Rick Moran has another pretty good take-down of Glenn Beck from the conservative point-of-view:
And this brings us back to the first part of the question that people were asking me; why bother? Beck is an entertainer. He speaks for the little guy. In the large scheme of things he doesn’t matter. Besides, he’s funny. He’s not serious about a lot of the things he says.
All of that may be true. But if you see someone running toward a gasoline dump with a lit match, what would you do? Say, “Ignore him, he doesn’t matter?” Or perhaps, “That’s pretty funny, someone trying to immolate himself.” Or maybe, “Man, this explosion and fireball is going to be so kewl!”
You can argue that I’m an idiot for believing this as many of you have and no doubt will continue to do so. But Beck and others like him, who constantly raise the specter of American doom, of Obama as commissar, the Democrats as Nazis, while imploring listeners to “take the country back” and start some kind of “revolution” are bat sh*t dangerous to the conservative movement.
It’s interesting because most of what he says is right, but also interesting because, as is typical of Moran and his ilk, all that matters is the conservative movement.
But, yes, I think that we are at the point where we should laud conservatives for reaching the conclusion that unabated batshit craziness is a bad thing, even if the only reason they believe it’s a bad thing is that it hurts the conservative movement.
Of course, Rick himself only knows a hack from a handsaw when the wind is southerly, so to speak, as this amply demonstrates:
Meanwhile, our intrepid Somali pirates know they have western liberals on their side as long as they can show that the reason they board ships, terrorize people, take crew members hostage, kill with impunity, and barter for ransom is because they are only acting in “self defense” against rancid capitalists and western governments who allow the practice of dumping and illegal fishing with a wink and a nod. This appeals to many on the left who will now see the problem as a question of “fairness” and will agitate that the president forgoe knocking the stuffing out of pirate infrastructure in favor of a “negotiated” solution. Piracy will continue, hostages will still be taken, governments and businesses will still be forced to pay ransom – but liberals will feel better about the whole thing.
What strikes me most about discussion of the pirates, though, is how thin the line is between the right-wing blog line on piracy and the Georgetown line.