I don’t know how Steve Benen has the stomach to watch this stuff, but I’m grateful for the summaries:
Yesterday was especially astounding. He argued on the air, for example, that President Obama intends to create a “civilian national security force,” which will be similar to Hitler’s SS and Saddam Hussein. Apparently, this has something to do with AmeriCorps, which Beck initially said has a $500 billion budget. (He corrected himself later in the show, though his guest didn’t blink when he originally made the claim.)
Towards the end of the show, after scrawling on a variety of boards and pieces of paper, Beck summarized his key observation. On a chalkboard, Beck had written the words, “Obama,” “Left Internationalist,” “Graft,” “ACORN Style Organizations,” “Revolution,” and “Hidden Agenda.” If you circle some of the first letters of these important words, Beck says, it spells “OLIGARH.” Beck told his viewers there’s only one letter missing. If you’re thinking that letter is “c,” you’re not medicated enough to understand Beck’s show.
The missing letter is “y,” because the word he hoped to spell is “OLIGARHY.”
I thought it might amuse you to read some of this transcript from Mark Halperin’s appearance on Beck’s old HLN show in 2006:
MARK HALPERIN, AUTHOR, “WAY TO WIN”: Glenn, first of all, mega dittos. Just need you to know, I`m not doing this segment on my meds, so watch out.
[….]HALPERIN: No. Glenn, you and I are in what we call rare agreement. And I think the important thing, when somebody like Michael J. Fox offers to make an ad or asks to make an ad, or Cindy Sheehan says I want to go down to Crawford, Texas, they better have somebody in there like telling them, “You`re entering the arena. Strap on the armor.” Because our politics is tougher today than it`s ever been. And people have to be challenged on their ideas.
People have to be challenged on their ideas.
Bring on the apocalypse.