Dana Milbank on Glenn Beck: "the first true demagogue of the information age"

[highplainsdem]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101371.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Fox News host Glenn Beck's national domination

By Dana Milbank
Sunday, January 3, 2010

It's official: Americans admire Glenn Beck more than they admire the pope.

This news, at once unsettling and unsurprising, came from the Gallup polling organization on Wednesday. Beck, the new Fox News host who has said President Obama has a "deep-seated hatred for white people" and alternately likens administration officials to Nazis and Marxists, was also more admired by Americans than Billy Graham and Bill Gates, not to mention Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. In Americans' esteem, Beck only narrowly trailed South Africa's Nelson Mandela, the man who defeated apartheid.

The 45-year-old recovering alcoholic and Mormon convert has become the first true demagogue of the information age. His nightly diet of falsehoods and conspiracies on Fox, and his daily outrages on the radio, have propelled his popularity past even Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. His method is simple: He goes places where others are forbidden by conscience.

-snip-

His critics during his ascent over the year have compared the pudgy Fox News host to Father Coughlin, George Wallace and Joe McCarthy. Time magazine put Beck on its cover and asked: "Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?"

A better question might be: "Is Glenn Beck America?" All ages have their charlatans. The fact that Beck's stew of venom and fabrication has been such a triumph probably says less about Beck than about us. He has merely captured the moment.

-snip-

As Glenn Beck likes to say: I fear for my country.

[bridgit]

1. Crazy people can make allot of money in America

[lpbk2713]

2. So evidently Beckerhead has the right opinion of his listeners.

They ARE sick twisted freaks.

[patrice]

3. Lonesome Roads

[Vidar]

4. Good reference. Chilling movie.

[SpiralHawk]

10. "Such an ugly reference. Sob." - Glenny Boy (R - Chickenhawk)

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

5. I really hoped Dances with Smurfs would be his "crossfire" moment

guess not,

[frog92969]

6. Beck vs Pope

Wow, I really don't know.:shrug:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

7. That's not really shocking. My whole family and most in my community are Catholic and none of them

"admire" the pope.

I'd go further and say that a lot of American Catholics don't give a crap what the pope says. Catholics voted Obama and use BC for starters.

[whathehell]

9. Probably a bad idea to ask about this pope...Catholics barely know him

if asked about John Paul, the answer would likely have been different.

I also have a catholic family...As far as not giving a crap "what the pope says"..on birth control, I would agree with you...On abortion and other matters, it's often a different story

[Submariner]

8. Liebershitz admires becKKK

Also;

Lieberman didn't mention that he wrote a letter of recommendation that helped get the high-school-educated Beck into a non-degree program at Yale. Beck quit after just one course in religion -- and now this theology dropout has earned a status in America more exalted than the Holy Father's.

What a low life.

[Are_grits_groceries]

11. AGG on Dana Milbank:

The first WaPo idiot to belabor the obvious.

[Leftist Agitator]

12. I would say that someone needs to kill him...

But that would just create a martyr.

I would say that someone should provoke him into losing it on national TV, but he's done that, numerous times, to no effect.

What can be done to stop this menace?

[spanone]

13. doesn't speak well for the pope

[blueworld]

14. We forget that 25 years ago the WaPo wouldn't have given him the time of day

It's a point I made in a different post earlier today. The freaks simply didn't get mentioned except in the police reports. Failed statesmen (like Bremer), convicted felons & magicians weren't brought onto news programs as "authorities". The loonies published their own hometown rags but didn't have an entire 24-hour TV station from which to belch.

So when will Millbank do a column on Hersh or Amanpour or Fisk or...?