politics, highly engaged voters at the margins are key. You need to keep them motivated, whether that motivation is about anger or about hope for a new future. They have a disproportionately important role to play in determining who gets to run in the general election. 

So, yes, I do resolve to pay limited attention to Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and the other right-wing crazies on the merits of their arguments, which, frankly, have no merit. But we should have no doubt that they are masters at stoking a certain kind of American political paranoia that has been with us for a long time, and let us at least give them their due for that.

A lot of people are saying that Beck has jumped the shark with his latest ramblings about Egypt. Maybe. For me, he's jumped so many sharks I've stopped counting.

I do think, however, that there is a bad moon rising for the Republicans as we head towards the 2012 elections, based on the dynamic put in play by the radical right and their cheerleaders on national television and radio.

Weak Republican candidates will continue to get nominated based in part on the passion of those on the margins who are driven by Beck and company. Republican presidential nominees will have to play to this constituency if they hope to secure the nomination, which almost surely guarantees their failure in the general election. There just aren't that many crazy people out there.

So there, I've talking myself into a changed position. Let's keep on talking about Glenn Beck. Let's help get his audience all excited and out of control. It can only help remind the sane part of the American electorate that they are not like Beck and those who take him seriously, that they are better than that.

I guess I also think that MSNBC should continue to go for it when it comes to Beck. But don't just do it in that way that you usually do, by mugging for the camera as he says one silly thing after another. That is just not that useful. No, I would challenge every responsible media outlet to ask every credible Republican nominee for office if they will disavow the crap spewed by Beck and Limbaugh. Force them to try to play the fringe of their own party against its vital center and then wish them good luck with that.

It's a little bit like House Speaker John Boehner being unwilling to criticize birthers in his own caucus.

Let us resolve, then, to make every Republican candidate wear the foolishness coming out of all those televisions and radios as Democrats march on to success in 2012. Seems like a plan.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Good riddance, Mubarak. The Egyptian people demand to be free.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

With a popular, pro-democratic uprising in full swing, and with their economy facing disaster, Egyptians took to the streets in huge numbers today in Cairo. In a country ruled for decades by a brutal authoritarian tyrant, it was simply extraordinary. The outcome of the uprising has been unclear, but change seemingly was at hand.

And then it came.

With the writing on the wall, President Hosni Mubarak, who has lost both popular and military support, finally announced that he would not stand for re-election -- not that Egyptian elections under Mubarak are free and fair:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he will not stand for re-election in September, as protests against his rule grow.

Speaking on state TV, Mr Mubarak promised constitutional reform, but said he wanted to stay until the end of his current presidential term.

The announcement came as hundreds of thousands rallied in central Cairo urging him to step down immediately.

US President Barack Obama said that Egypt's transition "must begin now".

As indeed it must. For while the American right is responding to the situation in Egypt with pro-Mubarak and therefore pro-tyranny paranoia, claiming that opposition leader Mohammed El Baradei is an Islamist and that, without Mubarak, the country will be taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood (which it misrepresents), there is good reason to believe that Egypt -- a relatively modern, secular state -- will emerge from this "crisis" with a moderately progressive government committed to liberty and democracy.

Glenn Beck may object to that, and so may the extremist pro-Israeli neocons, but the Egyptian people, having lived through decades of oppression, have every right to remake their country as they see fit, particularly if the future they envision is one that any liberal democrat should be able to embrace. (For the right, this is the usual hypocrisy. They talk up democracy in Iraq, emerging from a war they started, but Egypt must remain under a tyrannical yoke because they'd prefer to have a strongman in power there?)

President Obama was "clearly frustrated by... Mubarak's intention to retain his hold on power until elections later this year," as the WaPo puts it, but, as I have argued before, he deserves enormous credit for handling the situation so well. Without appearing to be too interventionist, given the delicate relationship the U.S. has both with Egypt and its neighbours in the Middle East, he carefully indicated U.S. support for the opposition, and for reform, and pushed Mubarak to leave:

In brief remarks at the White House, Obama made no mention of Mubarak's announcement that he had decided not to stand for reelection. Instead, Obama said he had told the Egyptian president in a telephone call that this was a "moment of transformation" in Egypt and that "the status quo is not sustainable."

Obama's message appeared carefully calibrated to avoid publicly calling for Mubarak to stand down, while making clear he should stand aside. Administration officials say they are seeking a transitional government, with or without Mubarak as its titular head, formed by representative reform leaders and backed by the Egyptian army that will address legitimate grievances, restore stability and plan for a free election. 

As the NYT notes, Obama sent an experienced envoy to Egypt on Sunday, former diplomat Frank Wisner, to urge Mubarak to step aside:

At a two-hour meeting at the White House last Saturday, Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser; William M. Daley, the White House chief of staff, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta; and other officials coalesced around a strategy to start trying to ease Mr. Mubarak out, an official said.

Mrs. Clinton, officials said, suggested that the administration send Mr. Wisner, a former ambassador to Egypt who knows Mr. Mubarak well, to deliver a message directly from Mr. Obama to the Egyptian leader. Officials said Mr. Wisner urged Mr. Mubarak to declare publicly that he would not run for re-election. But Mr. Wisner has extended his stay in Cairo, officials said, and may have a follow-up meeting with Mr. Mubarak if events seem to demand a quicker exit.

At the Saturday meeting, the officials also agreed that Mrs. Clinton would start calling for "an orderly transition" when she taped a round of interviews for the Sunday talk programs. Administration officials were already smarting from not coming out more fully in support of the protesters earlier.

Yes, Obama and others in his administration could have voiced their support for the opposition sooner, but, again, there was a need to proceed with caution, not least because the situation was so unclear, and remains so, and because, like it or not, Mubarak has been an important U.S. ally for a long time. What was needed was for the president to monitor the situation closely and then act, on little notice, when appropriate. He did that, and it seems to me he did it exceptionally well.

And so while conservatives lash out against those courageous Egyptians taking to the streets to shake off the yoke of oppression, and place themselves decidedly on the wrong side of history, Obama emerges from this situation -- which, admittedly, is still not over -- with his statesmanship strengthened.

But back to Egypt.

History is being made on the streets of Cairo and throughout the country. What we are witnessing is the force of freedom rising up against tyranny. It is a proud moment for Egypt, and those of us who genuinely wish well for the Egyptian people should applaud what is happening.

(photos)

Glenn Beck's continuing obsession with Professor Frances Fox Piven and the roots of violence in America

By R.K. Barry

Several months ago I published a post about Glenn Beck's obsession with City University of New York Professor Frances Fox Piven. I talked about having met her briefly in the early '80s in a grad course and about what a wonderful experience that was.

Mostly I wrote about how Beck, and those inclined to buy into his hateful message, can't stand anyone who helps poor people be heard or helps them make a legitimate claim to a decent life in America. I wrote about how Piven's career has been largely dedicated to helping us understand marginalized people and helping them help themselves, and that for this sin Beck was using the full weight of Fox News to vilify her.

Such was the nature of the bile directed at Professor Piven by Beck that it was clear that she would become a target for those misguided sorts who take Beck seriously, which is precisely what is starting to happen.

At the time I felt a bit like I was shouting in the wilderness, as few others seemed to be speaking out about this.

I was therefore pleased to see the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) get involved by writing a letter to Fox News directly to encourage the network to intervene.

In a press release dated January 20, 2011 about the letter, the CCR stated that it has:

issued a written appeal to Fox News president Roger Ailes to help put a stop to the increasing threats against progressive Professor Frances Fox Piven, largely incited by Fox News host Glenn Beck. In the letter, co-written by Legal Director Bill Quigley and Executive Director Vince Warren the CCR asks that Ailes distinguish between First Amendment rights, of which they are "vigorous defenders" and an "intentional repetition of provocative, incendiary, emotional misinformation and falsehoods [that place that person] in actual physical danger of a violent response."

The release goes on to say:

Beginning in September 2010, Glenn Beck started branding Piven, a distinguished professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, as an "enemy of the Constitution." Piven, well-known for advocating for the organizational rights of the poor and encouraging voter registration, has since received threatening phone calls and letters, and has become the subject of many death threats left open to the public on Glenn Beck's website, The Blaze.

Much as it sickens me to repeat some of the threats here, people need to know what we are up against. Here are just a few that appeared on Beck's website:

-- "Maybe they should burst through the front door of this arrogant elitist and slit the hateful cow's throat."

-- "We should blow up Piven's office and home."

-- "Big lots is having a rope sale I hear, you buy the rope and I will hang the wench. I will spin her as she hangs."

Suffice to say, they are disgusting.

Unlike in Arizona, the connections are clear. Beck has picked a target and he is to blame for the violent responses that have followed.

Beck has been getting away with slandering Professor Piven the way he slanders everyone else: with lies and innuendo. He did to her what he does with everyone else with whom he disagrees: he called her an enemy of the state; in fact, he specifically called her an enemy of the Constitution, whatever that means.

I am so weary of pointing out that Beck is a monumental asshole who can only be taken seriously by other assholes. He panders to the worst in those either too stupid or too lazy to do their own research. He feeds people's fears by creating enemies for them, which is always the best way for people to feel good about themselves when they have limited options.

But, in truth, Beck is not that clever. What he is doing has been done successfully throughout history. Pick an enemy, any enemy. Tell lies about them. Get people to focus their energy and anger on hating the outsiders, which, as I said, makes them feel good about themselves, makes them feel a part of something larger and important, at least in the short term.

Entire nations have been built on this insidious in-group / out-group tactic.

As I wrote months ago, Professor Piven's "crime" is that she has been successful in pointing out serious shortcomings in the American experience, especially in the way it treats poor people. She does what people like Beck can't tolerate. She tells the truth and at the same time tells us that we have a lot of work to do if we are to make America the country we would like it to be. Beck peddles simple answers for simple minds. Get in the way of that and expect to be made an enemy of this self-righteous fool. Expect to be made a target.

This is hateful, despicable stuff, though Fox News has already said it will do nothing about it, as it serves its dual mandate of being a mouthpiece for the loony right in America and of making lots of money for Rupert Murdoch.

I have said this so often I am getting tired. We may not yet know fully what happened in Arizona, but what Beck is doing to Professor Piven is the clearest example of a problem about which many of us are so worried. Say that your political adversaries are enemies of the state. Imply that they must be stopped and then step back until some deranged bastard decides to take on the task – until some unbalanced nutjob decides that he can become a hero to the "in-group" created by Glenn Beck and those in his camp.

This is the point. It's already happening in America. What more has to happen before Fox News decides that there is too much of a downside to being associated with someone as disgusting as Glenn Beck? What precisely?

(Cross-posted from Lippmann's Ghost.)