Glenn Beck’s descent into sheer madness, something I think that started as an attempt to boost his ratings, has now devolved into him simulating pouring gasoline on people in the studio. I’m really not sure how much of an act it is anymore, and as far as I can tell he has seriously lost the plot and needs help.
Also, in a somewhat related vein, Sullivan is exactly right– these are not tea parties, they are tea tantrums.
TR
Next week, it’ll be real gas.
Just Some Fuckhead
Beautiful day here. Wanna get out of the office and get started on the weekend.
JM
Beautiful reference in the title, btw.
I need to re-buy that album.
woody
Glenn Beck: The Pundit for you if Hannity’s too complicated
cleek
yeah, but this one time, an anonymous submitter on a lefty website once compared Bush to Hitler, so it’s all even.
Wisdom
Mad: Talking head does skit
Sane: Democrats happy that banks are doing so well with the "stress tests"
cd6
Sure Glenn Beck is claiming Obama wants to set Americans on fire, but one time Keith Olbermann said some things, so fair is fair, moonbats. No backsies.
JK
Glenn Beck is a malignant media carcinogen. Everything Beck says on the air is a lie including the words "and" and "the".
Beck belongs in a strait jacket and needs to be given some anti-psychotic drugs.
woody
O/t, slightly, referring to the sarahpac ad:
If La Palin ever needs real work, I’m pretty sure I could get her a job in landscaping. That jaw’s GOTTA move at least half-a-yard…
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead: Speaking of clowns, I had to click on this google ad up top.
I think it might be of interest to you in your career change musings.
GambitRF
Who else found that the little cartoon graphic on the bottom saying "Don’t worry, its just water!" actually made it way more unsettling than it would’ve been without it? I don’t think most TV show hosts would feel the need to explicitly explain to their audience that they weren’t actually pouring gasoline on somebody. Its almost like he really was going to light a guy on fire, but his production manager or something was like "uhh… maybe we should just pour water out of a gas canister on a guy and pretend like its gas," and Beck begrudgingly replied, "I guess… for now…"
gbear
Buy this dogma or we shoot this studio tech.
Beck is turning into the world’s unhippest Jim Morrison wannabe – pushing the envelope just to see what the edge looks like. It won’t end pretty.
srv
So John, are you the boy who cried "wolf" on peak wingnut?
It’s as though the Fluffersphere(tm) has become completely covered with santorum.
Jay B.
@GambitRF:
Next time it becomes Mayor Quimby telling people that no matter how realistic it looks, he’s merely mimicking the voltage and punishment meted out by Springfield’s Municipal Electric Chair.
John S.
Here’s someone that perhaps even the likes of Wisdumb and Shitbrick Bill would listen to:
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rick Moran.
You know, in retrospect I am glad that Bush was given the presidency in 2000. Because if this is how conservatives behave when a Democrat wins in a landslide and has only been in office for a couple months, I can’t even fathom how these fucking babies would have handled a contentious election decided by activist judges.
We wouldn’t have had 9/11 because Republicans would have burned the entire country to the fucking ground themselves by June 2000.
gbear
@cd6:
Mature discourse much?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W: Other people’s kids suck. And balloons scare me. Also.
Dennis-SGMM
Beck can do whatever he wants: his insanity defense is already on tape.
smiley
Interestingly, Beck doesn’t cry on his radio show.
gwangung
FTW.
Dang. Can’t top that.
cleek
why he’s a veritable Andy Kaufman of punditry !
maybe he’s serious. maybe he’s some kind of genius doing truly avant- performance art: in on the joke, but unwilling to let us know if there’s even a joke to be in on. maybe he’s a liberal trying to make conservatism look silly: out-Colberting Colbert. or he could be plain ol crazy.
whichever, he’s a douchebag.
chuck
On himself. We can dream.
Ned R.
You should read Rick’s follow-up. Even more scabrous.
JK
It would be interesting to get Beck psychoanalyzed to find out how he evolved into a ranting tinfoil conspiracy lunatic.
Calouste
And when you loose control, you’ll reap the harvest you have sown.
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone.
And it’s too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around.
So have a good drown, as you go down, all alone,
Dragged down by the stone.
wasabi gasp
That cat’s something I can’t explain.
Dennis-SGMM
Beck is waiting for Sweeps Week to lose bowel and bladder control on-air. Watch out, Bill O’Reilly!
joes527
@John S.:
I’m not so sure.
I firmly believe that some of the unhinged-ness is due to the fact that a large number of folks just don’t remember the Republicans being out of power. This is a combination of truly awful long term memory, and the fact that young conservative gasbags were in elementary school the last time we had a Democratic President.
For these people the world has been turned upside down. Change is scary.
Now add folks like Rush and Beck who are cashing in on feeding the fear. (I don’t believe for a minute that Beck is actually unhinged. He is laughing all the way to the bank)
Rather than folks calming down and realizing "Wow – power can shift in this country and it all still works (as has always been the case)" we end up with folks who end up believing that this change is THE END.
Marked Hoosier
What I find very, very entertaining is the people on the right who are calling for sanity and reason are being torn down by the radical right… for being wrong?
Pass the popcorn, and extra butter on that please.
Brick Oven Bill
I have posed this question several times now and have never got a solid answer, so I will ask it again. Please provide me with examples of times where Glenn Beck has either willfully or unknowingly, provided any false or misleading information. The question is about content, not presentation.
The way I see it Beck’s presentation is an entertainment format, similar to John Stewart’s, but with a more solid basis in the Constitution, the principles behinds it, and fact.
‘Glenn Beck sucks’ does not count. Projecting thoughts into his presentation does not count.
gbear
Obama is not setting up detention camps.
Face
@Brick Oven Bill: Just one of many, many instances.
So please just STFU with the "provide me with……x" bullshit. You’ve been provided.
Dennis-SGMM
Possibly because you do not want a solid answer, you want an argument.
DougJ
At least he didn’t cut the guy’s ear off.
Brick Oven Bill
Here is a response for Batter #1:
There have been rumors of FEMA detention camps circulating for over a decade. Beck partnered with Popular Mechanics to look into the question. And upon doing the research, broadcast that the rumors were in fact BS, and that the ‘concentration camp’ images being circulated were actually from an active Amtrak maintenance facility in Indiana.
Beck broadcast that the voice on the tapes in question was that of a 1990s militia leader, who had been discredited even among fellow militia members. By this broadcast, Beck put more light on that rumor than any journalist that I know of.
gbear
Via Steve Benen:
(Link to Benen in the ‘blogs we both read’ list in the right column)
amorphous
@Brick Oven Bill: That’s a good one, BOB. I’ll add it to your All-Time Hits.
dslak
@Dennis-SGMM: No, he doesn’t!
Brick Oven Bill
And I’ll add yours to the "Glenn Beck Sucks" column amorphous.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@GambitRF:
"Don’t pour gas on him, he’s an unpaid intern."
amorphous
@Brick Oven Bill: If you really want a response, how about anything he has ever said about any scientific topic, e.g. climate change? Climate change deniers fall into two categories now: Liars or Fibbers.
gbear
But Glenn Beck does suck.
Alan
Lyrics from one of my all time favorite albums.
dslak
I can’t decide if Beck’s vacillating between Obama being a communist/socialist or a fascist is a failure of understanding or the product of abortive attempts to find the right presentation.
I would ask BOB, but I don’t really care about who he had lunch with yesterday.
gbear
Link to the Benen piece @38
Duh. I missed the new thread. BJ has it covered.
PS: Glenn Beck sucks.
Brick Oven Bill
I do not recall any specific on policy points on climate change other than he questioned that, if it is happening, is there anything that we can do about it. He has postulated that ‘climate change’ is a tool used to transfer wealth from developed countries to undeveloped countries. Which I believe is absolutely true.
A question for you amorphous, has the temperature trend since 2001:
a) Been getting warmer; or
b) Been getting cooler?
This on a linear regression of data since 2001.
dslak
Capitalism is also used to transfer wealth from developed countries to undeveloped countries. Oh noez!
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@dslak:
Wealth or capital?
dslak
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: If you’re asking from an economic perspective, I think I mean wealth. I’m referring to the exchanges which result in people undeveloped countries receiving monetary compensation in exchange for producing goods which are then sold in developed countries.
I mean, that’s clearly a transfer of wealth from the developed to the undeveloped countries, so I hope BOB would oppose it.
Fencedude
@Brick Oven Bill:
Add my name too BOBby boy!
The Moar You Know
@gbear: I can’t wait for him to whip his shrivelled dick out while stumbling around the sound stage in a drunken stupor.
Garrigus Carraig
John Batchelor proclaims the death of the GOP. Dunno what that means. [Has this been picked up here already?]
Beej
BoB,
1. Taxation without representation means that you are taxed with no chance to elect someone who will represent your side of the issue. Obama told everyone that he was going to raise taxes on people who made more than $250K/year. He was elected by, what was it, 6 percentage points? This is not taxation without representation. If Beck doesn’t know that, he is a) an idiot; b) a liar. Of course I’m not ruling out the possibility that he’s both.
2. Has he commented on the defense budget yet? If he has said that the Obama administration is cutting the defense budget, he’s lying. The defense budget is being raised. The uproar is from the usual suspects, the defense contractors. They’re screaming because Obama and Gates are shifting priorities in the new defense budget to boots on the ground and all that goes with that and remote control ordinance such as predator drones, stuff more suited to the kinds of wars we’ve been fighting. The big weapons systems that were intended for fighting a war with the Soviet Union are being cut substantially. Defense contractors are livid.
That enuff for ya?
Jon H
@smiley: "Interestingly, Beck doesn’t cry on his radio show."
No, but he sits in the studio naked and quietly self-flagellates.
Dennis-SGMM
@Garrigus Carraig:
Holy shit! That’s the most comprehensive exposition of Republican decline I’ve ever read.
Rick Taylor
Can anyone point to anything on the left that was this crazy three months after Bush’s election? Or anytime during his administration? I think some of us did go overboard in our anger with the way Florida was resolved, and it’s easier for me to recognize craziness on the right for what it is than on the left, but I still don’t remember anything so juvenile and so frightening.
Rick Taylor
I’m not generally a fan of Andrew Sullivan, but he just pegs it here.
Brick Oven Bill
Beej;
I again do not recall, and have not been provided with any specifics, on the ‘taxation without representation’ or ‘defense cuts’ claims. But there is a valid case of taxation without representation that I could make.
In Federalist #10 Madison discusses the concept of Faction:
“When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens. To secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction, and at the same time to preserve the spirit and the form of popular government, is then the great object to which our inquiries are directed.”
It cannot be denied that it has been the policy goal of the Left to import people from failed countries into the US to attempt to increase the Left’s voting base. If I were to express the idea that there is a biological aspect to the performance of the country of origin of these immigrants based on evolution, I would get banned for a week, so let us just say it is the culture of these countries has made them not want to become literate in their native language, let alone English.
This policy has been successful, creating Madison’s ‘majority faction’ that is now empowered to vote without significant taxation. So as a permanent minority faction, taxpayers understandably feel like they are unfairly being ‘sacrificed’ to the ‘ruling passion’. Thus I believe a ‘taxation without representation’ claim would be valid. Voting rights were reserved for active participants in the economy back when the Constitution was signed to prevent this situation.
I have not heard Beck complain about defense cuts and can thus not comment.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Dennis-SGMM: Yeah and such a quick decline too, from a short six months ago when 60 million fucking people voted for the dead mummified carcass of the GOP.
Now look at ’em. What, 59 million, 58 million supporters? Ha, it is to laugh.
dslak
Oh, BOB, to deny something you claimed would first require assuming you to be someone capable of engaging in deliberative discussion. You’ll see no denial (or a serious one, at least!) of anything you claim from my quarter.
Saucy Knave
Brick Bill sez
You’ve taken my breath away, but somehow I get the feeling you aren’t nearly as attractive as Terri Nunn from Berlin
JK
John Batchelor is a santimonius hypocrite. I saw him on Fox News during the presidential campaign talking about Obama as a shadowy figure with disturbing connections to extremist Muslims.
Batchelor is a dirtbag who’s just as odious and putrid as Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. The only difference is that Batchelor has a sliver more of gravitas than knuckle draggers like Hannity and Beck.
Batchelor can go screw himself.
mcd
IF we’re making requests, I’d like a "Dragged Down By The Stone" thread.
‘Dogs’ has always been my fave of the highly underrated album. I think my introduction to the song was at a laser light show back when they couldn’t figure out how to make money with the local planetarium. Not that they ever did …
D-Chance.
What’s even stranger is that Texas Gubner Rick Perry appeared on the show later on, and agreed with Beck.
But… this is the same Perry who cut a commercial during his reelection campaign where he stood at the River and decried the illegal immigration. After the vote count was over, some too-late investigative types noted that the commercial was shot, not at the Rio Grande, but at a local river in Austin. And then Perry did a full 180 on the immigration issue less than 60 days later.
chuck
Not on a 6000 year old earth where Osama Bin Laden is chumming around with Saddam Huss–er…– Mahmud Ahmedinijad and a big bearded guy in the sky monitors us all for illicit buttsecks.
I guess when you’re that far gone, you’re not capable of denying much at all.
Leelee for Obama
This might be the best observation I’ve ever read. Back in the early days after 9/11, my Brother said how glad he was Bush won, because Al Gore would’ve been locked in the WH bathroom quivering. I answered then that I wasn’t the least bit sure Bin Laden would have given the go ahead with Gore as POTUS, because he knew his wingnut opponent would do just what he wanted him to do. Gore, not so much.
Zuzu's Petals
Hmm, that "actor" from Redeye that Glenn is soaking looks familiar. Where could I have seen him before … ?
Oh yeah, that’s right:
Fox News mocks the Canadian military
(starting at about 1:25)
Dennis-SGMM
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The GOP has thrived on ginned-up fear for a long time. Now there’s something real to be afraid of and the steely-eyed leaders of the party have answered that fear with – nothing. They’ll always have supporters because P.T. Barnum was right. As they keep identifying with people like Beck and Limbaugh, as they extol the virtues of Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford, they’ll winnow themselves down to a hard core of complete idiots. The re-election of George Bush proved to me that the electorate isn’t as smart as I’d hoped it was. The election of Obama suggested that the electorate isn’t as stupid as I thought it was.
Calouste
@Brick Oven Bill:
FAIL. Please go back to wingnut school* for Writing Strawmen Arguments 102 and try again.
*I was going to write university there, but apparently universities are teh evil in wingnut world.
srv
What the hell is Glenn talking about? Didn’t he get the memo?
Time says the crises is over!
Now we can get back to birth certificates and whatever Rev. Wright said last week.
Svensker
@Jon H:
Oh, thanks a lot. You paying for the brain bleach?
Brick Oven Bill
"Suddenly, early in the spring, an alarming thing was discovered. Snowball was secretly frequenting the farm by night! The animals were so disturbed that they could hardly sleep in their stalls. Every night, it was said, he came creeping in under cover of darkness and performed all kinds of mischief. He stole the corn, he upset the milk-pails, he broke the eggs, he trampled the seedbeds, he gnawed the bark off the fruit trees. Whenever anything went wrong it became usual to attribute it to Snowball."
…..
I agree with the group and cannot think of any misrepresentations on the Glenn Beck show either. So please consider holding your elected government to some similar standard. I would respectfully suggest discussing the following:
1. Why are 1 to 2 combat brigades not leaving Iraq each month?
2. Why is legislation still not posted on line for 5 days?
3. Why is the Administration’s blatant misrepresentation about the bow before the Saudi King unchallenged?
4. Why has the Presidential Executive Order web-page not been updated in months, preventing those who reference it from knowing about recent Executive Orders.
5. Why can he represent that tax increases on the rich will fund his programs, when they will fund less than 3% of the cost, without challenge?
6. Why is Geithner’s Chief of Staff a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs?
These are things, in theory, that the media is supposed to be watching out for. Instead of focusing on some guy with a 5pm EST cable TV show. But knock yourself out.
dslak
7. Where is the CLB?
Dennis-SGMM
Why are U.S. combat brigades in Iraq in the first place?
Little Dreamer
Love the Pink Floyd title. I’ve always believed so much of what they wrote was prophetic to this period of time.
Chris Johnson
Yet! :D
I’m picturing Colbert doing his show. He plays video, when we get back to him he’s off script with his head in his hands. He looks up, he says, okay, listen, Glenn. I do a SHOW. On Comedy Central. What’s your excuse?
Nah, he wouldn’t break character. He’s more professional than Beck :)
Little Dreamer
@mcd:
Animals is one of my most favorite albums.
Funny, I had it on right when I saw this title. ;)
amocz
Anyone interested in the psychology of Glenn Beck should pay attention to the character of Eric Cartman in the recent South Park "Fishsticks" episode, where the progression of self-delusion and self-adulation in the right-wingnut mind is layed/played out precisely.
For some reason, Preview will not accept the following as an active link, so you can find the said episode at:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/220762
Jrod
@Brick Oven Bill:
Yes, it can be denied, because its not true. Is this your example of a truth coming from Glenn Beck? And you wonder why nobody here takes you seriously.
So, instead of saying something blatantly racist, you’ll say something racist that leaves some room to weasel out of being called a racist. And you wonder why nobody here takes you seriously.
And since when are Mexicans known for not being literate in Spanish? Sorry, I haven’t been keeping up on the new trends in bigotry.
Johnny Pez
Sully left out Option #5: There’s a Negro in the White House, but people call us racists when we point that out, so we’ll be waving teabags instead.
bago
You know, I’m tired of the whole US vs them world view. The whole "buttsecks will ruin my marriage" bullshit, the whole "took our jerbs" crap, the whole "he bowed to a king" bull-pucky. It’s a bunch of medieval hand-waving magic thinking. It’s something that should be mocked for the retarded excuse for thought that it is.
I think that putting people in prison for using the wrong plants, that stoning people because they stuck their wing-wang in the wrong hoo-hah, that judging people based on where they got squirted out of someone’s vagina is retarded.
Any motherfucker dumb enough to think that an administration that turned this country into soviet america complete with wiretapping, torture, and making someone apologize for getting shot in the face has any appearance of decency really needs to go back to school to learn how to breathe.
Any stone-cold retard who encourages crazy gas pouring people to buy guns and ammo to surround anyone sane and hold the country hostage in some bizarre form of rebellious patriotism really needs to be committed.
Any psychopath who thinks that their existence is validated by the possession of a weapon and that they are the last hope for decency and honor needs to check the fuck out right fucking now.
People who cheer on the aforementioned psychopaths. Well, they have their own circle in hell. There have been far too many murder-suicides this week. Far too many dead cops. Far too many bodies at the foot of rabble-rousers like Beck.
bago
Beck? Seriously? Fuck that guy.
Jeany
Clinically speaking, Beck appears to be begging someone to set some boundaries for his on-air behavior.
That’s not a need that’s likely to be met by anyone at FNC.