Glenn Beck has never been known to hold back. Perhaps he needs to start doing that. He is making comments that are simply out of line.
“If you have a big government progressive, or a big government progressive in Obama… ask yourself this, Tea Party: is it about Obama’s race? Because that’s what it appears to be to me. If you’re against him but you’re for this guy, it must be about race. I mean, what else is it? It’s the policies that matter.”
It is the policies that should matter, and conservatives should have numerous problems with Newt Gingrich. From policy to the personal, he is as I’ve written before, an opposition researcher’s dream candidate. But he is far from Barack Obama on policy. He isn’t even a “big government progressive.” Gingrich is a big government conservative, and the difference between the two is significant. A big government progressive sees essentially no limit on government power, and places international norms above the strictures of the US Constitution. A big government conservative reverses the latter and does see some limits on government power. A big government progressive is essentially hostile to the private sector, sees it as driven primarily by dark and abusive forces, and will unleash the regulatory state on it as President Obama has done. A big government progressive’s faith is in government, and ultimately in his own innate goodness to direct the lives of his fellow men. A big government conservative is less hostile to business, and more hostile and skeptical of unchecked bureaucracy. These are just some of the obvious differences; there are many more differences between Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama.
More obvious differences: Newt Gingrich has actually balanced a budget. Newt Gingrich doesn’t go around the world denigrating America. Newt Gingrich didn’t support the no-nukes movement at the twilight of the Cold War, and against the interests of the United States.
If Beck doesn’t see those obvious differences, then he is far less informed than he seems. By playing the race card on not only Gingrich but all of his supporters as well, Beck has let his frustration with the primary get to him.
I liked Beck at first, but stuff like this is the reason he doesn’t have a 5:00 show on FoxNews anymore. He jumped the shark one too many times.
I also tuned out when he started harping about faith and religion so much. If I wanted to watch the Old Time Gospel Hour, I wouldn’t tune into FoxNews.
I feel exactly the same way. When he first had his Fox show the conspiracy theories were very interesting, and I loved how he pieced things together wrt folks like Soros and Van Jones. Then he shifted pretty hard to constantly talking about religion and I completely lost interest. Lately I wonder how tightly wrapped he is. I don’t love Newt, but there are other differences besides race between him and Obama.
You’ve done a nice job of summarizing just a few of the distinctions.
Newt’s not my pick at this time, but to reduce the differences to race indicates just how extreme and narrow Beck’s thought models are. It says much about him and nothing about the vast majority of us who’re trying to find some sense in this messy, often idiotic process.
I like Beck, and he’s got valid points, but he’s way out of line here. Dear Liar has called the Constitution a charter of negative liberties, he believes that rights flow from The State. Newt does believe in the Declaration of Independence, and that humans’ right come from their Creator. Now Newt does believe government can do some good things (more so than I would like) but he’s not a progressive, progressives are a variation of marxism.
He’s talking about the only politician who has EVER balanced the budget, and about a commie who is destroying America.
Something is wrong with Beck. I like him, but he does not understand that he can be used, and this is very dangerous.
Excellent comment. My first thought was, someone must have sent him a black orchid or made equivalently ominous threats. And of course there are always medication side effects, which can sometimes be idiosyncratic. We saw some pretty serious tripping with a family member on meds for urinary frequency and urgency, for example.
All Beck needs now are a leather jacket, a pair of waterskis, and a shark.
Beck’s actually starting to remind me a little of the temperament of David Frum. He’s more conservative than Frum, but both tend to lash out with hyperbole at other Republicans when they fail to follow the proper path as they see it. It’s really not a great way to win friends and influence people, but just as Frum seemd to get angrier the further away he’s gotten from his glory days as White House speechwriter, so Beck has become more and more alarmist and angry the further he’s gotten from his 5 p.m. show on Fox.
I hope everyone here gets that Glenn was being sarcastic about the “race card,” that he doesn’t actually believe that Newt supporters are racists.
Which he’s explicitly said both before and after the Napolitano appearance.
Is it now unacceptable to engage in hyperbole and other rhetorical excess without everyone getting their panties in a bunch?
I mean, I do realize that part of what makes the blogosphere turn ’round is Outrageous Outrage, but seriously, is Beck not allowed to be sarcastic—even about race—to make a point?
Or are we all subscribed to the Left’s paradigm of how language works, that the listener’s reaction determines the meaning of the statement, rather than the intent of the speaker?
More than one of them are getting carried away with themself.
Yes, yes, yes, we all know of your issues with Mr. Levin, because he doesn’t worship at the altar of Newt.
We could probably sing it chapter and verse by now.
Since you pay such close attention, surely you know that I consider Newt and Mitt to both be strong candidates, and am well aware of their faults as well.
I’m hardly a fanboy of either of them.
But for someone who pays such close attention, it’s disappointing that you don’t seem to even understand my clearly stated objection to Levin. It’s isn’t because he does or doesn’t like Newt. I don’t really care who he is for because he is a nut. From the latest I heard from him, he probably prefers Newt over Romney, but far far behind Bachman, who coos with him when she is on his program. No, the problem with the pompous buffoon is that he insists on describing the two remaining viable candidates in terms that cause his groupies to hate them. Ergo, you have thousands of natural republican voters who run around declaring that they will vote for Obama rather than Newt or Romney or any riiiinnnnnooooooo.
If that’s too complicated for you CW, try diagramming the sentences.
And I’m sure that everyone who comes here regularly understands that if Mr. Levin was saying the same sorts of things, but doing so while cheerleading for Newt, you’d be espousing the greatness of his rhetoric in his quest to save the American republic every chance you got.
In shorter terms, you’re not fooling us.
If Levin or anyone else was only criticizing and not trying to destroy one of the remaining viable candidates, I wouldn’t care what he said. The pundits like him have far too much influence to be doing that. I don’t object to criticism in the least, only when it goes over the top, and into the realm of passionate advocacy to the exclusion of common sense. For example, I occasionally rib Bryan Preston, who has been a strong advocate of Perry, no matter how poorly Perry has performed. Bryan also strongly criticizes other candidates, but he doesn’t try to destroy them. Levin, Beck and Mark Steyn have made deliberate efforts to destroy, not cricize, one or the other of Romney or Gingrich. Coulter and CK are close, but not quite there yet.
So you are precisely incorrect. It’s appears to be a habit with you.
Good grief people. He is parodying the left’s characterization of the Tea Party. He doesn’t really believe this. Pay attention!
Alas, that’s no parody. Far from it. If only it were. Beck is destroying himself. You can see here why Fox pushed him out.
It’s not parody?
He’s explicitly stated that it was. On what do you base your evaluation?
It’s parody, alright… but it’s unintentional self-parody.
The man has beclowned himself. Not for the first time, but perhaps fatally.
Right.
And Rosie O’Donnell was taken out of context.
And Barack was misquoted as saying there were 57 or 58 states.
And Ron Paul never said the Bush administration was gleeful about 9/11.
Just keep defending your hero.
“If Beck doesn’t see those obvious differences, then he is far less informed than he seems.”
Unfortunately, it’s not a question of information. It’s a question of sanity. Beck is off the deep end.
Beck and others are just so full of themselves and their own power over their groupies that they are no longer grounded in reality. Rush and Hannity have avoided that, but many of the others can’t resist the siren songs of their own voices.
It’s a strange phenomenon that seems to have arisen because their perfect candidates have been rejected by the public. The two that remain don’t march in lockstep to what the vaunted hosts say, and they just can’t handle it.
This is not a new pattern with Beck. He has shown a pattern of self destructive behavior in the past.
Beck is nothing but a Christian apocalyptic messianic failed ex-ZooKeeper radio jock who takes himself too seriously. He’s become delusional and is a demagogue. Too bad he cue-balled off the table.
Beck should have fielded a candidate if he felt so much negativity towards a field that failed to meet his expectations. Same goes for sarah palin, who decided not to run and now seems to think none of the remaining contenders are “sarah palin” enough for her.
The Tea Party candidate, insofar as he captures the mood and rhetoric, although perhaps his record isnt squeaky clean, is gingrich. hes got the majority of sympathizers according to polls and if anyone actually believes that the tea party is an individual, leaderless movement then those polls are more important than beck.
I see this as a pretty simple situation. The tea party is poised to successfully snatch the GOP from the grips of the establishment. beck and palin can get on board or move out of the way. but if they think that they CREATED the conservative renaissance as opposed to taking advantage of preexisting conservative grass roots then they’ve betrayed their cause.
“The tea party is poised to successfully snatch the GOP from the grips of the establishment.”
BY BACKING NEWT GINGRICH, ESTABLICAN EXTRAORDINAIRE?
Whatever you’re smoking, please stop. That’s some dangerous stuff.