The Thing About Beck
By Mitch Berg
I don’t care for Glenn Beck. Never have.
I’ve never quite put my finger on it, really; the fact that while there’s a lot to be upset and motivated about these days, his ire and militancy seems at times to be almost as manufactured as lefties claim the whole medium is? His voice? The fact that he has a seven-figure gig while I’m plugging away on weekends at WWTC?
I don’t know – or didn’t until Allahpundit at Hot Air broke it down in discussing one of Beck’s “Tom Paine” segments:
I don’t like is this guy’s habit of lapsing into rhetoric about a second revolution, legislators ignoring the people “at your peril,” and, per the letter from a Marine that he reads near the end here, the idea that “our country is under attack from an enemy within” — which isn’t the first time he’s used language about enemies and attacks to describe policy disagreements. I get that the character he’s playing obliges him to use a certain amount of revolutionary parlance, just like I get that I’ll take plenty of heat in the comments for being a squish who’s afraid to fight nutroots fire with fire, etc, but what can I tell you. That sort of rhetoric leaves me cold, and I can’t be the only one.
Theatrics are fine and dandy – every pundit uses ’em to some degree or another. But it seems like it’s the only trick Beck has.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:03 am
I’m with you. I understand and appreciate people’s anger. I often feel it myself. But since I actually want change to occur and know that anger has limitations in the democratic process I can’t get too enthused about what Beck is doing. At some point, anger has to focus on how to actually create accountability. Accountability isn’t about verbally threatening people, it’s about having the numbers to back up your words. That’s where patience, prudence and organization, not just passion enters into it. A lot of this kind of juiced up rhetoric just seems to be one extreme talking to the other which leaves a great many people out of the conversation.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:39 am
I tune into Beck sometimes for entertainment value. My take….he is strictly an entertainer trying to maximize his income. He has a great radio voice and mannerism. Especially sounds good on the high powered KTLK FM station. So his act is to talk in an urgent way, about the pending peril out country is in.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:18 am
I agree with Margaret re: the limited utility of anger but my primary reason for disliking Glen Beck is that as part of his populist shtick, he seems to play it a little too fast and loose with the facts for my taste. Having someone with that wide of an audience engage in intellectually dishonest tactics only hurts those of us who are nominally considered “on the same side.”
We are facing some serious challenges in our country and the people currently in power seem not only ill-equipped to deal with them, they are actively promoting policies which will IMO make things worse. The lesson that I learned during the last sixteen years from about how to NOT run an political opposition is that while eventually the wheel will turn and your guys will be in power again but (a) running on anger only extends your stay in the political wilderness and (b) makes it more likely that the guys who get elected to enact “your agenda” are the people that you really don’t want to have to rely on when facing a crisis.
I have no time for know-nothing populist pundits who play on the ignorance of their audience. If I’m going to take the time out of my busy life to listen to or read what they have to say, I want someone who promotes SOLUTIONS and has actual ideas about how to move the ball forward. The more time that’s wasted on the likes of a Glen Beck or a Michael Savage, the more time the governing power has to solidify their agenda while we’re wasting time tilting at windmills.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I used to listen to Beck and really enjoyed him. He used to have a lot of fun throughout his show. About 2 years ago he started turning and a hear ago he went all dark all the time. Now I can’t even take him for short periods of time. All rants all the time makes him ready for Air America not prime time, conservative radio.