When we last left Sen. Graham (R-SC), far-right-wingers were, as predicted, going after him for his breakthrough partnership with John Kerry (D-MA). Teabaggers were trying to “flush” Graham out of the GOP, calling him “traitor” and “RINO” and “wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy.” Graham responded, “We’re not going to be the party of angry white guys.” Now Beck has responded to Graham, as Think Progress explains:
Graham has previously dismissed Beck as an entertainer who is “aligned with cynicism.” “Only in America can you make that much money crying,” Graham said of Beck. When Beck responded by saying Graham’s criticism was the “highest honor” he’s ever received, Graham reiterated his view that Beck “doesn’t represent the Republican Party.”
Thursday, Beck opened his show with a diatribe against Graham.
Castigating the South Carolina Republican for saying that “we’re not going to be a party of angry white guys,” Beck retorted, “You gotta ask yourself, is the problem the angry white guys or is it the Obama-lite guys?” “Lindsey Graham, come on man, come on seriously, that’s it?” Beck continued. “Obama-lite! … It’s corrupt politicians that have been there too long telling us these things.”
As is his routine, Beck employed some bizarre props and metaphors to highlight his point. He likened Lindsey Graham to a Diet Coke version of the real Coke and a non-alcoholic version of beer. “I’m drinking alcohol for the buzz,” Beck said, explaining that most consumers want the “real thing” and not a fake substitute. After meandering through his comedy performance, Beck concluded that he doesn’t want to be associated with a Republican Party if it includes Graham:
So thanks for the invite Lindsey, I appreciate it. Thanks for the gumball Mickey. And thanks for the hope and change, Barack. But I think I’m going to stick with the angry people over there. Because they’re only angry about you.
Then, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), the chairman of the House Republican Conference, defended Glenn Beck’s influence over the Republican Party. It’s “hogwash” to say Beck and Rush Limbaugh are only speaking for a small number of Americans, Pence said. He added, “So to my friends in the so-called ‘mainstream media’ I say, ‘conservative talk show hosts may not speak for everybody but they speak for more Americans than you do.’”
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Sorry Pence, Beck & Limbaugh speak only for themselves and the 20-percenters who want a return to the “good old days” of white male dominance, slavery, no women voting, etc.
Sir Walter Scott said it best when he wrote the follow words in 1808.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
………… when first we practice to deceive”
When a party is subverted by its extremophiles, there is only one direction for it to go and that is down! Oh, how ‘they’ dig! Forgive them for the GOP can’t help it, for if they stop digging now, then everyone will think they died! So they busy themselves with the Dig; shoring the walls for fear it could collapse and kill their [downward] movement! As the saying goes, “If ‘ya’ find yourself in a hole you just might stop digging!”(I say, “Giv’em another shovel!” Contrivance piled on contrivance; as long as the theme might muddy the administration and promote the mission of the lobbies that pay their way and keep their propaganda gin mills spinning, like the Faux Net*! How far will they stray from having any clew of credibility? Oh, what an eduction they provide. How much smarter people are becoming in picking out spin from truth!
Who could find a finer, more entertaining, crowd of cronies then the likes of … Glen ‘cowboy-clown’ Beck, Newt ‘call me pres’ Gingrich, Carl ‘spin-miester’ Rove, Sara ‘oil lovin’ Pailin, Sean ‘calamity’ Hanity, and don’t forget our beloved Senator ‘hoaxer’ Inhofe. At some point the hole will collapse and we’ll say ‘gue-by’! Somehow, those who are compelled to spew the lock step party line can’t help but appear totally blind but fear not for they are led [or followed] by their party wrangler named Michael ‘lie &’ Steel!
This gaggle of paranoid hillbillies is bigger than many of you think. Have you forgotten George Bush and the Republican majorities in Congress? And one recent event that the media forgot to cover was the teabagger party at a flattened West Virginia mountaintop, with Dan Blankenship and Ted “Obama, suck my machine gun” Nugent.
I can’t see them returning to power anytime soon, but clearly they are not going to be good losers. I say let Texas secede and give them incentives to go there, and (like the old divided Pakistan) provide another outpost in Wyoming. They can drill away, have plenty of cheap oil and natural gas, and strut around with their potbellied militias all they want. Maybe if we elected Barney Frank for president they would all go there on their own (including the many closet gays in their ranks, like Larry Craig).
The comedy relief will get even better. The schools will have textbooks showing dinosaurs and men walking together, and Governor Perry of Texas will think he’s a cowboy pasha. They’ll still have NASCAR and NFL teams, too, with syrupy country music piped in. Glenn Beck will be there for all of the opening ceremonies, his eyes filled with tears of joy. When they finally cart him off to the funny farm, his followers will hold circle hallucinations in his honor.
After they run out of oil, they’ll come crawling back, especially when they realize that military bases and fossil fuels were the only things they ever had to sell. When they return, we need to have ceremonies demanding that every returning citizen sign a document agreeing to abide by the Constitution. If we’d done that after the Civil War, we may not have had all these problems.
So pants-on-fire Pence says radical conservative hate show hosts speak for more Americans than we do. That must explain why John McCain won the election.
Hi Joe and CP,
As these folks call each other names and so forth, I’d also love to see two things covered if possible:
First, I think we should share observations on what media news organizations have covered the Big Letter (of eighteen scientific organizations to the Senate, re climate change), when, how prominently, and how well.
I’ve also made a comment to Curtis Brainard via CJR’s “The Observatory” along the same lines.
Given the poor state of public understanding among large chunks of the public, I think the recent letter poses a very real “test” of the news organizations. Do they cover it, or not? And how well? And if not, why not?
Hopfully, let’s not lose this opportunity to gain some real facts about the media. I will be looking closely at today’s New York Times, and yesterday’s New York Times, to see whether the letter was covered, and how well.
Oh, the other thing is this: Some sort of post-event coverage of the climate day yesterday, both from a celebratory standpoint (I went to a great event in San Francisco) as well as from a “what can be learned” about what we need to do next, standpoint.
Be Well,
Jeff
don’t let texas secede.
just wait 20 years or so and demographic changes in texas will turn it democratic (particularly as the republican party there continues to avoid dealing with those realities).
Let’s remember that Beck is a showman with golden tonsils. His showmanship voice is comforting, his style entertaining. But like a junk food, his civic nutrition value is very low.
It’s interesting to witness the Republican party destroying itself from within, the party that just has to say “no”. Subletting their leadership to self proclaimed media “rodeo clowns” like Beck and his ilk has all but guaranteed election losses against moderate and honest conservative voices. Not to mention any chance of attracting unaffiliated support for them or their ideas.
Like the monster that began to eat himself one bite at a time until he just simply vanished.
Joe,
For what it’s worth, I don’t find mention of Glenn Beck such as this post to advance the purpose of this blog. I agree that he represents a relevant denier force, and general descriptions of this phenomenon are helpful to advance discussion on how to dispose of it, but specific instances of activity is nothing more than noise.
Best regards,
Jeff R.
The whole right wing paid propagandist phenomenon is pretty scary, IMO, and is actually a great threat to democracy in this country, I think.
Like Limbaugh and O’Reilly, Beck is a very, very well rewarded paid propagandist.
I believe that Beck, Limbaugh, and O’Reilly are tapping into a basic tendency of human beings to seek cover by loyally following a strong leader. Such authoritarian followers have been studied by Bob Altemeyer of the University of Manitoba, for decades, and he has written a free online book called “The Authoritarians” about his research. John Dean drew heavily on this body of research, too, when he wrote his book “Conservatives Without Conscience”.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
One thing we have to remember about Beck, Limbaugh, and O’Reilly is that they are highly talented and highly paid professional propagandists.
Beck’s reply to Graham was essentially “stop making me mad”.
No, Glenn, Jesus Christ in his flowing robe borne in by a flock of angels could not keep you from getting mad – because your anger is a tactic, which gets you what you want- more power, money, and influence. Anger energizes the base, which is why a paid propagandist such as yourself pretends to be angry, every day.
Why so nasty in the responses above?
I’m one of those tea party attendees (local–didn’t make it to the D.C. event with an estimated 1.5-2 million attendees). I’m very cynical of government, aren’t you?
Do you all trust politicians so much as to give them the power to run (ruin) the economy as a fascist state and, in order to do so, infringe on fundamental (natural) rights of man as recognized by our Founding Fathers?
Most of the folks I’ve met at those events just want us to follow the U.S. Constitution which, last time I checked, doesn’t grant such sweeping authority to the federal level of government to begin with.
Is simply following the supreme law of the land such a bad thing to want?
If you want to have such a fascist state, then make it official. Amend the Constitution or formally dispose of it rather than ignore the greatest revolutionary document in the history of government (which has been, much more often than not since civilization began, despotic in nature).
T Cee: “Why so nasty in the responses above?”
There’s nothing wrong with responding in a “nasty” way, as you put it, to people who’s goal is to destroy our country and civilization as we know it. The “Hell and High Water” as Joe often frames it is coming. Glenn Beck, Rush, O’Reilly, the Tea Baggers, the Birthers, etc. all seek to accelerate this coming destruction. Personally, I cannot stand by and watch anyone trample on the lives of our children and grandchildren in so heinous a manner. The U.S. Constitution exists to protect the lives of US citizens and their fundamental rights to Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness. Luckily we have a President and a majority in Congress who believe in supporting those rights and (hopefully) won’t bow to people like you.
Hope this response isn’t too “Nasty” for you.
So really bad people are just like Obama, but lighter?? Wow.
All the more ingenious because perfectly deniable. Maybe even unconscious. (In sports, that describes something wonderful.) You gotta hand it to the guy.
Sorry if that’s old news, but it’s new to people who follow GB only through folks like Joe.
Blanket criticism of all politicians is another tactic of paid propagandists, sad to say.
Kerry and Boxer, and a host of others, are trying to do something good, something that is not in their own self-interest, something for their children and grandchildren and future generations.
They deserve credit for it.
Blanket criticism of all politicians is just another deceptive, negative tactic used to confuse, distract, and distort the political debate.
Really, the only cure for such nasty negative corporate behavior is to nationalize their industries, I think.
It’s a shame, because Boxer and Kerry appear to be trying to make capitalism actually work again, and are being opposed at every turn by a hard core of elitists, who are not actually capitalists but are instead monopolists.
We really don’t have time to put up with a hard core of financial elites that reflexively engage in every form of deception known to man, to protect short term profits.
Capitalists are destroying capitalism, and are doing so unnecessarily, IMO, in pursuit of either a hidden population reduction agenda or on the basis of ideas that are simply mistaken.
I wish someone WOULD pay be to be so cynical of ALL stinking politicians.
I’m a big, fat ZERO as far as political influence and power but I know tyranny when I smell it.
I can’t believe the naivete of those who would turn the keys of their liberty over to such idiots as currently reside in D.C.
Be careful! You may actually get what you ask for!
And what’s really funny is that most of you don’t even have guns to resist them when they finally come for you!
Ha! I hope you get nice warm cots in the concentration camps you wind up in while performing involuntary public service.
As for me, I’ll go down fighting. I don’t bend over for the likes of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush II, Obama . . . like you folks want to.
Green heil, Mother Earth! (Riiiiiiiiight!)