Showing posts with label glenn beck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label glenn beck. Show all posts

Friday, October 19, 2012

Pants on Fire


Today's column for the Daily Banter takes a look at an idea whose time hasn't come and never will.

Here's the opening shot:

"I realize that I’m fast becoming this site’s resident miserable bastard, devoid of all passion for political discourse and oozing nothing but contempt for the entire process, but can anybody really blame me at this point? If you want to know why I’ve all but given up on trying to effect real change through thoughtful analysis and dialog — why I think our country is politically broken beyond repair — you need look no further than this: Glenn Beck is now selling his own line of jeans. Glenn Beck. Jeans. I shit you not. If the official motto for these things isn’t 'Because It Takes an Ass To Know Jeans' I’m crawling into my bathtub and dragging in a hair dryer."

Read the Rest Here

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Quote of the Day


"I was openly mocked by the patrons, and my wife was begging to leave as she heard the wait staff and management gasp in horror that they actually had to serve me."

-- Glenn Beck, complaining about the treatment he received from average New Yorkers during a trip to New York City over the holiday weekend

Beck goes on to say that New York has become a "vile and hateful" place, which is supposedly what led him to move out of the city.

I'm beaming like a proud papa right now. As usual, New York City proves itself to be not only a bastion of intellectualism and enlightenment but one with exceptional taste and zero tolerance for stupidity.

By the way, when Beck left New York last year he moved to Dallas.

I'm just gonna leave that right there.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Quote of the Day, Jr.


"Everything is a little funny game to you. The Republic is at stake!"

-- Glenn Beck, angrily lashing out at Jimmy Fallon after the Roots, who are the house band on Fallon's show, played a couple of lines from Fishbone's Lyin' Ass Bitch during Michele Bachmann's entrance onto the set the other night

See below comment re: Pamela Gellar.

By the way, I agree with Beck on this. The Roots actually should've played a little of Buckcherry's Crazy Bitch. That would've made more sense.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Assistant Quote of the Day


"For the same reason that Zach decided to come out, I too, no longer wanted to hide this part of my life. There have been too many tragic endings and too many cases of bullying because of intolerance... as a journalist, I don’t want to be the story, but as a gay man I don’t want to stand silent if I can offer some inspiration or encouragement to kids that might be struggling with who they are."

-- ABC News Anchor Dan Kloeffler on the fact that he essentially admitted to being gay on national television after the network ran a story on Zachary Quinto's recent coming out

Man, it's gotta be a nightmare being an aging intolerant conservative right now. I mean, it was bad enough when there was just a multi-cultural black guy in the White House -- but these days average people are storming Wall Street and protesting banks across the country and around the world, a Mormon who used to be the governor of Massachusetts is the best the GOP can do for a presidential candidate, and now network news anchors are coming out of the closet live on the air.

I wonder what the breaking point will be -- that one world-rocking development that'll finally lead thousands of panic-stricken tea baggers to either lock themselves in their basement bunkers or go the full lemming.

I just keeping thinking of Tobey Maguire at the end of Pleasantville haranguing J.T. Walsh about how everything's changing and there's nothing he can do to stop it -- all in an effort to make him lose his mind.

You know, now that I think about it, Glenn Beck kind of looks like Walsh's character in that movie -- they have the same pudgy face and stupid haircut. And just like "Big Bob," Beck is constantly trying to reassure his terrified, white middle-class constituency that everything's going to be okay.

"What do we do, Bob?"

"Well, we're safe for now -- thank goodness we're in a bowling alley."

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

"Oh God, Oh God, We're All Gonna Die"



Every once in a while it's a good idea to remind ourselves how much conspiracist batshittery Glenn Beck still flings out into the ether.

Just listen to this -- see if you can avoid being hypnotized by the slow, smoldering cadence of his voice as it oozes melodramatic seriousness and concern.

Remember, though, he's got this "verified," so have your cash and food ready for next week. Van Jones and the anarchists are coming for your hedge fund.

Monday, May 23, 2011

DXM History Repeats: Television


Yeah, the Rapture was a let-down, but here at DXM the countdown is still on to our official fifth birthday on May 30th. In celebration of this auspicious occasion, we're bringing back some of the best pieces of the last five years -- and right now the focus is on television. The following bit quickly became one of the most popular ever to appear on this site and I still get quite a bit of e-mail about it. It was written right as Glenn Beck was beginning to make the jump from curiosity to juggernaut on Fox, long before his crazy train went completely off the tracks and Roger Ailes decided he'd had enough. You know, back when Beck's absurd shtick was still kind of entertaining.

The DXM Fifth Birthday Jubilee

Topic: Glenn Beck

Number of Posts: 78


"The Glenn Beck Show Generator" (Originally Published, 3.18.09)

Swallowed as a single, sour dose, the average episode of Glenn Beck's nightly cable show goes down like liquid acid and produces just about the same result. To the uninitiated viewer, watching an hour of Beck's psychotic ravings, crackpot conspiracy theories, maudlin tales of personal tragedy, and generally demented sky-is-falling routine must feel a little like stepping out of reality and into a Dali painting. But while no one jumps the crazy train as far off the rails as Beck these days, there is a certain method to his madness -- you just have to take a couple of steps back and look at the big picture for it to come into focus. As with any kind of seemingly incomprehensible insanity, there are patterns amid the chaos; the hallucinatory mania that fuels Beck's delusional behavior actually adheres to a pretty strict set of rules, even if those rules are based on fantasies and thought processes only Beck himself understands.

In other words, there's a blueprint to his batshit luancy. His shows follow a relatively by-the-numbers formula. In fact, once you crack the code of crazy, just about anybody can put together an episode of the Glenn Beck show.

Give it a try yourself. Just follow the simple multiple choice format below.

Open & Welcome: Glenn says hello, thanks everyone for watching and spends a few minutes...

1. Repeatedly asking the director to zoom in on his face while he screams about how the United States is on the "road to socialism."

2. Misappropriating the works of Ayn Rand.

3. Adjusting himself in his seat and creepily stroking his nipples while making faces which would indicate that he's taking no small amount of pleasure in it.

Glenn then welcomes his first guest (who agrees with everything he says):

1. Dennis Miller

2. Art Bell

3. His psychiatrist

Followed by a second guest (who disagrees with everything he says):

1. Dennis Kucinich

2. Al Sharpton

3. Shepard Smith

Glenn points his doughy finger and tells the guest he's/she's...

1. An enemy of the state.

2. A "scumbag."

3. Melting right before his eyes.

Then, apropos of nothing, he compares Barack Obama to...

1. Hitler.

2. The 9/11 families -- whom he still hates.

3. Troy Sullivan, the kid who lived up the block from him as a child and would come by when no one was home and make him dress up in his sister's clothes for "afternoon tea," although there was never any tea -- just pain, so much pain.

...And blames him for...

1. ABC's decision to cancel Twin Peaks.

2. His erectile dysfunction.

3. Everything.

Glenn then boasts about...

1. The overwhelming public response to that ridiculous "912 Project" initiative.

2. The numbers his show is pulling down at Fox, particularly in comparison to what he was getting at CNN.

3. What a friend he has in Jesus.

...And introduces a brand new segment of the show with the obligatorily muscular sounding name:

1. "The War Chest"

2. "The Men's Room"

3. "The Tool Box"

The goal of which is to...

1. Map out various apocalyptic scenarios since the inauguration of Barack Obama, as a service to America's paranoid survivalist sociopath community.

2. Prove that the moon landing was a hoax.

3. Impress Sarah Palin.

Next, once again apropos of nothing, he blurts out something random and completely irrational, like...

1. "There it is! Do you hear that? Don't tell me you can't hear that!"

2. "We surround them!"

3. "The government!"

...And claims that _____ is _____:

1. FEMA/constructing internment camps for America's dwarf population

2. global warming/bullshit

3. he/so fucking high

He then begins to cry uncontrollably because, in his personal life...

1. His wife Tania is finally divorcing him.

2. His AA sponsor committed suicide.

3. The hemorrhoids are back.

Finally, he composes himself, smirks, chuckles, and reminds viewers that...

1. He's so fucking high.

2. Due to a tachyon bombardment created by Ozymandias, he doesn't, in fact, have the ability to see the future.

3. It's all an act to get ratings.

Glenn thanks his sponsor...

1. Entenmann's

2. Supercuts

3. Zoloft

...And plugs his...

1. Book.

2. Radio show.

3. Ears against the voices.

Close & Goodnight: Glenn says, "Thanks so much for joining us tonight, and remember to tune in to the show tomorrow for..."

1. "Day 1,113 of my sanity held hostage."

2. "My exclusive interview with an angry chimpanzee dressed as Lyndon LaRouche."

3. "The end of days."

Toss to Special Report with Bret Baier, go home and sleep it off.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Grand Ham Breakfast


The New York Observer's Daily Transom column sat down for breakfast with Andrew Breitbart two mornings ago and got -- not surprisingly -- the figurative equivalent of my daughter, at the age of one-and-a-half, angrily hurling her oatmeal across the room. The gist of the conversation was that there's apparently no honor among demagogues, with Breitbart still being sore at his ex-BFF Glenn Beck for "throwing him under the bus."

The most noteworthy line of the interview is one that reveals maybe a little more than Breitbart had hoped:

"According to Mr. Breitbart, fellow Tea Partier Glenn Beck first joined him in editing and eviscerating Ms. Sherrod's 2010 N.A.A.C.P. speech on the radio, before publishing the unedited version on his Web site, discrediting Mr. Breitbart on television and calling for his apology... 'Next thing I know, I'm under complete attack without the support of Glenn Beck, who I thought was somebody I could count on.'"

In other words, Breitbart once again admits that he -- ostensibly with the help of Glenn Beck -- edited the infamous Shirley Sherrod tape to "eviscerate" her and make her appear racist, and he felt that he was screwed over by Beck when the unedited tape was released which exposed what he'd done. This is the point I made on Monday; it's this kind of unconscionable horseshit that separates Andrew Breitbart from your average partisan blowhard.

By the way, the rest of the interview is basically a lot of Breitbart howling about the "Marxist... nihilist... leftist" education system. Feel free to take a look if that sort of thing interests you -- or you can just hit yourself in the face repeatedly with a phone book since it's pretty much the same thing.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Chairman of the Board


All you need now is 100ccs of thorazine and you're set.

The Beck Board: Do It Yourself Glenn Beck Chalkboard Generator

(Update: For whatever bizarre reason, this hyperlink now goes only to the Media Matters homepage, which is infinitely less interesting than the chalkboard. Sorry.)

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Quote of the Day


"Half of the headlines say he's been canceled, the other half say he quit. We're pretty happy with both of them."

-- Roger Ailes being conspicuously cryptic about Glenn Beck's departure from Fox

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Apocalypse Now


Well, you knew this was coming. Glenn Beck's ratings have fallen dramatically over the past year -- in inverse correlation, it seems, with the insane conspiracist buffoonery his show has ratcheted up to near deafening levels. So, with that in mind, it was only a matter of time before Beck's Daily News-O-Caust got the hook at Fox.

The Huffington Post: Glenn Beck To "Transition Off" Fox News Program/4.6.11

Of course this doesn't mean that Beck's going away; he's just dumping one inarguably untenable arm of his multi-media empire. Given the kind of Beale-esque shtick Beck's afternoon show at Fox had morphed into, and his blatant disregard for the obvious discomfort he was causing the supposedly serious people in the Fox adminisphere, there was just no way that relationship could last. This was especially true considering that Media Matters and other left-leaning watchdog organizations had made it their mission to strip every bit of advertising flesh off the show's bones and were for the most part successful at doing just that.

But looking back on the curious case of Glenn Beck -- his rapid rise and just as rapid fall at Fox and as an undeniably influential pop culture icon -- it's impossible not to have somewhat mixed feelings about his departure from the show that was part carnival freakshow, part old-fashioned tent revivalism, part tin-foil hat spook-storytelling, and all narcissistic lunacy. Yeah, Beck's unwillingness to never give his audience of terrified white, Christian zombies so much as a wink or a tip of the cards to the fact that he worshiped P.T. Barnum far more than the Founding Fathers had dangerous consequences. That can never be denied, and the smaller his megaphone, probably the better. But I always did give the man credit for doing living, immersive performance art better than just about anyone since Andy Kaufman. And in some very strange way he deserves credit for pulling off what many of his critics never could: embarrassing and subverting Fox from the inside. He was, quite frankly, an agent of chaos at the network -- and for a while it was fun to watch Murdoch, Ailes, Hannity and Fox's cadre of professional right-wing assholes spin themselves round in circles trying to figure out what the hell to do about their incorrigible problem child.

Plus, let's face it -- he made for great copy.

Now all that's left to see is whether Ailes has him assassinated live on the air.

By the way, Joel Cheatwood -- who was the Fox exec who oversaw Beck's show and who recently made the decision to leave Fox for Beck's personal production company -- was the first news director I worked under, at the start of my career. He was the mastermind behind WSVN's style-over-substance rise to both fame and infamy back in the early 90s. I'm actually a fan of Joel's, but for the record I think dropping out of Fox to follow Beck down the rabbit hole may wind up being a very, very big mistake. Time will tell, I guess.

(Update: Gawker gets a gold star for this headline: Say Goodbye to Glenn Beck, the Paul Revere of Idiots/4.6.11)

Saturday, March 26, 2011

InsaniTV


From the New York Times, designed by Bruce Handy and Robert A. Di Eiso, Jr.

Click to engorge.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Search and Destroy


It should be beyond dispute by now that Glenn Beck's batshit crazy shtick is just that -- shtick. But I'm really starting to think that he's actually trying to make his audience of paranoid pensioners terrified of absolutely everything.

The Huffington Post: Glenn Beck Goes After Google/2.17.11

(Update: Cesca makes a really good point -- one that I'd initially considered but was naive enough to quickly dismiss as over-the-top -- that by demonizing Google, Beck is basically telling his minions that any information gleaned from it that debunks his ridiculous conspiracy theory matrix should be questioned. In other words, it can be translated into this cliché: "Don't you get it? You can't trust Google. They're in on the conspiracy!")

Friday, February 11, 2011

Quote(s) of the Day


"We are witnessing the birth of the new world order... and you want to call me crazy? Go to hell. Call me crazy all you want."

-- Glenn Beck during a 20-minute rant last night about how communists and Islamic extremists are joining forces to overthrow Western capitalism around the world


"Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: the people that went to school with him, they don’t even know him. They never saw him. They don’t know who he is. It’s crazy. With no track record — and, I will tell you, he’s got nothing to criticize. He’s a wonderful guy, he’s a nice man, but there was no record. Nothing to criticize. He didn’t go in wars. He didn’t go in battles. He didn’t beat this one, that one, have enemies all over the place. Nobody knew who the hell he was. He’s now our president! He’s our president!"

-- Reality TV star Donald Trump speaking to a rabidly receptive audience at CPAC

Ladies and gentlemen, the once and future kings of modern right-wing thought.

Make no mistake, though -- these two clowns give the term neo-con a whole new meaning.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Quote of the Day


"I have loved being chairman, but I'm tired of the nuts."

-- Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams, who just resigned in frustration

Beck and the Tea Partiers: shrieking toward victory.

(via Cesca)

Monday, February 7, 2011

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Fair Imbalance


In case you haven't been paying close attention during all the back and forth over the current state of our political discourse, the absurd "both sides" meme has returned with a vengeance over the past couple of days. The claim, of course -- generally heard from the side accused correctly of trafficking most in irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric -- is that, well, both sides are guilty of trafficking in irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric. It's bullshit -- but you hear it a lot.

Well, now there's this from CBS News, which conducted a poll to try to pin down just who's behind all the anger:

"The poll also shows that while three in four Americans say violence against the government is never justified, 16 percent say it can be justified -- the same percentage that said as much in April. Twenty-eight percent of Republicans said such violence can be justified, compared with 11 percent of Democrats and independents."

Anybody surprised? Anybody?

First of all, at this point, after what we now know about Jared Loughner, I'm not saying that he was some right-wing stooge who took the words of Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin to heart and acted on them. He's much more your garden variety whack-job whose ideology is, predictably, all over the place. But there remains the possibility that the overall climate of unfocused rage in Arizona may have fed his psychosis -- and the discussion about how far things have gone in this country when it comes to politically based outrage is one worth having, regardless.

What the above poll clearly shows, though, is that, no, both sides of the political spectrum aren't dispensing the same brand of dangerous invective; they don't subscribe to the same consistently stoked anti-government paranoia or, let's face it, possess the same fetishistic view of militarism -- that worship of gun culture or innate horseshit frontier mentality that still, in 2011, believes that it might only be a matter of time before they have to pull a John Wayne and grab their rifle to defend what's theirs, en masse. I'm damn well not saying that everyone on the right is like this, only that most who are like this are on the right; it's part of their ideological DNA.

And it's adopted as a cynical sales pitch by people like Sarah Palin, who plays the entirely fictional role of Caribou Barbie on her reality TV show -- hunting "wild game" while a make-up tent and craft services spread sits directly off-camera.


Or Glenn Beck, who strikes a Jack Bauer-esque pose -- complete with handgun -- on his website, despite the fact that if he were ever really put in a live-fire situation, he'd almost certainly cower in a corner and cry like a four-year-old.


(h/t Kevin)

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Quote of the Day


"(Assange) loves to have just all-open society. Sound familiar? I know Assange is being represented by the attorney who does the pro bono work for George Soros's Open Society Insitute."

-- Glenn Beck, unsurprisingly finding a place for Julian Assange right next to Evil Puppetmaster George Soros on his chalkboard of conspiratorial batshittery

You can almost see the faces of Beck's septuagenarian minions going slack with awe as the connection is revealed. "See that, Mavis, I knew it!"

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Comment of the Week


"Wow! I am suprised at the vitriol I read here. I too will pray for you sir and hope that you find joy in something good for once. I research what Glen Beck says thoroughly and find he speaks the truth. I have observed his 'rantings' and find them heartfelt and honest. Of course, the Huffington post that you work for accepts major cash donations from George Soros who has a beef with Glen for exposing his plan for the U.S. monetary system. How much are YOU getting paid to deride him sir? Your boss also says the same things that Mr. Soros says. Post this if you are truthfull and honest, sir, and take your best shot and please, please, keep your comments to that which you can prove and cite sources. As I said before, my prayers are for you and those you work with."

-- Brad Roe Sr.

Yes, every time my weekly Soros check clears I literally pour that big bag of money onto the bed and roll around in it naked, à la Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal. It's a testament to just how hilariously gullible Beck's zombiefied acolytes are that they'll believe the Soros-as-Evil-Puppet-Master meme even so far as being willing to buy into the idea of him paying out a legion of hapless relative pipsqueaks like me.

The interesting thing is that this is the piece Brad is commenting on -- from, oh, you know, March of last year:

"The Glenn Beck Show Generator" (Originally Published, 3.18.09)

Swallowed as a single, sour dose, the average episode of Glenn Beck's nightly cable show goes down like liquid acid and produces just about the same result. To the uninitiated viewer, watching an hour of Beck's psychotic ravings, crackpot conspiracy theories, maudlin tales of personal tragedy, and generally demented sky-is-falling routine must feel a little like stepping out of reality and into a Dali painting. But while no one jumps the crazy train as far off the rails as Beck these days, there is a certain method to his madness -- you just have to take a couple of steps back and look at the big picture for it to come into focus. As with any kind of seemingly incomprehensible insanity, there are patterns amid the chaos; the hallucinatory mania that fuels Beck's delusional behavior actually adheres to a pretty strict set of rules, even if those rules are based on fantasies and thought processes only Beck himself understands.

In other words, there's a blueprint to his batshit luancy. His shows follow a relatively by-the-numbers formula. In fact, once you crack the code of crazy, just about anybody can put together an episode of the Glenn Beck show.

Give it a try yourself. Just follow the simple multiple choice format below.

Open & Welcome: Glenn says hello, thanks everyone for watching and spends a few minutes...

1. Repeatedly asking the director to zoom in on his face while he screams about how the United States is on the "road to socialism."

2. Misappropriating the works of Ayn Rand.

3. Adjusting himself in his seat and creepily stroking his nipples while making faces which would indicate that he's taking no small amount of pleasure in it.

Glenn then welcomes his first guest (who agrees with everything he says):

1. Dennis Miller

2. Art Bell

3. His psychiatrist

Followed by a second guest (who disagrees with everything he says):

1. Dennis Kucinich

2. Al Sharpton

3. Shepard Smith

Glenn points his doughy finger and tells the guest he's/she's...

1. An enemy of the state.

2. A "scumbag."

3. Melting right before his eyes.

Then, apropos of nothing, he compares Barack Obama to...

1. Hitler.

2. The 9/11 families -- whom he still hates.

3. Troy Sullivan, the kid who lived up the block from him as a child and would come by when no one was home and make him dress up in his sister's clothes for "afternoon tea," although there was never any tea -- just pain, so much pain.

...And blames him for...

1. ABC's decision to cancel Twin Peaks.

2. His erectile dysfunction.

3. Everything.

Glenn then boasts about...

1. The overwhelming public response to that ridiculous "912 Project" initiative.

2. The numbers his show is pulling down at Fox, particularly in comparison to what he was getting at CNN.

3. What a friend he has in Jesus.

...And introduces a brand new segment of the show with the obligatorily muscular sounding name:

1. "The War Chest"

2. "The Men's Room"

3. "The Tool Box"

The goal of which is to...

1. Map out various apocalyptic scenarios since the inauguration of Barack Obama, as a service to America's paranoid survivalist sociopath community.

2. Prove that the moon landing was a hoax.

3. Impress Sarah Palin.

Next, once again apropos of nothing, he blurts out something random and completely irrational, like...

1. "There it is! Do you hear that? Don't tell me you can't hear that!"

2. "We surround them!"

3. "The government!"

...And claims that _____ is _____:

1. FEMA/constructing internment camps for America's dwarf population

2. global warming/bullshit

3. he/so fucking high

He then begins to cry uncontrollably because, in his personal life...

1. His wife Tania is finally divorcing him.

2. His AA sponsor committed suicide.

3. The hemorrhoids are back.

Finally, he composes himself, smirks, chuckles, and reminds viewers that...

1. He's so fucking high.

2. Due to a tachyon bombardment created by Ozymandias, he doesn't, in fact, have the ability to see the future.

3. It's all an act to get ratings.

Glenn thanks his sponsor...

1. Entenmann's

2. Supercuts

3. Zoloft

...And plugs his...

1. Book.

2. Radio show.

3. Ears against the voices.

Close & Goodnight: Glenn says, "Thanks so much for joining us tonight, and remember to tune in to the show tomorrow for..."

1. "Day 1,113 of my sanity held hostage."

2. "My exclusive interview with an angry chimpanzee dressed as Lyndon LaRouche."

3. "The end of days."

Toss to Special Report with Bret Baier, go home and sleep it off.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Point and Shoot


You know, if history is any indication, poor Lawrence O'Donnell had better invest in Kevlar.

The Huffington Post: Lawrence O'Donnell "Socialist" Claim Is Evidence of Looming, Violent "Event"/11.9.10

My favorite part about this ratshit lunacy is that it not-so-inconspicuously mirrors the 9/11 truthers' nonsensical "false flag terrorism" claim -- proving that a ridiculous conspiracy theory is a ridiculous conspiracy theory, regardless of which direction it's coming from. And right now, nobody traffics in that kind of baseless crap like Glenn Beck.

Speaking of which, who exactly is pushing the "everything's going to hell, but I'm here to hold your hand and help you through it" meme harder than anybody at the moment -- and doing it for thoroughly self-serving reasons?

Monday, October 18, 2010

Crazier Than a Fox


I'll make this relatively quick, because to be honest much of what I'm about to say isn't something that hasn't been said before by both myself and a hell of a lot of other people pathetic enough to spend most of their time quixotically fixating on the media.

If you've actually bothered to read Byron Williams's interview with either Media Matters or the Examiner, from start to finish, it's really a terrifying little snapshot of the paranoid psychopathy that's fermenting in the collective consciousness of the extreme right these days. Sure, Williams is as rat-shit crazy as they come, and in the end the responsibility for the act that landed him in the headlines and in jail -- that would be getting into a firefight with several California Highway Patrol troopers and injuring two of them -- is his to bear. But it's an absurd dereliction of reason to somehow claim that Williams's on-air idol, his indirect enabler and the man who essentially validated the paranoid fantasies in his head night after night, Glenn Beck, doesn't deserve to be forced to answer some very tough questions following the attack for which his message of an impending American Apocalypse was the impetus.

I've done my best to shrug off the far-right's rodeo clown prince, eschewing outrage in favor of poking all kinds of very appropriate fun at him. Beck's always been full of shit; his conspiratorial carnival barking shtick is little more than a means of making himself filthy rich. But that doesn't mean the amalgam of half-baked 1950s anti-commie, Bircher-Skousen lunacy that he regularly passes off as the key to America's secret history isn't bloody fucking frightening in the wrong hands. And there's simply no denying that the longer Beck negligently throws gasoline on a fire that's already dangerous -- the longer he amps up a far-right that's angry, unemployed, terrified of the change it's seeing all around it and convinced that it's losing control of its country -- the more "wrong hands" will potentially be created and incited.

And you know something? Fox News knows this.

Say what you will about Fox, it has at the very least a tenuous grasp on the notion of responsibility. It may be the country's biggest cannon of right-wing fireballs -- a 24/7 GOP talking points machine -- but above all it's a business. And make no mistake: Glenn Beck is bad for business. Sure, he's great for his own business; he knows how to hawk the crap that sponsors the Glenn Beck Inc. multi-media empire. But he's already cost Fox more than 80 sponsors, and although Fox notoriously likes to publicly flip off its critics and their impotent indignation, FNC management knows that the God-awful publicity generated by a CEO -- one targeted for assassination by one of Beck's rabid acolytes -- penning an open letter to the CEOs who throw money at Fox has the potential to hurt the network's bottom line. And that's what it comes down to: At some point, if it hasn't happened already, sponsors will begin to fear Beck's incendiary rhetoric but still want access to Fox's mammoth audience share -- and so they'll quietly demand that Ailes pull Howard Beale into a dark conference room and put the fear of God into him, or pay dearly.

Because the way it stands right now, Beck is the David Lee Roth of Fox News. There's the band, and then there's him -- and what's good for one isn't necessarily good for the other.

If this keeps up, if Beck continues to put on his "history" professor's glasses, scribble nonsensical conspiracy theories on his chalkboard and in doing so willfully and cynically stoke the paranoia of an admittedly small but heavily armed and very fucking edgy far-right, there will be a breaking point from which we won't be able to easily come back. What he's doing is wrong. And at this point, Fox News, for all of its intransigence when it comes to the demands of critics who expect it to behave and play nice, should do what even it knows is right -- and distance itself from Glenn Beck.

Do it before the inevitable happens.

Related:

The Christian Science Monitor/Did Glenn Beck's Rhetoric Inspire Violence?/10.16.10

The New York Times/"The Rage Won't End on Election Day" by Frank Rich/10.16.10

The Washington Post: "Conspiracy Theorists Find Validation from Glenn Beck" by Dana Milbank/10.10.10