Who are these people who so willingly believe Glenn Beck's every hysterical outburst, no matter how silly, baseless or outrageous? Who are these people who are so easily convinced that a skinny, 48-year old black man who body surfs and graduated from Harvard Law School is really Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong all rolled into one? Why do they blindly accept Beck's absurd allegation that Obama's secret goal is nothing short of the destruction of America as we know it, and that nearly every single person in the White House is a radical extremist who is also unbelievably corrupt?! It defies logic and reason.
Yes, after only a few short months in office, Obama is Hitler and Glenn Beck, a morning zoo DJ who spent a big chunk of his life abusing drugs and alcohol and who lacks a college education, is an undisputed expert on a vast array of complex subjects, including American history, economics, health care reform, world monetary policy, religion, race relations, climate change and "patriotic correctness". He also possesses near-paranormal powers that allow him to read Obama's mind and uncover his sinister hidden agenda for mayhem and destruction.
Do Beck's followers ever ask themselves exactly how Beck comes to know these things or where he gets his information? Do they ever ask themselves if Beck himself may have motives or agendas that should be taken into consideration? And if they are smart enough to see through him, why do some people nevertheless gleefully egg him on?
Who are these people who common sense and decency have forgotten?
PART 1 - SORE LOSERS
"It's supposed to taste like a shit taco." - Jon Stewart
Certainly some element of Beck's following is comprised of sore losers, with "sore" being the operative word. These uber-partisans are angry and bitter because their team lost and they are determined to fight the "Democrat" president every step of the way. They undertake opposition simply for opposition's sake. There is literally nothing Obama could do or say to gain their support. So extreme is the sore losers' bitterness that some started talking secession immediately after Obama's election. The sore losers have an irrational, abject hatred for Democrats and liberals generally, and for President Obama specifically. Giving him a fair chance was never an option. They want him run out of town on a rail, preferably before the end of his first term in office. You have to hand it to them, they do not think small. Their attacks are aimed not only at destroying the current President, but to crush the entire Democratic party permanently. To hell with the voters, to hell with democracy and to hell with what's good for the country. Party first! Country last.
Because of their deep-seated hatred for the President, the sore losers delight in the cheap shots Beck consistently directs at him combined with vicious, unrelenting mocking. The sore losers will support all efforts to obstruct, embarrass, malign or taunt the President. Beck is hell-bent on destroying him and so naturally the sore losers want to be a part of it. They want to help Beck foment hatred, stir up trouble and fling mud, desperately hoping for something - anything - to stick. Fairness plays no role here. Any smear job, no matter how foul, dishonest or racist, will do. The more absurd the better, in fact. Kenyan. Secret Muslim. Socialist. Communist. Marxist. Troop-hating anti-American thug.
The sore losers take advantage of the fact that the President can't publicly defend himself against these ridiculous, nonsensical accusations without seeming to give credence to them. The President cannot address the press corps each day for the purpose of going tit for tat with the likes of Glenn Beck without looking like a fool and a whiner and adding more fuel to the propaganda fire. When did you stop beating your Communist wife, Mr. President?
The sore losers pounce on Obama's every mundane activity or inconsequential gaffe as the epic fail of a lifetime. How dare he play golf during a time of war! How dare he, the President of the United States, see a play in New York City with the First Lady! He used a teleprompter! He, the father of two young girls, told school children to study! His dog adoption was illegal! He vacationed on Martha's Vineyard! He bowed too low! He smoked a cigarette! He put spicy mustard on his hamburger! Michelle Obama touched the Queen's back! And he has the gall to hold parties at the White House - what "poor taste"! Do they even hear what they sound like? Does it get any more stupid or petty?
From the beginning, the sore losers have openly stated that they want the President to fail, unconcerned with the effect of such failure on the country. In keeping with this desire, they portray every decision President Obama makes as the setting the country on the path to absolute and imminent destruction. (In remarkable irony, on the one hand they fume that Obama is undeserving of the Noble Peace Prize due to his short time in office, and on the other they assert that he has been in office plenty long enough to completely destroy the country.) The sore losers shriek "fascism" when Obama appoints advisors as czars, even though George W. Bush appointed more. They call Obama a dictator when he undertakes reasonable action to save General Motors and avert a great depression - set in motion of course by their hero Bush and his Republican supporters in Congress. They paint Obama's decision to try the 9/11 terrorism suspects as a reckless breach of national security. They reflexively screech "socialism" and "unconstitutional" for nearly every domestic policy initiative he proposes. Somehow the Fort Hood shootings are also Obama's fault, either because he endorses in general the concept of diversity, or because he refused to immediately pounce on the incident, label it as "terrorism" and use it as an opportunity to institute unconstitutional racial profiling. The blitzkrieg of disgusting, outrageous and manufactured attacks continues on a daily basis. It's all part of the sore loser's plan to systematically destroy public confidence in the President, block his agenda and sabotage his presidency.
What makes the sore losers particularly galling is that they act as if they have been in a political coma throughout the entire Bush Administration. When George W. Bush was president, anyone who dared to criticize him was immediately branded as un-American and accused of not supporting the troops and treasonously "enabling the enemy". As part of their blind loyalty to Bush, many sore losers justified rendition and torture, supported illegal wiretaps and bogus signing statements, brushed off back door draft policies, cheered the loss of civil liberties under the Patriot Act, excused Abu Ghraib, called the U.S. attorney scandal a "political witch-hunt", pretended 9/11 didn't happen on Bush's watch, ignored the conversion of a surplus to a massive deficit, applauded billions in no-bid contracts to Bush cronies and looked the other way when Bush orchestrated huge giveaways in tax cuts and subsidies to Big Oil, Big Pharma and wealthy individuals. Protesters were rarely covered by the media, and if they were it was usually to jeer or mock them. Just ask Cindy Sheehan. People were actually arrested or detained for simply wearing anti-Bush T-shirts on an airplane or into the Congressional gallery, or having an anti-Bush bumper sticker on their car as they peacefully entered a public town hall meeting. How times have changed! Now you can openly incite violence, threaten to burn the Speaker of the House in effigy and make jokes about poisoning her, snatch a Rosa Parks picture from a woman and tear it up in front of her, accuse female Democratic senators of "hooking" , compare the First Lady to a gorilla, shout homophobic slurs at members of Congress and brandish weapons at events where the President is speaking without consequence! And yet Beck complains that Americans' rights are being taken away. It is unclear what rights those would be. Certainly the right to act like a menacing, loud-mouthed bully remains fully intact.
Sore losers were also active in attacking President Clinton, and for the same reason - a president who is not a Republican is an abomination that offends the natural order, as they see it. They feel they have an entitlement to leadership. People like Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich led the charge before the era of Beck. But they all have the goal, out of bitterness, spite and sheer hatred, to take down the Democratic President. Let's face it - Republicans will do their best to not let Democrats govern, even though Democrats win elections. With Clinton, they had the sex angle. Obama is black. They'll take what they can get and start from there. This time, however, they seem even more vicious. And fortunately for them, they are aided by a lazy, unprincipled and inept media who by and large seem to be utterly incapable of critical analysis, fact-checking or calling out dangerous demagogues.
The sore losers think Glenn Beck is their key to avoiding what they view as on par with eating a shit taco - a Democratic President who actually wants to legislate based on his campaign promises and a not-Republican agenda.
One final point - Glenn Beck himself is certainly a sore loser, despite his ploy to present himself as an independent or a libertarian. How do we know this? Check out Beck's website, where you can buy MP3 compilations of a number of his pre-2004 election radio programs. These products are described on his website as:
Gloat Fest 2004, featuring "divisive gloating"... "taunting, unkind, and hurtful attacks"-while Beck and his crew laugh "at the other side".
Best Of Election 2004, asking if listeners wanted to pull their hair out ofter months and years of "annoying" attacks on The President.
Best Of Election 2004, promising to allow listners to "revel in the Bush bashers failed efforts" and to enjoy Beck and his crew "tearing apart" people who tried to take President Bush down and, as he "gleefully" reminds you, "failed miserably".
Sounds kinda partisan to me. This is 2004 - not ancient history. (I'd be curious to know uber-patriot Beck's lifetime voting history. I assume his love of America motivated him to vote regularly.)
From the 2010 CPAC conference:
The only Republican who came in for praise was the former vice president. “I love Dick Cheney,” said Beck. “But it’s not enough just to not suck as much as the other side.”
The other side? Meaning, the Democratic party is what Beck views as "the other side"?
Further evidence? On his May 14, 2004 radio program, Beck attacked Michael Berg for criticizing President Bush. Michael Berg, if you recall, is the father of Nick Berg, a contractor whose beheading in Iraq was made public via the internet for the world to see. Beck, however, apparently had a zero-tolerance policy for criticism of President Bush, even under these exceptional circumstances. Beck stated:
"I'm beginning to really dislike this guy [Michael Berg]. I'm beginning to question, you know, "Can you let your son's body become the same temperature as your son's head before you turn this into a political campaign against the president -- could you do that?...
...I find this guy [Michael Berg] despicable. Everything in me says that. The want to be a better person today than I was yesterday says he's a dad, he's grieving, but I don't buy that. I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I think he is grieving, but I think he's a scumbag as well."
Glenn Beck is not a Republican? I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I think he is a Republican, and the soreset of sore losers.
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