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Southern Avenger

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Friday, October 23, 2009

Who Hates Glenn Beck?

Posted by Jack Hunter on Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 5:34 PM

The following is a portion (it's too long to post the whole thing here) of my new article in The American Conservative about talk host Glenn Beck, his critics on the Right and what bothers them most about the FOX pundit's meteoric popularity (hint, it isn't just his wacky style):

Who Hates Glenn Beck?

By Jack Hunter

His talk-radio brethren have less of a problem with his histrionics than with his evolving libertarianism

Warning that popular talk radio and Fox News host Glenn Beck was “Harmful to the Conservative Movement,” Peter Wehner wrote on Commentary’s “Contentions” blog in September: “he seems to be more of a populist and libertarian than a conservative, more of a Perotista than a Reaganite. His interest in conspiracy theories is disquieting, as is his admiration for Ron Paul and his charges of American ‘imperialism.’ (He is now talking about pulling troops out of Afghanistan, South Korea, Germany, and elsewhere.)”

Wehner is not alone in his criticism. When Beck told CBS News’ Katie Couric, “John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama,” fellow radio talker and New York Times bestselling author Mark Levin fired back: “to say that he would be worse than a president who’s a Marxist, who’s running around the world apologizing for our nation, who’s slashing our defense budget … to say he would be worse is mindless … incoherent, as a matter of fact.”

Beck has been criticized from both Left and Right for his melodramatic, sometimes conspiracy-minded, intermittently bizarre style. But his conservative critics seem most offended not by Beck’s manner but by his deviationism. He won’t stick to the ideological script.

Conservative radio and TV punditry has a strict set of ground rules. Whatever Democrats are up to is bad; Republicans aren’t perfect, but they are worth cheering for and at least deserve the benefit of the doubt. Rush Limbaugh’s occasional guest host Michael Medved reflected talk-radio orthodoxy perfectly when he said, “For those Americans who want to fight back against the menacing expansion of government and the insanely irresponsible spending of the Obama administration, there is only one way to succeed: electing more Republicans to high office.” But as Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic notes, Beck is an exception: “Beck claims to be non-partisan. Conservative, yes, but disdainful of the GOP, with no vested interest in seeing Republicans return to power.”

During the George W. Bush years, Beck’s politics were less differentiated from those of other radio talkers. He deferred to the Bush administration, promoted militarism as patriotism, and called the day’s news along partisan lines. When Ron Paul received national attention for questioning America’s interventionist foreign policy during a 2007 GOP presidential primary debate, Beck called Paul “crazy” and asked, “how did this guy get on stage?” At the time there were no complaints about Beck from the likes of Wehner and Levin — because Beck sounded much like them.

Sometimes he still does, mashing recycled neoconservative jargon with wild-eyed panic about the growth of government power under Obama. But however politically incoherent or ideologically imperfect his rants may be, Beck, unlike other conservative media celebrities, seems to have learned something from the past eight years. He said in September:

I am becoming more and more libertarian every day, I guess the scales are falling off of my eyes, as I’m doing more and more research into history and learning real history. Back at the turn of the century in 1900, with Teddy Roosevelt — a Republican — we started this, ‘we’re going to tell the rest of the world,’ ‘we’re going to spread democracy,’ and we really became, down in Latin America, we really became thuggish and brutish. It only got worse with the next progressive that came into office — Teddy Roosevelt, Republican progressive — the next one was a Democratic progressive, Woodrow Wilson, and we did … we empire built. The Democrats felt we needed to empire build with one giant global government … The Republicans took it as, we’re going to lead the world and we’ll be the leader of it … I don’t think we should be either of those. I think we need to mind our own business and protect our own people. When somebody hits us, hit back hard, then come home.

When he made headlines by saying that McCain would have been worse than Obama, Beck explained to Couric, “McCain is this weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was.”

Read the entire article

Topics: National Politics

Comments (12) RSS

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Translated from the pedantic writing of the author:

"Since I can't actually counter anything that's being discussed by them, I'm going to try and debase them and avoid any actual introspection"

Rather than pretending like someone is refuted because you can find someone that agrees with you is akin to saying that because others agree with your opponent they must also therefore be right... Food for thought since you seem to not be digesting much at the moment.

Posted by kiaghi7 on October 23, 2009 at 7:43 PM | Report this comment

>Rather than pretending like someone is refuted because you can find someone that agrees with you is akin to saying that because others agree with your opponent they must also therefore be right...

.... that is the most incoherent rambling I've read all day. Did you skip your meds or something?

Posted by huck on October 24, 2009 at 12:33 AM | Report this comment

Let's hope Jack Hunter only draws attention from the Charleston City Paper! I agree with the first comment regarding this article...it is shallow and pedantic, lacking any original thought and praising thoughts from foolish fools......

Posted by CHADAMAN on October 24, 2009 at 12:37 AM | Report this comment

Article is a great example of Liberism 101.

Posted by Merrysmiles on October 24, 2009 at 1:41 AM | Report this comment

Saying anything good about Glenn Beck is like praising a pedophile that you think has reformed. Glenn Beck was instrumental in helping the GOP nominate McCain instead of Ron Paul as their candidate. Glenn Beck called him and his supporters tin foil hat people amongst other slurs. He is a Rupert Murdoch puppet. Don't fall for his fake dribble. Don't be 'pleased' about the things he and Hannity say. They can swap their opinions tomorrow!! If you say anything good about them you are being NEOCONNED.

Posted by gadsen on October 25, 2009 at 5:04 AM | Report this comment

What the heck is "liberism"? As to "foolish fools," the categorization is not only redundant, but tautological. Further, if you actually harbor the idea that Ron Paul had even the remotest chance of being the Republican Party's nominee, I suggest you take Huck's advice and get your meds checked. Having an opinion is one thing. Having in informed opinion is entirely another.

Posted by mofred on October 25, 2009 at 9:20 PM | Report this comment

Without regard to any one individual's feelings about Beck (love him or hate him), there can be no denying of his influence. He has put three books on the NY Times bestseller list in the past twelve months and has a huge national radio and TV audience which grows with each new rating period. Whether his "leaning libertarian - big government sucks" enlightenment is an act for profit, or an actual awakening is irrelevant - the fact that his ratings mirror his "transformation" speaks volumes about the current mood of the electorate. They are pissed about big spending politicians of all political stripes. And the White House wouldn't be going to the extreme measure of dissing all of Fox news if weren't for the Beck TV show's expose of Acorn, Van Jones, and most recently, Mao devotee and WH press director Anita Dunn. The fact that the NY Times issued a mea culpa after "missing" the Acorn and Van Jones story says as much about them as it does about Beck. Of course, the problem with Beck for this White House, and the reason they can't just dismiss him as a right wing clown, are those pesky facts that his staff keeps digging up. When he says Dunn is a fan of Chairman Mao people might think "Oh sure, that's some right wing nut jobs opinion." When he shows you the video of Ms. Dunn telling high school kids that Mao is one of her favorite political philosophers, it becomes much harder to ignore. Beck puts people in the uncomfortable position of having to decide what is true. Either Beck is an uninformed buffoon with an agenda against the current administration, or the current administration really is the collection of radicals, socialists and progressives that filled Obama's rolodex and fueled his meteoric rise out of the sewer of the Chicago machine. If Beck manages to connect with the squishy middle of the electorate, it will be a game changer. And if Beck manages to engage and inform the squishy middle, and they stop voting for crooked career politicians, he becomes a mortal threat to those who think they are the most powerful people on earth. Those two big ifs are the reason that Mr. Beck will be the target of an all out character assassination in the coming months, and are also the reason I will keep listening and watching. When politicians fear media exposure, it means the media is doing its job protecting our interests.

Posted by I P Yuengling on October 26, 2009 at 6:06 PM | Report this comment

If you think my outing Neocons is about Obama or Democrats or liberals you’ve been NEOCONNED!, Defending the Dream Freedom Watch, American Thinker, American Independent Party, CNSNews.com, WorldNetDaily and most conservative media outlets Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp/Fox News/WSJ, with Glenn Beck has swayed the illiterate masses into supporting Neoconservative movement. But to win they must take over the Ron Paul Republicans & Libertarians and combine it into what They want the Republican Party to be. The only way the Neo-Con Republicans can beat the Democrats is to fool the rest of us into thinking their way is the only path to victory. Beware of Neocon Republicans or independents posing as Libertarians. They’re just recruiting sheeple.

Posted by gadsen on October 29, 2009 at 4:56 AM | Report this comment

The problem that we have is that the liberal (Dems) want socialism and tell us what to do every minute our lives. Then the conservatives (supposedly Republicans, though they don't support right leaning candidates) who are passing laws about morals and security (a joke), treating us as if all are terrorist and trying to tell us what to do. On the other hand we have the libertarians who want less government, less taxes, less regulation and more freedom. Who is the better of the three?

We need to be out of foreign wars, eliminate the war on drugs and allow people to buy medications without a prescription (imagine the savings and I am an MD), eliminate regulations coming out of Washington, markedly reduce taxes and spending and printing money. The list can go on but we need government out of our lives.

Posted by david7134 on October 29, 2009 at 5:43 PM | Report this comment

Gadsen: Thank you for that fascinating insider's report on the ignorant masses. The "neocons" will never be able to fool you as long as you keep listening to straight talkers like Ed, Keith and Rachel on MSNBC (Mainstream Socialism's National Barack Channel)!

Posted by I P Yuengling on October 31, 2009 at 3:15 PM | Report this comment

Glenn Beck's facial mugging on his show is insufferable. He's become an emoticon. In fact, he looks exactly like the emoticon which depicts the face of a guy nursing a gas bubble. You know the one. He proves that people will watch anything, even a reality cartoon. His books sales prove people will read anything. Aw, I dont wanna talk about it. :(

Posted by chris broe on November 18, 2009 at 4:51 PM | Report this comment

I hate him, but also pity him a little. At some level (he doesn't seem to have many), he must realize how fucked up and sociopathic he really is.

Posted by pugnax on November 18, 2009 at 7:07 PM | Report this comment

Jack Hunter
Columnist

The "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator (WTMA 1250 AM talk radio) and columnist (Charleston City Paper) living in Charleston, South Carolina.