Fox News

Your One Reason to Get a Twitter Account

To follow Glenn Beck. You can’t make this up:

Let’s review what we’ve learned: “GI Joe,” a movie which from the previews looks like it will glorify the army as a force for good, is an insult to (“GLOBAL?”) Marines; 70% of America loves Glenn Beck and is therefore sane; it’s totally okay to use “retarded” as an insult (don’t tell Sarah Palin — doesn’t that clarify as “making fun of Trig”?); and Transformers II was surprisingly unrealistic (“who knew” indeed).

I’m going to hazard a guess. Based on these midnight-Saturday messages, and this bizarre screaming session, Glenn Beck has finally lost it, and is about one well-phrased insult away from breaking down. Any takers?

Lying to Protect Reagan’s Legacy

Truly remarkable.

Who Can Now Deny Fox’s Disturbing Turn for the Worst?

First, there was Glenn Beck’s odd call for Al Qaeda to bomb America, because that would totally prove that he’s been right about Obama all along. Truly, the lives lost would be a small price to pay for such glory.

Now, there’s Brian Kilmeade of “Fox & Friends” talking about the purity Swedish (Norse?) blood, and its healthful qualities, sounding for all the world like a mix between Lord Voldemort and perhaps the more mild elements of a white supremacist group.

We are — we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other … See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes …. Fins marry other Fins, so they have a pure society.

Thanks, Brian. Just great. Why do these people still have jobs? At long last, have they no decency?

Extended Version of Glenn Beck’s Patriotic Call for Bin Laden to Bomb America

He just loves his country. Watch the full version. Context doesn’t save the now-famous excerpt. The full interview is almost worse, as it includes all of the basics of Beck’s insanity:

1. “No-one cares about our borders!”
2. Confusing “Osama” and “Obama” (I thought we were over this).
3. Obama wants to take your guns!
4. It’s all Harvard’s fault.
5. Democrats care more about Europe than America.

Imagine, for a moment, the outrage from the right if, say, Jon Stewart said that America needs an attack to “wake us up.” Why does Glenn Beck still have a job?

Panetta Was Half-Right

A few weeks back, CIA director Leon Panetta faced criticism for saying, half-jokingly, that Dick Cheney was “wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point.” In fairness, Dick Cheney probably isn’t that crazy. But this guy is:

With this excerpt, to quote the Simpsons, Beck (and guest) “cross[] that line between everyday villainy and cartoonish super-villainy.” Literally. Previously, the explicit and acknowledged dream of exploiting disaster for political gain has been reserved to the likes of Watchmen‘s Ozymandias, and V for Vendetta‘s Norsefire. That’s how much Beck *sniff* loves his country.

When Intelligent People Debate O’Reilly, the Only Losers are the Audience

Bill O’Reilly has a talent: yelling at poised, intelligent people until they stray off topic, or say something they regret. This is exactly what happened to Salon’s Joan Walsh, one of the most outspoken critics of Bill O’Reilly’s tirades against liberals in general, and the late Dr. Tiller in specific. See for yourself: she starts strong, and ends very strong, but the middle five minutes of this ten-minute interview are largely defined by O’Reilly either shouting her down, or forcing her into a combative posture designed to make both look ridiculous, in the hopes that the audience will side with the host out of sheer exhaustion.

That’s part 1, and the bizarrely unlinkable follow-up is here.

Truly, O’Reilly’s side of any interview is the rhetorical equivalent of porn: conveying no content, no thought, and clearly calculated to bypass cognition. Who actually considers this man a journalist?

Connecticut Mayor Utterly Destroys Steve Doocy

Congratulations to Wonkette for uncovering the sordid story behind the early career of “Fox & Friends” commentator Steve Doocy. On further investigation, it turns out that Steve Doocy’s career is a veritable repository of fail, including this excerpt, where Connecticut mayor & gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy reams Doocy for practicing the same “gotcha journalism” tactics he pretends to decry:

In the last bit, you can almost see Doocy’s career flash before his eyes. Too bad Fox rewards incompetence, rather than punishing it.

Is Reality Uncomfortable These Days? “Fox Nation” Wants to Help

Fox won’t just give you right-wing news. Now, they’ll help you take that news, and turn it into a little imaginary nation in your head.

Funny, though, how this right-wing idyllic “Fox Nation” remains deep Democratic blue. Even in their imaginations, they still don’t surround us! (*Updated to remove embarassing typos*)

Glenn Beck: Bring In ‘Da Idiot, Bring In ‘Da Crazy!

I admit I am late to the Glenn Beck party. I wasn’t particularly impressed by his “commentaries” on CNN.com, which isn’t illuminating, considering I find nearly all of the site’s commentaries adding very little to the public discourse. When he left CNN for Fox News, I didn’t care. My lack of interest in Beck, though, has been transformed into pure glee over the bent he has chosen (sky-is-falling survivalism) and wincing pity for the man.

Beck IS Howard Beale in another sad example of life imitating art.

Howard Beale is the character played by Peter Finch in Network, the 1970s dark satire of network television. (In case you are jumping up to buy the DVD, know that spoilers follow.) Beale is a longtime news anchor presumably from the generation of Murrow and Cronkite. News is news to Beale; it isn’t entertainment. When he is canned by the network for dropping ratings and because the network has decided news is entertainment, he has a mental breakdown, famous in cinematic history. The breakdown happens on air and culminates in Beale bringing this mantra to a crescendo:

“I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

Beale begins his manifesto by saying:

I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad – worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.

At first the network is horrified, but a savvy, ballsy producer (played by Faye Dunaway) sees profit potential by marketing Beale as a potential prophet. Mind you, Beale really has gone insane. When he is asked to host a new show as an outlet of populist rage, he really believes he is that prophet, but the network doesn’t care. They had something no one else had, and they were going to exploit it. When it looks like show ratings had peaked, the network takes gratuitous murderous action to end Beale’s series with a bang.

Previously, I said “Glenn Beck IS Howard Beale.” Actually, Beck is neither clever nor intelligent enough to capture the tragedy of Beale’s story, but Beck’s lack of mental acuity does capture the comedy. Beck is amazingly over-the-top and is rich fodder for the likes of Stephen Colbert:   

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Doom Bunker – Glenn Beck’s “War Room”
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Keyboard Cat

I am not saying Beck will meet with Beale’s literal end at the hands of amoral network executives, but I do believe there is room to speculate about a metaphorical death to Beck’s career. I can only imagine he is riding high on the enormous ratings he has drawn. I also imagine Beck as the sort of person who might actually end up buying his own bullshit. If that is the case, where does Beck go from here?

Fox Slips Closer to Tabloid Status

What can I say? Know thy enemy. Last night, Fox left a glaring typo on their front page for at least few hours – I’m not sure what the hell “LULIN LUKRS” means, but I think they were trying to say, “Lulin, a comet scheduled to transit past Earth, lurks nearby.”

Using “lolcat” font (all-caps Impact bold) doesn’t really help their case, either. Nor does a front-page story about Atlantis. It’s only a matter of time before Fox starts reporting on “Evlis” sightings.