Now that Bush is out of office and Palin has become a Tweeter, the left has been searching for other straw men to hang in effigy. Lately, Fox News’ Glenn Beck is filling the bill. He has been ever since he switched to Fox in January and became a major player there.
On Wednesday he attracted three million viewers with guests like Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove.
In fact, the more the left hates Beck, the more popular he becomes.
A race-based pressure group called “ColorOfChange” has been running a boycott against Beck for the last few weeks because he said he thinks President Obama may be racist against white people. And, because he dared to express an opinion they don’t agree with, ColorOfChange has been trying to get every advertiser on the show to pull their ads. Apparently they don’t believe in free speech or opinions that run contrary to their agenda.
But Beck’s ratings are soaring ever since the boycott started. And it hasn’t really affected Fox’s revenues as the advertisers who pulled their ads just moved them to other shows. The problem with boycotts is they end up promoting the thing they try to destroy. Movies that probably would have failed before they were “banned in Boston” often make a profit. TV shows that get boycotted often go on to become hits — people want to see what the fuss is about. And if the show is entertaining, they attract steady viewers.
The irony here is that a “race based pressure group” is attacking someone who said he is against what he suspects is racism in Obama’s agenda. In other words, a race based group is attacking someone speaking out against racism. Who’s the racist here?
The left accuses anyone who critiques Obama of being a racist, regardless of their actual motives or the content of their argument. But if someone does that against Obama, well, they must be banned!
The public sees through this farce.
What’s even more hilarious is Beck is a rabid non-partisan who complains about Republicans as much as he bashes Democrats. The focus of his shows is to stop the rampant Statism we’re seeing and the partisan politics of radicals. He wants to see American return to a common sense kind of middle ground where most people can agree to disagree. Beck, like many Americans, is disturbed by the radicalization of the public discourse and the fact that the mainstream press has become nothing more than a mouthpiece for an increasingly totalitarian state.
For daring to say he wants politicians to listen to the voters, for the insolence of questioning the motives of those in power (a very liberal thing to do), for exposing the mendacity and chicanery of the ruling class, the minions of the powers that be, the mindless bloggers and YouTube trolls are going ballistic trying to make him out to be a crazed fool.
Beck helps them out by occasionally launching into self-flagellating monologues like this which they turn around and post on video sites to mock him with, but this kind of unpretentious mea culpa doesn’t hurt him with those who have any empathy. The haters only reveal their own lack of humanity when they go off the rails attacking him.
Glenn Beck has what I call a “Bugs Bunny” strategy, where he acts wacky on occasion which draws his critics into a tar baby/rope-a-dope trap that ends up exhausting them.
All those people rubbing their hands together expecting him to crash and burn any day now are going to be very disappointed.
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