Conservative host BECK-oning for more attention
Janet Harper
Issue date: 10/6/09 Section: Opinion
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Glenn Beck has a built a career around being hated. He portrays himself as the underdog, victimized by the liberal media machine. He feeds off of this perceived underdog status, attracting viewers who believe they are also victims of the biased left-wing agenda.
In reality, the mainstream media loves him, and I don't just mean Fox News, the cable "news" network that employs him. Rival stations love him too.
Without using Beck as the grading curve for honesty and ethics in journalism, most mainstream journalists come out looking pretty bad. Before Beck, that responsibility fell on the likes of Rush Limbaugh and his slightly less abrasive cousin, Bill O'Reilly. After awhile, even their rhetoric gets old, and you have to find someone louder, angrier, and quicker to pull the race card out of his bag of tricks.
Giving such madness any sort of scrutiny is, in a way, enabling it to continue. You don't give a lighter to a pyromaniac.
The angry mobs that crowded the National Mall in Washington, DC, a few weeks ago are proof that he has at least a few thousand eager followers, poised and ready to take up arms at his whim.
Beck heavily promoted the rally on his Fox News show, prompting his viewers to regress, according to his Web site, "back to the way we were on September 12, 2001… united as Americans, standing together to protect the values and principals of the greatest nation ever created."
Unfortunately, in practice, this means masses of duped citizens taking cheap shots at the president, using the familiar political insult of comparing whoever you dislike to Hitler.
After this parade of stupidity, I really started to notice the hype surrounding Beck, where before I only watched with passing amusement. For example, there was the time that he told his Fox News audience that global warming wasn't just a lie, but "the greatest scam in history."
Since then, his wild theories have become more and more delusional, claiming that Barack Obama "has a deep seated hatred for white people," and that the Cash for Clunkers program was really just a ploy to gain access to your computer so that the government could spy on you.
Glenn Beck is a different beast than we are used to. He's not just another angry talking-head. He's a major force to be reckoned with, a powerful messianic figure aimed to drill into the reserves of social unrest, and the fear that the American racial hierarchy is turning upside-down. If the media continues to give credence to this nonsense by debating his bogus claims, they can share in the guilt of the aftermath.
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