Glenn Beck: If You Support Newt Instead of Obama, You Might Be a Racist

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.