Roger L. Simon

Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine

The Perils of Coming Out Conservative in Tinseltown
This is the SECOND EDITION of BLACKLISTING MYSELF, now in paperback from Encounter Books with TWO NEW CHAPTERS! BUY HERE IN PAPERBACK!... KINDLE ... BN NOOKBOOK... SONY READER... also on APPLE IBOOKS.

By Roger L Simon

Bio

Get Updates From Roger L Simon

The New York Times, of all news outlets, published a John Edwards mini-scoop Saturday (on its front page, no less), informing us the onetime Senator and presidential aspirant is “considering” owning up to the paternity of his putative love-child with Rielle Hunter.

Telling the simple truth is evidently something politicians in this post-George Washington era have to “consider” – no cherry trees for our John, nor for his wife Elizabeth who, the Times further informs us, is reluctant for her husband to make this revelation. In her view, the old saw “the truth shall make you free” does not apply directly to the Edwards family (unless it’s through managed leaks.)

But no matter. We all know by now that the Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are pretty far from the ideal couple, more like a blow-dried version of a John Cheever nightmare with a little John O’Hara and John Updike thrown in.

Advertisement

But what really gives here? Why is the Times suddenly so interested in the Edwards affair, a scandal the paper once assiduously ignored, saying nary a word for months as the incriminating photographs piled up in the National Enquirer?

Of course, it is finally safe to attack Edwards, now that the campaign is long over with the Democratic Party victorious and its candidate able to distance himself from the former North Carolina attorney through multiple firewalls. The Times emphasized this with its choice of photograph showing the forlorn Edwards clutching his wife for dear life at the Teddy Kennedy memorial where, the Times tells us, the North Carolinian was shunned.

But there is more to it than that. To say that the New York Times is in trouble is an understatement. It’s a ghost of its former self, economically wounded while being hit almost daily with scandals from the relatively minor, like its computer guru David Pogue having an overly-close relationship to Apple, to the more significant like its hardly surprising ignoring of the ACORN debacle (until it was absolutely embarrassing).

You could almost feel sympathy for Times editor Jill Abramson, when she laughably excused the paper’s lack of coverage of ACORN as under-staffing on a holiday weekend, were she not so fundamentally meretricious – dishonest, I strongly suspect, even to herself. The level of reification among Times people is extraordinary. Few of them have altered their worldview even a jot for decades. The revelation of ACORN as rotten to the core and a near-perfect illustration of a fundamental flaw in the welfare state is a challenge to their weltanschauung so extreme it would engender personality disintegration.

So the flaying of John Edwards is, for them, something of a cover. It is a way to show even-handedness in a harmless situation when no even-handedness is evident on more serious matters (not just ACORN, but the CIA, water-boarding, global warming, healthcare, the economy, etc., etc.). Indeed, it is a convenient mask for unwavering ideological orthodoxy, just as, in a different manner, Anderson Cooper’s sandbagging on CNN of the hapless Tea Party organizer Mark Williams was a more successful attempt to characterize the opposition as whacko racist extremists. Of course the truth is that Williams is probably not a real racist – just exceptionally naïve and way over his head in a world of television sophisticates. But he certainly provided red meat for a supercilious James Carville and the ever-unctuous David Gergen.

These are the times in which we live. The gloves are off on both sides. For the moment the Right is winning and there is no greater reason for this than Glenn Beck. To be honest, Beck makes me feel uneasy. He embarrasses me. He often seems like a man on the verge of an ataque de nervios, as Pedro Almodovar once had it. I don’t know if he is going to fly off the handle, blow up or what.

But he also very often seems to be right (small r). Beck has been the first and, for quite a while, the only one to be assiduously connecting the dots between Obama, Ayers, the two Joneses and the rest of the post-sixties crew that seems to have never gotten over the Port Huron Statement, with the Chicago School of neo-Boss Tweed politics. These are dots that should have been connected by the mainstream media long ago, but, as we all know, they didn’t want to look at them. New Media hasn’t done a great job of connecting these dots either because, frankly, we don’t yet have the skills or manpower. But Beck is doing it. More power to him. Let’s help..

PJ Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:

1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.

2. Stay on topic.

3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.

4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.

5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.

These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that PJ Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. Please note that comments are reviewed by the editorial staff and may not be posted immediately. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pjmedia.com.

93 Comments, 93 Threads, 4 Trackbacks

  1. It’s been a long time since any organ of the Old Media was actually interested in reporting on the news, rather than in promoting its editors’ and publisher’s ideological preferences.

    The Old Media are in a death spiral, locked into one behavior pattern and unable to break out of it even for their own survival. Their treatment of the 9/12 demonstrations should make that clear. The New Media had better gear up quickly; someone has to take up the slack. If no institution arises to handle the critical job of reporting the actual facts of current events, like the detectives at the precinct where the toilets were stolen, the American people will have nothing to go on.

  2. 2. vivo

    “For the moment the Right is winning and there is no greater reason for this than Glenn Beck.”

    Winning what?? All they do is lie. 2 million marchers on 9/12? How about 70,000. Mass produced ‘Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy’ and dozens of crackpot statements.

    Yes, they won a place in the mental wards and an image of ill repute.

    “To be honest, Beck makes me feel uneasy. He embarrasses me. He often seems like a man on the verge of an ataque de nervios, as Pedro Almodovar once had it. I don’t know if he is going to fly off the handle, blow up or what.”

    No wonder, he’s one architect of the lemming parades sweetly called Tea Parties. The teabaggers love his antics since their barren lives resemble “Cops’, ‘Jerry Springer’, ‘Desperate Housewives of . . . ‘.

    He IS going to fly off the handle.

  3. 3. Pragmatist

    Who do you want to believe vivo the LYING BIASED SYCHOPHANTIC OBAMANATION loving MSM which is trying to fost this PATHETICALLY smal number of 70,000 or your own lying eyes hey. LOL you ‘libtards’a always love to flog a dead horse your BS has been exposed so go back under your rock.

  4. 4. Mick

    Nice piece here and true. The NY Times and most of the main stream media have given up on any serious work covering ‘news’. The sad reality is if they did what they were supposed to, people like Beck, Hannity and the rest would not be so influential.

    Look at Charlie Gibson from ABC, when asked about the ACORN scandal he had no clue as to what that was. Here was a man so bent on asking Sarah Palin about the Bush Doctrine, looking down at her over his oh-so serious nose and yet he is apparently oblivious to the corrupt spasms of a major national organization.

    Don’t blame Beck for being Beck, blame the folks at ABC, NBC, CBS and the whole host of print media for failing in there roles as stewards of the truth.

  5. 5. RIck

    I saw in the news yesterday that Obama is thinking absout bailing out newspapers with taxpayer money… god, what is WRONG with liberals?

  6. 6. Yael

    I heard the other day that Venezuela has only one television news channel remaining that criticizes Chavez. Hard to believe, but it’s the same here in O-merica.

  7. I thank God for the few people in the media like Glen Beck and Andrew Breitbart. Without them, we never would have found out the possibly illegal activities of people like Van Jones and corrupt organizations like ACORN. The mainstream media is so biased these days (they don’t even seem to hide it anymore) that if there weren’t alternative avenues to get news, actual crimes would have been covered up by organizations like the New York Times. ACORN is a criminal organization and should be investigated by the FBI under the “RICO” laws. ACORN is already being investigated in approximately 14 states for voter fraud and about 30 of its members have already been convicted of crimes. Yet none of this seems to be important to anybody who works at the New York Times. One should be asking, “Why?” I’m stunned that none of the other network news outlets even want to touch the story (well, maybe I’m not really surprised), but it just goes to show you how corrupt the media is these days. We need people like Glen Beck now more than ever.

  8. 8. Rob

    I admire your use of the word “meretricious” in regard to the NYT and the Acorn scandal, as the word means both “dishonest” (today’s primary meaning) and “relating to prostitution” (secondary meaning from the latin root “meretrix” which means “prostitute”). The use of a word with two meanings in a context where both are apt is a real skill. Keep up the good work.

  9. 9. canuck

    “To be honest, Beck makes me feel uneasy. He embarrasses me.”

    Why does he make you feel uneasy and why in the world would you be embarrassed? Beck is everything that we need to penetrate the walls of our “Post-American” Democratic party which has been taken over by unopposed radicals. Beck is throwing out and relating information to the post-thinking 25+ demographic that has been looking for an outlet for a growing but disorganized anger.

    If he is emotional, fine…someone needed to communicate with the nation that way….why else would millions tune in or TIVO a 5 pm show? He speaks for many of us. The attacks on Beck are actually as entertaining as he is…he was accused of “sliming” Van Jones by playing his own words which just doesn’t cut it with anyone with two synapsing neurons.

    The only embarrassment you should feel is that none before in the world of “journalism” has so concentrated this anger over the years as the entirely unopposed MSM have molded and shaped the nation into a pre-socialist nanny state. The embarrassment clearly needs to be self critical and remorseful.

  10. I agree with Simon about Glenn Beck. The man makes me queasy at times, too — and he certainly is not above self-promotion and self-congratulation (“If you believe, as I do…come, follow me.) As all successful cable / television personalities eventually do, he thinks things a bit more about himself than he should. (Also, he’s making a very good buck off all of this.)

    That said, I believe the man is doing the nation a very real service. He is shining a bright light on corruption; he is pounding away at scoundrels (as are Michelle Malkin, Adrew Breitbart, Sean Hannity, Internet journalists, bloggers, et al.).

    This is, I believe, a dangerous time for America. Not simply because we have a megalomaniac in the White House (we’ve had them before). The real danger springs from the fact that the so-called Fourth Estate has completely sold out.

    The Old Media’s complicity in Obama’s — and other Democrats’ — shenanigans is what truly frightens me. The mainstream media has morphed into a willing Pravda of sorts.

    And now comes word that Obama is “open” to the idea of a government bailout for newspapers. Yeah, well, I’m “open” to the idea of his impeachment.

  11. 11. JupiterSuite

    Reporting by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, WaPo, NYT

    NOTHING – Reverend Wright’s Hate Speech
    NOTHING – John Edwards Love Child
    NOTHING – Van Jones Far Left Radicalism
    NOTHING – ACORN’s Rife Corruption, Criminality
    NOTHING – NEA’s Agitprop

    Unf#$!ingbelievable. Malevolent arrogance, yes.
    But just plain shamefully embarrassing too. I mean, ouch!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0JDjfEkOSQ

  12. 12. JupiterSuite

    The Government-Hollywood-Media Complex…

    NEA: Nefarious Expenditures on Agitprop
    ACORN: Child “Services”, Financial “Services”, “Voter” Registration —Democrat Funded

  13. 13. gcblues

    roger you are right about beck, simply not complete.

    vivo is simply out of the loop somewhere in an alternate bizarro universe.

    beck, i think he would agree is a putz, and proud of it. he reminds me of me in that regard. clearly on the verge of perpetual decoupling from earth orbit and proud of it.. here here

    however his ayers trail is the least of him. his long sessions with public servants confessing, dems in rage and slow patient debt and treasury explanations are important information conveniently presented to the masses in common man terms.

    more importantly he is not a republican, he is a radical conservative libertarian. he, if you peel back some layers is an anathema to many of the social right control freaks prancing through your posts here at pjm.

    he is indeed in a not small part responsible for this blossoming revolution and the direction of it which is decidedly towards liberty and away from the ant farmers in both parties. his goals are to devolve, to deconstruct, to refound. he is not interested in new law, he is interested in eliminating laws.
    it is that anti political solution which is the only protection we have from the red meat social rightists leading us down the same path but opposite side that resulted in the BDS that elected obozo. we do not need that. we do not need the right wing incarnation of odumbo. we need freedom from the state. a libertarian putz that is proud of it, suits me just fine.

  14. 15. gcblues

    bds equals bush derange syndrome
    i forgot u do not do parenthesis.

  15. “” (Mr) Beck makes me feel uneasy. He embarrasses me. He often seems like a man on the verge of an ataque de nervios …. “”

    But Mr Beck also very often seems to be closely following the lead of the real brains of the Rightalk Radio genre – Doctors Savage and Levin, as examples thereof – to be benefiting handsomely from their intelligent research and — insofar as TV ratings are concerned — to also be benefiting from Mr Murdoch’s unsurpassed ability to attract and to hold onto the yellow-press tabloid-TV-watcher crowd. (EG, by the employment of such attractants to that demographic as are provided by the execrable Messrs O’Really? Gerry Rivers and as is the sewer-searching screeching scar-faced Scientologist)

  16. 17. NewHavenette

    Mr. Simon—-Don’t fret about Glenn Beck. Unlike most of you out there, I have been following him as a regular listener since long ago when he was a “local” figure on WELI in Connecticut. [I'm pretty good at spotting talent.] I even listened to him on WFLA in FL during numerous trips there. He may appear a little bit unstable at times, but that is due to his natural theatricality — a characteristic misinterpreted by those who are new to his audience. [If you only watch his TV show and skip his radio program, you are missing out on some truly hilarious comedy produced by the banter between him, his very bright sidekick (aka Producer) Stu and his new sidekick (BFF) Pat.] Glenn used to muse and pontificate on various moral and cultural issues, but has gravitated more toward politics over the last few years. His politics, however, is most often rooted in its relationship to principles and ethics, rather than partisanship — which is what makes it refreshing. Add in the recent muckraking tendency and always meticulous research and you have a powerful combination — for those with the stomach to hear the truth. Get over your embarrassment and listen — you might learn something.

  17. 18. friedfish2718

    “How about 70,000.”
    vivo is just a useful low-IQ parrot.

    http://blog.heritage.org/2009/09/15/metro-delivers-hundreds-of-thousands-to-912-rally/

    The Heritage looked at the DC Metro traffic (which is much more objective):
    The Metro ridership jumped 235,096, compared from the previous Saturday.

    On inauguration day in 2009, the Metro ridership jumped 975,000, with the total attendance estimated at 1.3 million. So the 70,000 number is to thrown in the trash.

  18. 19. Now and Then

    Talk to the spoon!

    http://vimeo.com/6264315

    A bit desperate for a hero, aren’t you?

  19. 20. George S.

    Roger Simon …you just couldn’t write a piece without being negative on Glenn Beck.

    I guess the code word was whispered in your ear and you had to obey. …the past is a hard thing to let go.

    regards

  20. 21. Central Iowa Mom

    Why do we continue to refer to NBC, CBS, ABC, New York Times as mainstream media? They are not. There is nothing main stream about them. How about Out of Touch Media = OTM? These news outlets do not represent the thoughts of Middle America and haven’t for some time.

    Beck makes me twitch once in a while as well, but at least he’s doing the work the OTM won’t!

  21. 22. MDlib

    #11 gcblues

    “we do not need the right wing incarnation of odumbo. we need freedom from the state. a libertarian putz that is proud of it, suits me just fine.”

    you are 100% Correct

  22. 23. Now and Then

    15 newhavenette

    “and always meticulous research”

    FEMA concentration camps . . . OLIGARHY . . . and of course, this gem of disingenuity:

    http://www.indecisionforever.com/2009/08/14/jon-stewart-owns-glenn-beck-on-healthcare-hypocrisy/comment-page-5/

  23. 24. "progressivewatch"

    What is ACORN?

    Obama’s nuts.

    How damaging to Obama is losing ACORN??

  24. 25. Wallace

    No wonder, he’s one architect of the lemming parades sweetly called Tea Parties. The teabaggers love his antics since their barren lives resemble “Cops’, ‘Jerry Springer’, ‘Desperate Housewives of . . . ‘.

    Those shows only interest teabagees like you. Who are the one claiming to be the champion of the lazy, the incompetent and the malcontents? The Teabagee-in-Chief wants to take the money from the rich and gives it to the lazy. ACORN teabagees want to take criminals and move them to the good people’s neighborhood. ACLU teabagees want to give terrorists rights beyond the Americans’ right not to get murdered.

  25. 26. pelaut

    Roger, it’s long past time to have taken the gloves off.
    It’s time to put on the brass knucks.
    Are you up to it?

    The timidity and reserve of your mature years nowhere redresses the pandemonium you caused on the Left in the 60s and 70s.
    Get cracking guy! You’ve got a lot to make up for.

  26. 27. Missy

    Now and Then #18:

    Appears you are a bit weak in your research, as are those you reference. I watched Glenn Beck debunk the FEMA concentration camps rumor back in June and looky here, even the HuffPost gives credit where credit is due.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/08/glenn-beck-fema-concentra_n_184692.html

  27. 28. Aureliano

    Too funny.

    I just submitted a post about how modern liberalism is propagated primarily through television, not newspapers, and Now and Then links to noted historian and scholar Jon Stewart.

    Perfect.

  28. 29. Jerry

    Glen Beck points out what is going wrong or what has already gone wrong and deals less prognostication about what might go wrong in the future. His contribution to America’s future is immense because self-correction is the essence of a working complex system. NOBODY can predict the future – not single events, not patterns, not the outcome of policies. The very best any human being can do is correct that which has already clearly gone wrong. This is a major basis for opposition to grand design plans like our President’s and like those of Utopians of any ilk.

    (Thus, may I add parenthetically, that the Jewish Day of Atonement gets it just about right; well, at least good enough. Changing what we have done in the past is more important for our personal and societal selves than “planning for the future.” It’s just very hard to do.)

  29. 30. Michael

    I didn’t know anything about Glenn before his program on Fox began in January. Since then, I have been singularly impressed with his willingness to point out the relationships between various groups on the left. Some people would call it paranoid but when you look at the ties between the America’s foremost promoter of Eugenics, Margaret Sanger, the green movement of Rachel Carson, and Acorn/SEUI founder Wade Rathke, it does seem to me something worthy to be explored. And something the mainstream media will either attack and/or marginalize as much as possible because it doesn’t fit into their narrative.

  30. 31. genghis

    Yes. And Obama-san is ‘open’ to bailing out some newspapers. Hmmmm. I wonder which ones? Ordinarily gross mismanagement, reportorial fraud, and editorial deceit would bode ill for a newspaper. Not to mention plummeting subscriptions and plunging revenues. The Gray Lady is well past assisted living and should consider an Alzheimers Unit. Perhaps a centerfold might help. UFO stories always attract attention. Time for the edotors to think outside of the box.

  31. 32. steveg

    I like Beck, but his goofy facial expressions are a turn off to serious people like me. He is discussing important issues, and he needs to stop acting like a rodeo clown while making his point.

    Maybe he is just trying to be entertaining, but you have to admit it does not help his credibility. The leftstream media wants to destroy you Glenn, so don’t make it any easier for them.

  32. 33. Thomas_L......

    Beck is a bit of a … I dunno but so what? Gee, someone’s got to balance the hyper rationality of Moore and Stewart. Yeah sure. Looks like this is how we get our real news these days. So be it.

  33. 34. Incitatus

    “He often seems like a man on the verge of an ataque de nervios,.. . I don’t know if he is going to fly off the handle, blow up or what.”

    Roger Simon displays the typical smug correctness and pompous better-than-thou blend of civility and bottled paranoia of the neo-con. Give these pseudo-conservatives enough time and they eventually show their true pusillanimous colors. We don’t need to pull their mask off. They do it themselves.

    “But he also very often seems to be right (small r).” (?)

    Mr. Simon can’t bring himself up to concede completely that Glen Beck (so far since he started on Faux News) has been right big time.

    Yeah, eventually here and there Simon grants acknowledgement because the corruption along with the evidence is so overwhelming that he has no other recourse, but he does it so mealy mouthed and forcedly that we can picture him with the veins in his neck and his eyes bulging as if he was having a difficult stool.

    But then to play all audiences, like the harlequin O’reilly, R. S. ends up on a courageous and diligent note: “But Beck is doing it. More power to him. Let’s help..”

    I have to thank him though for giving me la palabra justa I was trying to find to convey his afraid-to-blow-it and full of “buts” approach: “ever-unctuous”. Thanks, Roger.

  34. 35. friedfish2718

    “How about 70,000.”
    vivo is just a useful parrot.

    http://blog.heritage.org/2009/09/15/metro-delivers-hundreds-of-thousands-to-912-rally/

    The Heritage looked at the DC Metro traffic (which is much more objective): The Metro ridership jumped 235,096, compared from the previous Saturday. On inauguration day in 2009, the Metro ridership jumped at 975,000, with the total attendance estimated at 1.3 million. So the 70,000 number is to thrown in the trash.

  35. 36. DoctorT

    Beck’s style is very in your face and a bit eccentric, but I think he is probably right. Everything that is going on is so over the top and so against the will of the majority of the people that it amounts to political suicide for the Democratic Party. Unless of course the plan is to “Remake America” so that the Democrats feel safe.

    Personally I like America. I’m going to hate leaving because of the Socialist society that is being put in place. I certainly won’t indenture myself to the government when they destroy and remake health care.

    As for the remaining State Media that still go by the names of ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN; I believe they need to be investigated and defunded and boycotted by the public, just like ACORN.

  36. 37. Jettboy

    “I like Beck, but his goofy facial expressions are a turn off to serious people like me”

    And yet . . . and yet, he gets results unlike any of the serious conservative know it all talking heads. Even Rush Limbaugh listeners might shake their heads in agreement, but never actually take any action. Beck might get his information from other sources, but he knows how to communicate in such a way that people do something. The time for a thoughtful approach is over. Conservatives need to see why he has been successful where others might be serious people and get nothing accomplished. I thinks its because of his passion that many conservatives are too afraid to express.

  37. 38. Morton Doodslag

    I think this ACORN thing has the potential to bring down this president. Beck’s latest “Tree of Revolution’ model needs some work, but it nicely begins to illuminate the complicated radical network of seditious slime which constitutes the Obama administration.
    As for feeling queasy about Beck? Perhaps some forbearance is in order? After all, I must regularly overlook your (Roger Simon’s) earlier destructive radicalism in order to enjoy Pajamasmedia, which I enjoy very much. Maybe it’s better to keep such ungenerous skittish thoughts to oneself? Beck’s enemies have enough ammo without you adding to their arsenal!

    Finally, since you bring it up, on the subject of meretriciousness, isn’t it high time for you, Roger L. Simon, to make ammends to Baron Bodissy (and Dymphna) for your extremely unfair handling of the lunatic Charles Johnson libelblog fiasco ??? Some honest soul searching seems to be in order.

  38. 39. tanstaafl

    …a challenge to their weltanschauung so extreme it would engender personality disintegration.

    Quite a few NYT’s columnists & writers seem to have broken or non-existent cognitive dissonance meters. You wonder if some of them (e.g., Maureen Dowd) are…well.

    So the flaying of John Edwards is, for them, something of a cover. It is a way to show even-handedness in a harmless situation when no even-handedness is evident on more serious matters (not just ACORN, but the CIA, water-boarding, global warming, healthcare, the economy, etc., etc.).

    Token even-handedness :)

  39. 40. Kat in Indiana

    Ya know, the terms emotional, irrational, apoplectic, etc., were once used on another Great American-John Adams….

    God Bless the “irrational” people that continue to uncover the insidious corruption in our government; the pundits on PJMedia, American Thinker, Human Events, et al; a certain Alaskan bulldog; and those marvelous Tea-Baggers, all 500,000 PLUS of them that marched in DC on the 12th. THEY are who make America great!!!!

  40. 41. joh

    David Pogue having an overly-close relationship to Apple?

    Hmm, I can see how the NYT wouldn’t have seen that coming, that would be like Obama having an overly-close relationship to ACORN.

    Only news that fits our narrative do we print.

  41. 42. cfbleachers

    been getting caught up in the spam filter repeatedly…but only on Roger’s posts???

  42. 43. Incitatus

    45. cfbleachers:
    “been getting caught up in the spam filter repeatedly…but only on Roger’s posts???”

    Yep! But not only on Roger’s posts, practically on most of them. The folks at Pajamas Media Blog are so petrified and paralyzed by PC that they are hysterical control freaks. There is not much we can do. Well, we can always abandon the site. Something to consider. Or maybe if they’d switch to decaf we could get some relief.

  43. 44. M. Report

    A bucket of Beck :)

    “I have known Heroes who were such oafs
    that I would have had them fed at the
    back door – had their deeds not earned
    them a place at the table.”

  44. 45. NewHavenette

    #25 Now & Then: You are TOO funny! It looks like “Missy #29″ has taken care of the silly FEMA camp non-issue, so I will answer your Jon Stewart “proof” … (Hope you’re not a mathematician.) BTW, I can tell you don’t even watch or listen to Beck because of your obvious misapprehensions and I would gently suggest that you not use Jon Stewart as any kind of “proof” of anything other than the fact that sarcasm can, indeed, be funny.

    Glenn was on potent pain killers and was ticked off at his doctor because he got an infection from his surgery. So he’s HUMAN! Good thing we have “choice” in our health care delivery (I don’t call it a “system” because that’s what they have in totalitarian regimes.) Glenn now has the OPTION of going elsewhere or changing doctors, unlike in countries with socialized medicine. You DO believe in “choice” Now & Then, don’t you?

    Also, it’s a good thing he didn’t get that surgery in the UK, or he’d probably be dead … based on the numerous articles I have read about hospital infection rates there–and the demoralized nurse-friend I have in London. In addition, I had a friend in Japan who died of breast cancer a couple of years ago. She was in her late forties. I once had my son treated for a high fever/infection in Japan. The patients (including us) lined up to sit down at a doctor’s desk to be seen (behind a folding screen.) They (we) were quickly examined and then got up for the next patient–like an assembly line. The doctor did NOT wash his hands between patients. Japan had socialized medicine. I will always wonder if my friend would be alive today if she had been living here … like the many women I know who are breast-cancer SURVIVORS.

    The UN ratings list of countries based on the quality of their health care is biased and skewed. You would be surprised, I’m sure, if you did some research on Google (as I have done) to compare apples with apples. It turns out that many of the reasons certain segments of our society have higher mortality rates have more to do with lifestyle choices (and we are all still free to live as we choose, as of this writing) and inattention to things like following doctor’s orders, scheduling follow-up care, etc. etc. etc. In other words, EDUCATIONAL LEVEL has a lot to do with whether or not people take advantage of the extraordinarily high-level of medicine available in this country. As other (e.g. European) countries begin to see increased levels of poor, uneducated immigrants, they too are seeing lesser results in the medical outcomes of those segments of their populations.

    So, Now & Then, it might behoove you to actually listen to Glenn Beck now and then to learn a few things about how to do research and how to think — so you don’t have to let Jon Stewart do your thinking for you.

  45. 46. cfbleachers

    I don’t believe I said anything offensive, certainly don’t recognize it as such…have been so busy at work, haven’t been able to comment much in past months…but, I have never had a problem with the folks at PJM. Quite the contrary.

    I think this is a technical glitch, not a personal one…or at least I hope so!

  46. 47. Bob Miller

    Any conservative or libertarian who whines about Beck’s manner owes us his/her own exposes of the bad guys on at least the same scale.

  47. 48. Greg Marquez

    Minor style point. “The truth shall make you free” should probably not be characterized as an old say since it is one of the sayings of Jesus:

    John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

    Greg Marquez
    goyomarquez@earthlink.net

  48. VIVO#4…How do you feel about that sissyboy Keith Olbermann ? Beck shoots from the hip like a man should, Olbermann just shoots off his mouth like a whiney, catty, nasty, female. The left has many, many, whiners like old Old Lady Olbermann. Not one manly fellow in the leftist pot. Name one, go ahead and try, you can’t, manliness is not a virtue to the left. Moan, groan, whine, complain, that is what the left is really good at.

  49. I just had my comment deleted before it was even posted, I used no profanity, nothing racial, religious, only common words of the language and yet I was deleted. Why bother posting if you can’t post?

  50. 51. EdGi

    Good post Roger. The flaw in the left’s coverup of themselves is that there are so many “traitors” like yourself that is is not possible for the coverup to work; their better shot would have been to get it out themselves that they are the revolution of the left and blunt our attack. True, neither we nor Beck have connected the dots, but the existance of so many like yourself makes it inevitable their coverup will not work.

  51. 52. Delia

    I think Glenn Beck’s exasperated expressions reflect how a lot of frustrated Americans are feeling in the USA right now. Sometimes Beck is over-the-top and I chuckle out loud when he goes from wired to weepy and back again but my husband the ‘armchair quarterback’ is far more ‘vocally emotional’ over things of much less importance happening on Sunday/Monday Night Football. -(NOT that there is anything wrong with that)…

    he-he-he

  52. 53. ked5

    Look at Charlie Gibson from ABC, when asked about the ACORN scandal he had no clue as to what that was.

    ~~~

    well, there is a question here. Did he *really* not know? or just pretended to *not* know (when unexpectedly called out) so he wouldn’t have to betray his core lack of scruples?

  53. 54. MikeD

    “I saw in the news yesterday that Obama is thinking absout bailing out newspapers with taxpayer money…’

    Maybe they can call it “Cash for Clunkers II”. It’s likely to be just as intelligent and successful as the original.

  54. I posted something one hour ago, it never appeared with the “AWAITING MODERATION” warning, it is not there at all.

    ????

    and

    ???

  55. 56. Claude Hopper

    I watch Glenn and then watch the Friday News Hour segment with Brooks and Shields. Boy, what a contrast; it’s pretty obvious who is out of the loop. (Hint: think BS)

  56. OK, I will try again.

    Beck is simply speaking in the right way for an audience that had to go through the leftist brainwashing of public schools and MSM.

    Rush and Savage cannot speak in that way, they don’t understand what has happened to a large chunk of the country in the last forty years. Hannity has not enough rounds in his magazine (he should spend some time studying the classics).

    These two points make Beck very strong and have allowed him to help America, and I fear that he will increasingly be the target of the totalitarians.

    Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

  57. 58. Professor Guvinoff

    The Queasiness-about-Glenn-Beck-syndrome is only today’s rendition of the age-old student’s discomfort. As Roger Simon acknowledges, Glenn Beck reveals things we need to know, but are sorry to learn.

    BHO’s ardent admonitions are not just about redistribution of wealth, they are also about redistribution of blame, or perhaps I should say redistribution of credit, because he is toiling so hard to denounce the American virtues as somehow nefarious things.

    So Glenn Beck, the skillful deconstructor of the false glory of our defamator-in-chief, makes us uncomfortable, as he should. Walt Disney would have been the wrong guy to help us with that.

  58. 59. Warren Bonesteel

    “New Media hasn’t done a great job of connecting these dots either because, frankly, we don’t yet have the skills or manpower.”

    Well, that was pretty lame.

    Lack the manpower? How many people are on the internet? There are 300 million Americans, right? They all lack skill, talent, ability, insight and knowledge? ‘Cause that’s what yer sayin’, here.

    So much for American Exceptionalism.

    Oh. I get it! You need a Great Leader before you can do anything. (Mebbe some buy named Roger Simon should be in charge of all of that sort of thing?) Well, America elected a bunch of Great Leaders last fall. How’s that working out for ya?

  59. 60. bibio44

    Glenn Beck pretty much personifies the new GOP which is really a reconstitution of the old John Birch Society. Once they purge a few RINOs, the transformation will be complete. Ike must be spinning in his grave.

  60. 61. pedro

    The Times is dead ,they just haven’t posted it, in the final obits section.

  61. 62. Moderato

    There is no accounting for taste, I know But I really, really don’t get this Glenn Beck thing. To me he seems like a lunatic. As a moderate, I hate to see somebody like this get credibility and respect.

  62. 63. Mike Sheard

    “John Edwards fathers an out of wedlock love child.”
    “The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.”

    Bailing out the newspapers will only prolong it’s death just like it is doing to Chrysler and Govenment Motors.

  63. 64. gracie

    If you don’t get the Glen Beck “thing”..then you are not listening to him. He is giving us facts, check able facts on what is going on in the US and this Administration.

    He is not just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks, the facts are things that can be traced. People on the left do not like the fact that someone is calling them on things they are doing, have done and said. The EM in this country is not interested in facts.

    He brought up the Van Jones thing, and the ACORN business. Otherwise we would be none the wiser.

    I don’t care if he dresses like bozo, and rides a camel, he’s one of the few good guys, and he has done nothing wrong. As a moderate I want to know what the heck is going on in my country and Beck is helping more than anyone else.

    Remember, facts, checkable facts…not rhetoric.

    Like he says, his life is an open book, period. Not so for the elected officials and their dealings. Also, Huffington is saying the TIMES article did not hit hard enough, or ask probing questions, pukes that they all are.

  64. 65. karlinsync

    Glenn Beck is a news anchor that sets us free. Tell the news and let me make my own judgement. The New York Times is nothing but very bias, lost in what seeking and reporting the news is all about, and just plain… a non-reading newspaper better used for bird cage crap removal!

  65. 66. AThinkingPerson

    There is no Glenn Beck “thing” Moderato. It’s very simple really. It’s called the TRUTH.

    Try a bit. It will set you free.

  66. 67. Roland

    Obamaniacs can attack Beck all they want. ANYTHING to AVOID THE FACTS Beck is disclosing. If obama was a legitimate, pro-America President, a guy like Van Jones wouldn’t have been allowed into the same room with him! The Secret Service would have kept him from even getting close to an actual pro-American President!

  67. 68. George S.

    Gracie and Athinkingperson.

    well said.

    regards

  68. 69. Poor Citizen

    Lets see, John Edwards and Ted Kennedy…

    Sorry, cant see where this article has any relevence for political debate or in the twenty first century. So I will pass on this one. But if beck is so big on the truth maybe he can right about cherry trees next time.

  69. 70. Sallie

    strange…the trolls are missing…

    could it be they can’t contradict “facts” with their drivel…

  70. 71. BC

    Yeah, let Glenn Beck set you free. Or whatever.

  71. 72. sunshine

    74. BC:

    Yeah, let Glenn Beck set you free. Or whatever.

    …the truth will set you free …moron !

  72. 73. malclave

    @3
    “they”? Code word. You’r a racist.

    @21
    More racist words. Even if you didn’t write them, they’re there.

    @63
    Wow, extreme racist talk, with hopes of violence thrown in. Disgusting.

  73. 74. ReConUSMC

    3. vivo:
    “For the moment the Right is winning and there is no greater reason for this than Glenn Beck.”

    Winning what?? All they do is lie. 2 million marchers on 9/12? How about 70,000. Mass produced ‘Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy’ and dozens of crackpot statements.

    Yes, they won a place in the mental wards and an image of ill repute.

    “To be honest, Beck makes me feel uneasy. He embarrasses me. He often seems like a man on the verge of an ataque de nervios, as Pedro Almodovar once had it. I don’t know if he is going to fly off the handle, blow up or what.”

    No wonder, he’s one architect of the lemming parades sweetly called Tea Parties. The teabaggers love his antics since their barren lives resemble “Cops’, ‘Jerry Springer’, ‘Desperate Housewives of . . . ‘.

    He IS going to fly off the handle.
    *****************************************************************
    Name me one fact Beck has reported that is wrong or he is Lying ? You can’t since I check everything thing he say’s . One suspects that is make you feel uneasy … that is normal for leftist …. Obama’s countless lies must make to peaceful ? Duh !

  74. 75. Sallie

    Everything that Beck claims as fact, we look up. So, far, no lies, no exaggeration. On the other hand..we have Pelosi, Reid, blahblahblah..

    You people fight back like sissies. If you’re going to defame someone, have facts. Show us where he lied, or he had dinner with Hugo, or consulted with Ayers, or declared he was a communist ala Jones, or that he was willing to help people set up a whore house with underage illegal emigrant girls. Or better that he didn’t know what ACORN was up to, or what had been going on with the videos..ala the mulatto in chief

    So, vomit up all the bs you want to , but try sticking to the truth and facts to back it up..

  75. 76. sbourg55

    ….fabulous insight. I think you’re right on-target. Finally having the Edwards sex scandal on page 1 gives the NYTimes “cover”, makes them look objective, having the bad news about a Democrat right on A-1. But you’re right. It doesn’t matter now. It might have been very important 1-2 years ago, but it’s irrelevant now. They ignored it for a reason then, just as they ignored all of Obama’s ugly past. If they had covered/investigated Obama’s semi-socialist past, Hillary’d have won the Dem ticket. The NYT didn’t dare disrupt the Dem fight, to that extent. By honest, investigative methods. Heck, it would have been very interesting to hear what Obama’s socialist professors at Oxy and Columbia thought of him……..he admitted he had them in “Dreams from my Father”. But nothing……nothing from the MSM. And, what kind of socialist rallies did he go to in Manhattan? He wrote in DFMF that he went to many, but he didn’t describe them. Who went with him? What impression did they make on him? Did he go because Frank Davis got him interested? I guess we’ll never know, because reporters didn’t do their jobs in ’08

  76. 77. Now and Then

    29. Missy:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izjfdfDHjWQ

    How many times does Beck trowel out these blatant falsehoods before he’s forced to do a backflip? If he’s meticulous in his research, he should do it BEFORE he makes the baseless claims. Know what I mean? No? Here’s an example. I’m gonna tell everyone in your neighborhood that your husband/father lesbian lover is a pedophile. Then I’ll do some research to see if it’s true. Sound fair?

    So it is with Fox News.

  77. 78. Now and Then

    77. ReConUSMC:

    Don’t you have some furniture designs to steal?

  78. 79. Now and Then

    77 ReconUSMC
    “Name me one fact Beck has reported that is wrong or he is Lying ? You can’t since I check everything thing he say’s. ”

    Really? I guess you didn’t check this one.

    http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200909210037

    When are you people gonna learn that you’re being played by this junkie?

  79. 80. michiganruth

    this is for #18 way back there, who’s probably not online anymore, but maybe it will help others, because it’s a common misconception:

    “Oh, that Glenn Beck is so stupid. He even misspelled ‘oligarchy.’”

    well, not exactly.

    actually…he DELIBERATELY misspelled it. as he explained later, he left out the “C” to symbolize the invisible CZARS that Obama doesn’t want you to know about.

    so you libs will just have to find something else to prove how stupid Beck is. let us know how that goes, ‘k?

  80. 81. BC

    to sunshine: Ah yes, in Bizarro World world, where up is down, left is right, and wicked smart people are morons, is Glenn Beck not a loon.

  81. 82. Now and Then

    84. michiganruth:
    “he DELIBERATELY misspelled it”

    Complete nonsense. I watched both shoes. He had no idea what he was doing.

  82. 83. Kevin S

    I keep seeing new names posting to these articles on PJ media who have an opinion against the leftist main stream…I only see vivo and Now and Then posting contra arguments (well, not really argument, as usually construed, just ad hominem invective)…must be lonely being low paid minions of Soros. By the way…are you getting your checks?

  83. 84. Deborah

    “Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are pretty far from the ideal couple, more like a blow-dried version of a John Cheever nightmare with a little John O’Hara and John Updike thrown in.” Oh ick.

  84. 85. JamesJust

    Mr Simon

    Believe you deleted my last post. Oh well, guess I’ll start my own blog.

  85. Hey, Now and Then, I see that you’re using such “credible” sources as Jon Stewart (#25) and Media Matters (#82), not to mention clips from You Tube. What’s next, are you going to use comic strips to make your points? Well, maybe you should, since comic strips are the only things you probably read. If you keep drinking the Kool Aid from the left, you’re never going to convince anyone in life (except another Kool Aid drinker, like Vivo). Drink up, pal.

  86. 87. wancow

    Roger L. Simon Wrote: “These are the times in which we live. The gloves are off on both sides. For the moment the Right is winning and there is no greater reason for this than Glenn Beck. To be honest, Beck makes me feel uneasy. He embarrasses me. He often seems like a man on the verge of an ataque de nervios, as Pedro Almodovar once had it. I don’t know if he is going to fly off the handle, blow up or what.”

    I loved that film!

    I don’t pay all that much attention to Glen Beck. If he’s the reason for all this, fine. Whatever, who cares? Well, maybe Fascist RINO David Frum (who was NEVER a conservative, and has never participated in a debate that can be honestly labeled “Conservative”).

    Roger L. Simon wrote: “Beck has been the first and, for quite a while, the only one to be assiduously connecting the dots between Obama, Ayers”

    BULL! BULL! BULL!

    Mr. Simon, don’t pass this off as fact It’s not. All I have to do is call up Sean Hannity and Mark Levin’s archives to prove this is complete bull!

    Was he the first? Maybe he was, though I find that hard to believe. He CERTAINLY was NOT the only one to talk about it. I was listening to Hannity talk about it in early 2008 and I believe he was already going on about it before that.

    “The gloves are off on both sides. For the moment the Right is winning and there is no greater reason for this than Glenn Beck.”

    Uh… no. There’s no greater reason for it than Barak Obama.

  87. 88. Now and Then

    90. Libertyship46:

    It’s video of his own words. You know what video is, right? It’s like the old talkie movies you went to as a kid, only with color and without the honkin big cameras.

  88. 89. mezzrow

    92 N&T – hello scum. Your Mom would like for you to get off the computer and take out the garbage. Its the least you can do for here, since she’s supporting your lazy ass. The ghost of Irving Kristol is in that basement room where you live. BTW, how’s that karma doing?

    Go back to Pranknet. Hobbyist.

  89. 90. Now and Then

    93. mezzrow:

    Yeah, that Kristol crack got to yo. Good. You deserve it. And that;s not my mom whispering in my ear. It’s yours. She always coming around, know what I mean?

  90. 91. Dred Scott

    NYT: “We know that, Mrs. Lincoln, but what did you think of the play?”

  91. 92. Doc99

    Glenn Beck is Howard Beale with facts.

  92. Hi there, awesome site. I thought the topics you posted on were very interesting. I tried to add your RSS to my feed reader and it a few. take a look at it, hopefully I can add you and follow.

Leave a Reply

We know you're busy. Sign up for our Daily Digest email to get a quick look each day at our editors' picks and readers' favorite stories. (You will receive an email asking you to verify your email address. If you have previously subscribed, no verification email will be sent.)