Glenn Beck, Republican strategist

[babylonsister]

Glenn Beck, Republican strategist

When the Fox News host pushes a crackpot theory, it doesn't take long for the GOP to run with it. A timeline

By Gabriel Winant and Tim Bella



Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, left, and Glenn Beck "boiling" a frog


Oct. 12, 2009 | Something strange has happened to rank-and-file Republicans since President Obama took office. These past few months, standard-issue gray lawmakers have sounded like fire-and-brimstone demagogues. Conspiracy theories and over-the-top legislation to fix imaginary wrongs are flying wildly around formerly mainstream GOP circles.

It turns out that like so much of what ails the world today, this can be traced back to Glenn Beck. Some fifth-term Iowa senator might be railing against death panels, but it's really Beck's voice you're hearing. With his show on Fox News, Beck has successfully positioned himself as the weirdo right's ambassador-at-large to the rest of the world. When the patron saint of the Tea Parties lets his freak flag fly, seemingly normal right-wing functionaries have been known to line up and salute. Republicans parrot Beck's crackpot notions and pet issues routinely -- sometimes running with his manias the morning after he first airs them.

Take Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. In the middle of the Senate Finance Committee's debate over healthcare reform legislation last month, he broke out with an analogy about frogs failing to jump out of boiling water, one that seemed to have little to do with what he was discussing. "Sounds to me like it's the old story about the frog in the pot of water on the stove that pretty soon the heat's turned up so slowly that the frog doesn't know it's cooked," Cornyn said. Where might he have gotten the idea? Perhaps from Beck -- who the night before had pretended to boil a frog on TV. "You know the old saying, if you put a frog into boiling water, he's going to jump right out, because he's scalding hot, but if you place the frog in lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature, it won't realize what's happening and die?" he asked viewers (who, apparently, included the junior senator from Texas). "We have been tossed quickly into boiling water!"

Democrats watch this all with some bemusement. "In the absence of any new leadership and an unwillingness to put forward any new ideas, the Republican Party has become the party of cranks and conspiracy theorists," Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan says. "And that's exactly why their popularity rivals that of swine flu. And they will remain marginalized so long as they continue to talk to the tinfoil hat crowd." But Beck is more than a harmless -- if deranged -- entertainer. His ability to push the GOP from rhetoric to action means he can inject toxic ideas and fears directly into the body politic. It was Beck who raised the most alarm over Obama's czars and his allegedly totalitarian instincts, after all. Here's a guide to some of Beck's greatest hits, and how they wormed their way into the real world.

more...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/10/12/glenn_beck/

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[chemp]

3. umm.... Thanks?

[Cirque du So-What]

10. Spam

Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.

[8 track mind]

11. "I DON'T LIKE SPAM!!!!!!" n/t

[liberal N proud]

2. Beck and Limbaugh are voices and faces of the GOP.

They can't hide that fact either.

[pokercat999]

9. Yes, they are MAIN STREAM REPUBLICANS and their

crazy ideas and hate speech reflect the values of MAIN STREAM REPUBLICANISM. We need another political party in the US not to replace the Democratic Party but the Republicans. The Democratic Party has moved far enough to the right to be attractive to sane republicans, the republican party could be replace by a progressive party for us lefties and the far right could all become Mormons (like Beck) and move to Utah.

;-)

[fasttense]

4. This is what happens when Corporate CEOs and the uber wealthy control a political party. n/t

[emulatorloo]

5. Thanks for posting this -- Rec n/t

[nxylas]

6. Anyone ever read the comic book Preacher?

To grossly oversimplify the plot, much of it involves a religious cult in France which worships the last living descendant of Jesus - a boy so inbred (in order to keep his bloodline "pure") as to be completely insane, yet his every gibberish utterance is treated as the divinely inspired word of God. Do you see where I'm going with this?

[babylonsister]

8. I see-you described beck and the gop perfectly!

:D

[corpseratemedia]

7. a party of oligar_hs and pluto_rats couldn't find people of normal well-being to stand up for them

ergo, Glen Be_k.