How Cracked is Your Pot?
I must confess: I’ve never seen Glenn Beck’s TV show or heard him on radio. That’s my way of saying I have no opinion of him. So when I read this post title at Salon: When the Fox News host pushes a crackpot theory, it doesn’t take long for the GOP to run with it. I was hoping for some fun conservative bashing.
Instead I get treated to an opening paragraph about how Beck used the ‘boiling frog’ metaphor on one of his shows, and dammit, didn’t a GOP senator use it the very. next. day. I’m pretty sure this substitute for a ‘slippery slope’ has been used every day in the Senate since hippies first smelled. But that wouldn’t fit in with the authors’ premise: Beck says it, the GOP repeats it. And by it, I mean a crackpot theory.
For instance, the article cites Beck’s tirade against the administration’s use of ‘czars’ in government positions. The writers titter into their hands about how ignorant he must be of Russian history. Czar’s weren’t communists! Yeah, you’re right. They were monarchs. The totalitarian label has been put in the right category. Happy now? As if nobody before Beck would have had a problem with a record number of high-ranking personnel in a democracy being called the equivalent of ‘emperor’. The majority confirmed without congressional oversight. How did I ever twitter about this without Beck’s talking points?
The article froths forward: Beck said Cass Sunstein will, “establish legal ‘rights’ for...animals to file lawsuits in American courts.” Well, will he? Authors never say. ’‘The administration is using the NEA as a political tool!’ Well, are they? ‘Van Jones is a Communist!’ Well, is he? Nothing but crickets from the fourth estate. Like it’s beneath their dignity to refute, but okay to slur. Again and again, the writers serve up instances of Beck making accusations that later go mainstream. But never whether what he said was true. Wouldn’t that be essential for a story about a crackpot? If accusations alone made one a tinfoil helmet wearer, then the New York Times headline, “Bernie Madoff is a thief” is proof of their whackjobbery.
Glenn Beck might be the biggest crank going-I don’t know. But this article proved only one thing: Beck is influential. Certainly enough for a certain leftist news source to go on and on about him. Yet whether Beck’s the leader of the band, however, or just the loudest one singing the tune was not established. Boiling frog, indeed.
Not proving that the Fox host is a purveyor of foolish ideas, however, makes the people at Salon the crackpots.