Glenn Beck is a Tremendous Douchebag

I have to hand it to Glenn Beck; he has made a career out of saying things that fire up his detractors while simultaneously making sense to his devoted listeners. It's hard to strike a balance on that fence. </admiration>

I used to listen to Beck on the radio about five/six years ago when I was working building sets for a community theatre. I found about 1/3 of his ranting relevant. 1/3 didn't interest me. 1/3 made me shout expletives at the radio. But around the time of the 2004 election, folks like Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity became even more polarized than I'd ever noticed. Or maybe they were always like that and I was, for the first time, making note of it. They had all become mouthpieces for the administration, cheerleaders for war.

Radio to TV, daily shows expanded, and the wingnut media bled finally bled into mainstream television in May of 2006 with Glenn Beck's show. The parts I've seen have inflamed my anger and lowered my tolerance towards ignorance. I was actually in the process of compiling reconstituted pieces of his mindless logorrhea when his audio appeared on NPR. And Think Progress beat me to it. From their story, some of Beck's more memorable bits:

The anti-gay slur "faggot" is nothing more than "a naughty name." [1/23/07]

"What happened to the Duke lacrosse team was practically a lynching without the rope. And for the first time in my life, Mr. Oreo Cookie without the chocolate on the outside can understand why people celebrated when O.J. Simpson was acquitted." [1/15/07, using a racial slur for African-Americans that refers to being black on the outside and white on the inside]

"[W]hat I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'" [11/14/06, on what he would like to say to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first elected Muslim member of Congress]

"I wonder if I’m alone in this — you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims’ families? Took me about a year." [9/9/05]

"And that’s all we’re hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we’re seeing on television are the scumbags." [9/9/05]

Interestingly, the story talks about how Beck criticized Limbaugh and divisive rhetoric in a classic pot/kettle moment (don't worry, he's categorically denied that he meant what he said).

I impetus of the onus to create this entry was the "naughty name" comment. "Faggot" is a naughty word, but it's also a slur, which has its roots in bigotry, which has its roots in ignorance. GLADD's pissed. And CNN is backing him. Makes no difference: Glenn Beck wins the WTF Award.

All these guys, but Beck in particular, remind me of the kid in Jr. High and High School who always talked shit; he never had much logical reasoning, but always had an audience. That kid grew up and got a radio show. Then a contract with CNN. And that kid's audience grew up too and they pined for his tales and antics and eventually found their surrogate on the AM dial or cable news.

Which leaves me. And while the Nancy Grace / Glenn Beck evening combo congeals into the most unwatchable four hours of television nightly, I watch on occasion. Because it's good to know what idiots heads are being filled with. Because, every once in a while, it's good to clench your jaw, shake your fist, and shout naughty names at the television.

"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."
- Will Durant