Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America? Time Magazine

[Swede]

Why,yes he is.

snip


One person listens, Frankowski believes, and that's why back home in Alabama she arranged to have 10 large signs made on white foam board, nine of them marked with a big letter and the tenth with we and a heart. Raised aloft, the signs spelled out "We ♥ G-l-e-n-n B-e-c-k."


Glenn Beck: the pudgy, buzz-cut, weeping phenomenon of radio, TV and books. Our hot summer of political combat is turning toward an autumn of showdowns over some of the biggest public-policy initiatives in decades. The creamy notions of postpartisan cooperation - poured abundantly over Obama's presidential campaign a year ago - have curdled into suspicion and feelings of helplessness. Trust is a toxic asset, sitting valueless on the national books. Good faith is trading at pennies on the dollar. The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called "the paranoid style" - the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country - is aflame again, fanned from both right and left. Between the liberal fantasies about Brownshirts at town halls and the conservative concoctions of brainwashed children goose-stepping to school, you'd think the Palm in Washington had been replaced with a Munich beer hall.



http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1924348,00.html

[virgogal]

1. He's a strange one.

[abelenkpe2]

2. He's clearly bad for America.

Boo TIME for giving him press. I wish he'd just go away.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. does the pope

s*** in the cathedral?

[glowing]

4. The Times article is conflating his book sales with popularity.. rather than

pointing out that these conservative authors recieve their orders in bulk and at discount prices.. and then are given away at events.. Doesn't even Chuck Grassly give them out at events? I think they are conflating Beck's influence on this nation. He may be stirring the crazies.. but its the same crazies all day every day that watch Faux Snooze. The people who are watching fox news watch for longer than those who turn into CNN for a brief update on events of the day. It also seems to be the same demographic that always polled a favorable rating of Bush and the wars and Christo-fascist views.. and tend to also be much more regionalized.

Essentially, Beck is talking to the crazies.. and most people know these people are the crazies. and that they are just not bright enough to put 2 and 2 together. They cannot understand that the Bush years were really bad for them. They cannot understand that most of them have seen a tax break and an extention on unemployment as good thing for them under Obama. They just cannot admit that the Dems are doing good by them and that a black man cares more for them and this nation than Bush who pretended to be a good, strong Christian leader.. who just happened to wreck this country with debt, cronyism, financial ruin, 2 wars, and a general break down in overall safety (9/11 did happen on their watch because they chose to let it or wanted it or were just very inept.. whatever, it did happen under their watch)

[Swede]

5. Good post.

I wish i could recommend it.