Glenn Beck is a Teenage Girl

“When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat.” --George Carlin

Even though he has only been on Fox News a short while, Glenn Beck has already pole-vaulted himself into the Crazy Wingnut Hall of Fame. Which is why I haven't written anything about him: too easy. Like kicking a baby clown. But when friend H. said "Glenn Beck is a teenage girl" (in re: the crying, and the weird thing he did with Sarah Palin, where he read his journal to her on air) well, I had to find some way to pass such a witty observation on to you, the masses (all four of you).

I looked for the clip in which Beck cries about loving his country, but it wasn't in the first three clips I found. And I love you people, but not enough to sit through more than three clips of Glenn Fucking Beck, I'll tell you what. The first one was a sit down with O'Reilly in which they had a little gabfest about progressivism. Beck was big enough to say that Obama is not "technically" a Marxist. Because in Marxism, Beck says, there is a revolution, and progressives just come to get you bit by bit. Marxism is like a big shark, and progressivism is like a bunch of piranhas, I guess. Then O'Reilly chimed in about how he got Obama to admit that he was in favor of the redistribution of wealth, which gave one furiously to think: hey, wait, isn't capitalism a system for the redistribution of wealth? Once you move beyond bartering a chicken for some butter, any system of trade is inevitably going to redistribute wealth from some people to other people. But, you know, whatever. They then chortled about the "fact" that progressives want to "take all your stuff."

I only made it through 45 seconds of the next clip I found, which was about some guy whose daughter had been kidnapped, and Beck swore she wouldn't be forgotten, &c. &c. Who knows what that was about. The above clip is one in which Beck decides that the White House is peopled with "radical Marxists" (so Obama pals around with radical Marxists, even though he isn't technically one himself).

Watching these things is painful because it's just baffling that anyone, anywhere, believes what this man is saying. Do they not ever ask themselves, "Hey, what exactly is a Marxist?" or "Since this guy is anti-big business, I assume that Fox News is a Mom & Pop media group?" The Rude Pundit has a great post up (which is part of the impetus for this post) about Beck's version of history, in which Calvin Coolidge* (!^@%@&!!) was a great President, and Progressivism died because of Wilson's failed League of Nations (uh, no). Strangely, he forgets to mention the active Socialist movement in the United States during this same time period, or even the numerous experiments with communes throughout American history.

I suppose the point of this post (beyond "Hey, what a jackass that guy is") is that it's hard to see how reasoned debate can work with people who believe what this man is saying. It's like negotiating with the inmates of the insane asylum about how the asylum should function.**

*In my AP U.S. History Class (crowd: elitist! [throws tomatoes]) we were told that the only thing worth noting about Coolidge was his campaign slogan, which was "Keep Cool With Coolidge." This had to have been a lame slogan, even by the low standards of campaign slogans. Was he promising everyone ice cream? Otherwise, Coolidge was just filler between Wilson and FDR.

**That metaphor may be revised later, when I have more time to think about it. Other suggestions for appropriate metaphors are welcome.