I’ve been having this running argument with one of my right leaning brothers over current political topics, and he accused me of making light of both Rush Limbaugh (aka Lard Ass) and Glenn Beck without actually ever listening to them.
He was completely wrong about Lard-o, who has had ample opportunities to turn my head with his sweet talk, and failed miserably; but I have to confess that Beck is a different matter. I’d never actually seen his show, just miscellaneous clips on other media that, while outrageous (“President Obama hates white people.”) were certainly chosen to show what a nut job he is.
So Monday I turned the telly to Fox at 5:00 and watched an entire Glenn Beck hour. Where to begin? Well, first of all, as someone who made a living for a long time by pitching ideas to people, I have to say this guy is impressive on his feet.
He opened the show with a thirty minute anti-Obama rant that was intellectual Swiss cheese, but he did it very, very deftly. He may have been using a teleprompter but it looked totally extemporaneous; and he used his trademarked chalkboard effectively to emphasize his points. It’s easy to see how he has built an audience.
Now, as for substance, that’s a different matter. The “facts” flew too fast to write many of them down, but he is very loose with them and accomplished at twisting small truths into big lies.
He sources almost nothing. He said the insurance industry had a net margin of 3.8% and ranked #88 among all industries. (His point being they should not be regulated.) No source and no year were offered. According to the FORTUNE 500 list for 2009 their actual margin was 4.6% and ranked #22. Not all that great either, but why not get it right?
More surprising to me was the tone. That opening half hour was an amazing cocktail of anger, sarcasm and distain directed at the President, Democrats, “progressives,” and even some Republicans. But these groups by-no-means received equal scorn. When he talked about Obama, Dems, liberals, or the new boogie-man, “progressives,” his tone of voice and facial expressions were what you might expect if he were lambasting pedophiles. It was highly bombastic. Opinions were presented as facts and given an air of believability through the use of PowerPoint charts and bullet points – but no sources.
One of his favorite rhetorical tricks is to say something like, “well Obama says he wants A, but what he really wants is A, B, and C and once he gets them he’ll take E, F, G, & H too! It’s obvious.” By the time he’s done you’re wondering how the hell we even got to talking about H – it certainly wasn’t because he presented any evidence to that effect.
He closed his anti-health-care-bill rant by daring the Democrats to pass the reconciled bill and “ruining the greatest health care system in the world.” He claimed that they won’t, because without Republican support they’d have to take all the blame themselves. I’m not sure that is false. One fact he is sure of is that the American people oppose this bill and he is right out in front of the parade.
He also caught Obama red-handed with two separate video clips declaring very different versions of his past involvement with ACORN, a particular Beck-noire.
On the “fair and balanced” side of the equation he took repeated shots at the GOP, calling them “unprincipled” and saying they are addicted to big government and big spending. He said there is a “tax and spend party” and a “no tax and spend party” and both are corrupt. Again, hard to argue with that and it is remarkably similar to Paul Krugman’s take earlier this week.
But for Beck there are Republicans and there are Republicans. He was very hard on both John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger because of their “progressive” tendencies. He even smeared Teddy Roosevelt. “Progressive” is the new “liberal” and Beck is hell-bent to make it just as pejorative a political term.
I’m torn about how to think about this guy. His views and style are obnoxious, but his waving of the bloody flag has clearly created a following. I doubt many of his fans have contemplated what Beck’s version of the Federal government would mean to them. He wasn’t specific the other day, but it seems he would limit it to the State and Defense Department -- and maybe not the latter. Everything else would be done (or more likely, not done) by the states. How many Americans would ever actually buy into that view -- 20-25% maybe?
I don’t know, but it would be a mistake to not take this guy seriously, and as Kurt Anderson recently posted, it is really important that everyone ask the right-wing of the GOP (which is rapidly becoming the only wing), as often and as loudly as possible, exactly what it is they plan to cut from the Federal budget once they pull their tea bag out of their cups.
I’m feeling kind of random today. It could be Floridian Disconnected Syndrome, but more likely my mind is just drifting to the DeLand St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl starting in a couple hours.
Posts
