Don't forget that Glenn Beck is coming to Safeco Field next week. The EFF is hosting the event. He's been all the rage lately, having helped take down Van Jones and so on.
Tickets are still available.
Beck is also being given the key to his hometown, Mount Vernon, the same day.
Posted by pudge at September 18, 2009 10:52 PM | Email ThisThe extreme leftist bias in the Seattle media will never be so evident or fun to watch as it will be over the next few days.
Be sure to tune in to your favorite talking head.
Posted by: JoeBandMember on September 19, 2009 08:55 AMTo say that Beck well-represents the conservate movement today is to ignore Bill Kristol, National Review, George Will, the Heritage Foundation, the EFF and Bob Williams, among many others who (at the very least, collectively) have a much greater impact on modern conservative thought ... which is, well, rather un-intellectual of you.
I am not a Beck fan. But he is no worse than the Air America and MSNBC hosts (not to mention members of Congress like Pelosi whose "violence in the 70s" remarks were as dumb as anything Beck says).
There's some things I like about Beck, but his willingness to put stuff up that isn't well-sourced and well-founded isn't one of them.
Posted by: pudge on September 19, 2009 11:02 AMOh, and if you want to pose as a gun owner, perhaps you should actually understand the laws: WA doesn't register firearms.
Put another way, lets say he disappears...who's our prime spokesman? Mark Levin? MIchael Savage? yipes...both are entertaining but you'll never reach the minds of as many people as Beck does.
by the way, he uses satire so well...similar to the early days of Limbaugh, where he was able to skewer the left in satirical sketches....very good stuff
Posted by: righton on September 19, 2009 12:49 PMI do not want to sound moderate, and I am not moderate. Indeed, I end up sounding extremely conservative in this debate, because my criticisms -- which are levied at media figures irrespective of their politics -- are based on a very traditional and well-established set of journalistic principles. That is, "conservative" journalistic principles.
Consider this video earlier this year, where Beck says, "I'm tired of the politics of left and right. It's about right and wrong. We argue back and forth -- 'If you haven't voted for the donkey, you're just a hatemonger.' The other side -- 'Oh, those donkeys trying to turn us into communist Russia.' Stop!"
I agreed with Obama when he said it in January. Too bad he doesn't take his own advice: almost every night, it is BECK who says the donkeys are trying to turn us into communist Russia, or something close to it.
As I said before, I like some of what he says and does. But much of what he says is just STUPID. And I have no qualms about calling him out on it, except that I don't want to ruin the EFF's event. :-)
Personally, I have no "prime spokesman." I wasn't aware I needed one. But if I did, it would be WFB (even posthumously he would serve as a much better spokesman than Beck), or George Will, or Bob Williams, or some other conservative who not only "feels" conservatism, but can intellectually express it, defend it, and even convince people of it.
Ronald Reagan was an intellectual conservative. He convinced millions of Americans not because he cried, but because he reasoned. And he did it very, very well.
If insiders start to expose the corruption permeating through DC, Beck could get his wish of quarantining the source of all this corrupt legislation and stop this Marxist push from the Obama administration.
Posted by: Reality on September 19, 2009 01:19 PMPure GENIUS!!!
Maybe you could draw us your Beckain Tree?
LMFAO! :-D
Below is a link to a very powerful podcast.
http://www.tinyurl.com/ismichaelreaganrightmp3
Posted by: Gene on September 19, 2009 06:31 PMIf they actually were to read any of it, that would go against the wishes of their handlers in the leftist media.
Posted by: JoeBandMember on September 20, 2009 07:43 AMGood point.
Would you be willing to expand on that thought?
Which of Beck's writings do you recommend?
For whom is it important to read and why?
[snip]
Incidentally, here is a shocking fact: Yesterday (last week), 26 members of the Congressional Black Caucus--25 in the House and one, Roland Burris, in the Senate--voted against resolutions to defund Acorn, the scandal-plagued advocacy group. Two additional Black Caucus members voted "present" in the House, and one was absent.
Only seven Congressional Black Caucus members voted to defund Acorn, and here's the honor roll (all are Democrats):
■Sanford Bishop (Ga.)
■William Lacy Clay (Mo.)
■John Conyers (Mich.)
■Artur Davis (Ala.)
■Hank Johnson (Ga.)
■Kendrick Meek (Fla.)
■Laura Richardson (Calif.)
That is to say, fewer than 1 in 4 Black Caucus members voted to stop spending taxpayers' money on an organization that has been caught on video at least five times offering advice on how to practice slavery.
[/snip]
The hypocracy is mind numbing.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574421031545178964.html
Posted by: BD on September 20, 2009 08:23 PMTomorrow.
For example, I did not know, until I heard it from Beck, that Woodrow Wilson resegregated the federal work force, which had been largely desegregated by Republicans following the Civil War. I looked into it further, and it appears that Beck was quite right.
How many shows would discuss the roots of socialized medicine going back to Bismarck? Beck did.
Call him an Elmer-Gantry, an alarmist, or a drama-queen if you wish, but anti-intellectual he is not.
Posted by: travis t on September 21, 2009 02:22 AMKnowing that President Wilson rolled over on segregation policy may be worth some points on Jeopardy, but this knowledge of American history is really freshman year 20th century survey class level.
Knowing history doesn't qualify any one as an intellectual. Not knowing history definitely disqualifies one from being able to engage in intellectual pursuits.
That Wilson's Democratic party was dominated by southern segregationists hardly seems relevant to the 21st century, unless Mr. Beck was making the analysis that today's Republican party is the heir and prisoner of that racist rump as a result of the Southern Strategy.
What disqualifies Beck from being considered an intellectual is his frequent use of selective historical facts and the most distant relation between a set of related historical facts to assert a invalid and untrue conclusion.
Whether it is Johah Goldberg saying it or Glenn Beck providing the forum for it to be heard, the assertion that President Woodrow Wilson was a fascist totalitarian ruler is nutz.
In your heart you know I'm right. :-)
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on September 21, 2009 11:21 AM
He took it a step farther than William Jennings Bryan, who had previously been the Democratic nominee for President several times, and who thought that the federal government's power was absolute, and the only question was whether to exercise that power.
Wilson, however, believed something Bryan rejected: that there existed scientific methods and procedures that could be used to create a better society, if only the right formulas were discovered and applied ... what has become modern American and European socialism.
i've only a moment, so this is a quick response to your 'who said'?
A forum provided by Glenn Beck.
??
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on September 21, 2009 01:41 PMI thought that was obvious.
As a few have responded to the Bruce Bartlett post I quoted, let me just add a few tidbits.
pudge's flogging of Beck's SAFECO Field appearance came on the heels of Beck being on the cover of Time Magazine; a cover story which appeared on the same day as Irving Kristol's death. The simultaneous occurrence of the 2 events has given quite a few bloggers and writers reason to make comparisons.
Bruce Bartlett's conclusion is rather stark, but within the main stream of such comparison writings this past week. Andrew Sullivan's blog has a number of links to similar comparisons.
Beck's knee jerk and poorly sourced news analysis is nothing new. Such practices have been part of 20th century media for years. What is new in 2009 is the Republican party's practically complete subservience to populist media for its agenda (e.g. Beck, Hannity, Rush, ...). What was the outcome of the 2 Republican Rebranding efforts announced in 2009 by the GOP congressional leaders and pooh-poohed by talk show host Limbaugh???
I don't expect those who frequent this board to agree, but the difference between the very highly paid daily commentators of today with William F. Buckley's National Review and Irving Kristol's The Public Interest is severe.
Of course there are exceptions. But the 1960's exception is today's rule and vice versa.
But, of course, you know that Kristol came to accept and endorse ideological propaganda in the later third of his life.
For many thinkers it seems Kristol forgot the dangers of populism and how it informed his anti-communist stance of his youth and informed his abandonment of liberal socialism as an adult.
Posted by: MikeBoyScout on September 21, 2009 03:36 PM
What they do have in common is that they both are getting people to think for themselves. And that one thing seems to upset the left more than any one topic discussed by either.
Posted by: JoeBandMember on September 22, 2009 07:14 PM