Glenn Beck

SOURCE: August Pollak

[Editor’s Note: Back in 2007, we wrote about how terrible Glenn Beck was. At the time, we said, “You may not have heard of Glenn Beck yet, but you will.” Unfortunately, we didn’t realize how right we were. After he called thousands (although not millions, as some claimed) to protest health care reform in Washington, D.C., and other cities around the nation, he has pushed his way to the front of public debate. But it’s important to remember why he’s an “ignorant windbag.”]

You may not have heard of Glenn Beck yet, but you will. As the ultra-conservative political commentator quickly rises in prominence, he is dragging American political discourse to new lows. In the polarized political theater that has become television news, the honesty of this self-described “recovering alcoholic rodeo clown with limited education,” might be, at first glance, refreshing. He does not consider himself a journalist, but an opinion guy who is “as conservative as you can get,” and even at his most indignant, never froths at the mouth like an O’Reilly or Hannity. But, occasional disclosure of bias notwithstanding, Beck is still reprehensible. At best, he attempts to pass off far-right talking points as mere common sense. At his worst, when Beck climbs into his primetime pulpit to bear false witness and fear-monger, the levity and humility vanish as he pitches the apocalypse-du-jour and vilifies liberals.

Glenn Beck, born in 1964, began his media career shortly after high school. As a Top 40 radio DJ in Connecticut, he established himself as a local morning host. As Beck tells it, after more than a decade of this, he entered into a non-degree program at Yale University thanks to a recommendation letter from Sen. Joe Lieberman. Due to a combination of personal divorce, tragic family circumstances, alcoholism, and cocaine abuse, Beck quickly failed out.

After sobering up and becoming a Mormon, Beck resumed his career in 2000 as a talk-radio host in Miami. The Glenn Beck Program quickly rose in local rankings, going into national syndication shortly afterwards. The three-hour show, billed as “half the politics and twice the comedy,” attracts about 3 million listeners nationwide.

Beck’s incoherent politics—sometimes libertarian, as in the case of opposing a minimum-wage increase; bigoted and populist on the issue of undocumented workers; and socially conservative on choice issues—are a reflection of his own shallow understanding of politics as well as his ratings-motivated ideological flexibility. Infused with sketch comedy that has all the wit and nuance of Larry the Cable Guy, Beck’s shtick may be acceptable for talk-radio, but not for the journalistic mainstream. Yet in an April 2006 press release, CNN advertised the “unique,” “engaging,” and “no-nonsense” approach that Beck would be bringing as “the perfect next step in the evolution of the Headline Prime line-up.”

Beck, despite being characterized by CNN as “cordial,” was already notorious for his pathological lack of empathy for disaster victims and their families. In one radio segment, Beck bemoaned what he saw as the constant complaining of 9/11 victims’ families, wishing they would “shut up.” Segueing into his reflections on New Orleans, Beck commented, “I didn’t think I could hate [Katrina] victims faster than the 9-11 victims,” before proceeding to call those who remained in the New Orleans “scumbags.” Prone to articulating his exasperation with gory hyperbole (his oratorical repertoire includes “blood is going to shoot out of my eyes” and “makes you want to put a gun in your mouth”), Beck once indulged himself in an on-air fantasy of “choking the life out” of filmmaker Michael Moore.

Yet, in May of 2006, the hour-long, Glenn Beck on Headline News began to air nightly on CNN’s Headline News channel. Beck might say that he is no journalist, but CNN seemed not to care. He began appearing as a commentator on other CNN shows, and in November of 2006, hosted a special program called Exposed: The Extremist Agenda. The inflammatory, uninformative special on anti-Americanism in the Middle East, which included Beck expressing “surprise” that a letter critical of Al-Qaeda came from a Muslim, followed close on the heels of another controversy involving Beck’s take on Islam. In an interview with Keith Ellison, America’s first Muslim congressman, Beck provided the disclaimer of “I know Muslims” and “I like Muslims” before saying this: "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies. And I know you’re not. I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.”

Yet after Ellison took the oath of office using a Koran, Beck appeared on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, calling criticism of Ellison “ridiculous,” “nonsense,” and a “non-issue.”

Such apparent inconsistency shouldn’t be surprising from a man who can decry the dangers of divisive rhetoric one moment, and draw parallels between Democrats and Hitler the next. Beck’s lowest moments include calling anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan a “pretty big prostitute,” labeling former President Jimmy Carter a “waste of skin,” portraying all undocumented Mexican immigrants as “terrorists” “who can’t make a living in their own dirt bag country,” responding to George Clooney’s Academy Awards speech by mimicking blackface, and defending McCarthyism. In January of 2007 he became a contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America, hired over the protests of three Muslim-American groups.

Glenn Beck hosts one of the most highly-coveted timeslots on a respected news channel that most Americans watch expecting to be given sound and reliable information, but he apparently feels no responsibility to provide that. A typical show often begins with what Beck calls candy, a segment “absolutely of no value” discussing, for example, Madonna or the Oscars. Shortly thereafter, Beck moves on to reminding Americans what they need to be afraid of, with enough warmongering to keep them just terrified enough to tune in the next day and vote conservative in the meantime. He ends with “The Point,” a typically absurd and outright moronic overstatement of a conservative policy gripe, and a feeble attempt to recap how he arrived at such an indefensible conclusion. His bête noir of late seems to be Iranian President Ahmadinejad (who Beck refers to as President Tom so that he can pronounce it), but he is equally at ease conjuring the cataclysmic events that could emanate from Islam, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, multiculturalism, immigration, pornography, or the Democratic party.

As much as Glenn Beck postures as a non-partisan, regular, good-ole red-blooded American, the only significant point of contention between him and his ideological brethren on the right seems to be whether the inevitable apocalyptic conflict we are facing would be World War III, IV, or V (Beck prefers III while John Gibson has said IV and Hannity has said V.) In a recent interview with Radar Magazine, Beck was asked ”Don’t you ever feel like you’re full of shit?” Beck replied with the affirmative “every single day.”

Beck indulges in violent, bigoted, and deliberately provocative statements to try to reaffirm his political-outsider, average-Joe persona, passing off offensive provocation as bold and rare displays of honesty in media. But what Beck’s defenders admire in his occasional willingness to admit he’s wrong is no defense; it is sheer disregard for facts and pride in anti-intellectualism. Ultimately, being a disingenuous, right-wing partisan, fear-mongering, cheap-shot taking, ignorant windbag isn’t the kind of sin that can be absolved through confession, especially if one repeats the act night after night on CNN. When Beck was first approached for TV, he reportedly balked at the idea. Maybe he should’ve trusted his gut.

 
Illustration: August J. Pollak

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