Happened to catch a couple of minutes of Glenn Beck while trying to find something to watch this afternoon. I was soon shaking with anger.
Beck is there talking with film of President Obama life-sized, behind him. Beck reads some lines then reaches back to the screen and punches the president of the United States in the face. Then he kind of laughs as if it's a playful action, which it clearly is not.
Then he has another video of the president, and Beck reads some other stuff, then reaches back and punches the president in the body. Both times he mouths something, pretending to be doing it as one would to a pal one was just playfully jabbing, but that's not really what he is doing. It is clear that he is punching him in anger and it's sickening.
Then he commented that America was in a "death spiral."
It was impossible to concentrate on the words Beck was saying because the action was so shocking. He had a few sheets of paper in his hands and with each new page he hit the president. He may have done it many times. It seems to show fury, rage.
This behavior is completely inappropriate, offensive and wrong.
The punches at the president arouses great anger in me but what does it arouse in someone who agrees with Beck?
I'm not one to want to write about someone like Beck. In a way I feel he's had too much attention. But behavior like this needs to be noticed and condemned. It needs to be stopped.
Who thinks it's okay to do this? How can Fox news let someone do this? Words are one thing but simulated violence like this is another.
This week we heard of Republicans here in my state of Florida doing target practice with their guns, right next to the initials of DWS, one of our fine Democratic Representatives, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (a piece about this is now on the front page).
We've had the awful brandishing of guns at political rallies this summer and lots of hateful talk.
And now the major host of a major cable network is repeatedly hitting the President of the United States in the face, in the body. It is a terrible abuse of freedom of speech to allow this and it should be loudly condemned.
All of the time that George Bush was in the White House no one ever did anything like this. We argued with his policies which we abhorred. Sometimes we called him dumb because we thought he acted out of ignorance or irrationality. What is wrong with Republicans?