Is Glenn Beck an Intellectual?

My first and only exposure to Fox News’ Glenn Beck was through the prism of rival network MSNBC. From that perspective, Beck is a buffoon, perhaps a dangerous one in that he seduces folks who don’t know any better to buy into his theories. The last word I would have used to describe Beck is “intellectual”. Hence, I dismissed him and anyone who used him to prop up their political arguments. I never gave it another thought.

Next thing I know, Beck is Time Magazine’s cover boy with an accompanying article that went pretty soft on him. Its concluding point though could not be denied.  Beck is the fictional character Howard Beale from the movie Network, come to life:

So this establishes Beck’s bona fides as a proxy for American angst and “fed-upness”. But that doesn’t mean he’s an intellectual.

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across an article in the Washington Post, the title of which intrigued me. The title of the article was “Is Conservatism Brain Dead?” A pet theory of mine has been that conservatism is failing right now because it has no intelligent advocates. John Boehner looks half the time like he’s fresh from a bender. Michelle Bachmann ties the census to internment camps. No one seems to present ideas in an intelligent fashion. When I argue this with my conservative opponents, I always cite the example William F. Buckley, so intellectual at times to be almost incoherent. Yet his PBS program “Firing Line” often took the form of a formal debate, where a particular political position was “resolved” and two sides would argue the different sides of the resolution intelligently.  The author of the Post article, Steven Hayward, also mentioned Buckley and his conclusions were similar to mine until he said one thing that shocked me:

The case of Glenn Beck, Time magazine’s “Mad Man,” is more interesting. His on-air weepiness is unmanly, his flirtation with conspiracy theories a debilitating dead-end, and his judgments sometimes loopy (McCain worse than Obama?) or just plain counterproductive (such as his convoluted charge that Obama is a racist). Yet Beck’s distinctiveness and his potential contribution to conservatism can be summed up with one name: R.J. Pestritto.

Pestritto is a young political scientist at Hillsdale College in Michigan whom Beck has had on his TV show several times, once for the entire hour discussing Woodrow Wilson and progressivism. He is among a handful of young conservative scholars, several of whom Beck has also featured, engaged in serious academic work critiquing the intellectual pedigree of modern liberalism. Their writing is often dense and difficult, but Beck not only reads it, he assigns it to his staff. “Beck asks me questions about Hegel, based on what he’s read in my books,” Pestritto told me. Pestritto is the kind of guest Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity would never think of booking.

Okay, so Beck may lack Buckley’s urbanity, and his show will never be confused with “Firing Line.” But he’s on to something with his interest in serious analysis of liberalism’s patrimony. The left is enraged with Beck’s scandal-mongering over Van Jones and ACORN, but they have no idea that he poses a much bigger threat than that. If more conservative talkers took up the theme of challenging liberalism’s bedrock assumptions the way Beck does from time to time, liberals would have to defend their problematic premises more often.

I was so shocked that a man who had up to that point presented an intelligent argument was now lauding Beck, that I joined an online chat session with him the following day. We had the following exchange:

Middlebury, Conn.: But for a summary statement at the beginning of the chat, you haven’t defended Glenn Beck. Does his esoteric knowledge of conservative dogma really outweigh most of his utter foolishness?

Steven F. Hayward: Jury is out on that. As I’ve said to friends the last two days, I know I’ve gone out on a limb offering a partial defense of him, hoping that he doesn’t saw it off behind me.

Hayward acknowledges that presenting Beck as an intellectual is fraught with potential challenges. But I wanted to dig deeper and look up any conversation I could find between Beck and the Woodrow Wilson scholar, Ronald Pestritto. What I found surprised me (note that the camera man points the camera at the wrong people when they are introduced and the YouTube poster even attributes the quotes incorrectly):

While one guest, Matthew Spalding impressed me as a talking points spouter, Pestritto does appear to be a scholar who has considered matters within a historical context.

So, has my opinion of Beck changed? Only in part. While I cannot swear that Beck runs all that deep, it does appear that unlike some of his peers, Hannity, O’Reilly and even Limbaugh, Beck wants to plumb the depths of academia to support his points. It appears that the man actually reads. He does not, at least on occasion, treat his audience as a league of dumb followers. He presents them with ideas to chew on.

This may make Beck, far from a buffoon, one of the most dangerous men on television. Behind the tears and the nutjob theories, are some arguments presented cogently enough that liberals must take him seriously and work hard to pick him apart. The only thing more dangerous than people following a fool, are people following a wise one.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Silence is Golden

I’ve stated in the past that George W. Bush’s best post presidential strategy is to lay low and hope that sometime down the line events prove him to be a better President than the current polls suggest. Unfortunately, some of Bush’s former minions are not taking the same advice.

Tonight on MSNBC’s “Hardball”, former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleisher got into a heated debate with host Chris Matthews. The second half of the debate appears below:

Primarily because of Matthews’ abrasive style, one could go back and forth on who was scoring more points in the debate. Fleisher held his own for the most part and Chris unnecessarily hit a very raw nerve by reminding Ari that 9/11 happened on Bush’s watch. It’s only at the very end of the interview that Fleisher proves why he and every other save-the-Bush-legacy talking head need to shut the hell up. At the 7 minute mark in the video, in defending the invasion of Iraq, Fleisher says:

After September 11, having been hit once, how could we take a chance that Sadam might not strike again?

To my astonishment both Chris Matthews and later Keith Olberman let this comment go by unchallenged! Perhaps Chris was just too tired by that point in the interview to actually hear what Ari said. “How could we take a chance that Sadam might not strike again?”

Sadam did not strike us the first time! What does Fleisher mean by “again”?

With this one sentence, Ari blew his entire argument out of the window, perpetuating the myth, even after Bush is gone from the public scene, that somehow Sadam was responsible for 9/11.  It gives further evidence of the constant state of delusion in which the Bush administration was mired. Fleisher says this foolishness with such conviction that I find it hard to believe it is a put on. The Bush White House really believes that Sadam was behind 9/11 and no evidence to the contrary will ever convince them otherwise.

My heart went out to George W. Bush when he left office. I was mortified when he received boos at Barack Obama’s inauguration. More recently, I’ve almost admired Bush’s restraint now that we know that Bush’s legal advisers essentially gave him carte blanche to run a dictatorship. So now I tell all those well meaning associates of the former President who want to ensure his positive place in history to do so by just shutting up. The only thing that will redeem the Bush presidency will be the eventual establishment of a stable democracy in Iraq, which can then be traced back to Bush’s efforts.

For now, to use a now infamous phrase, all the talk in the world will do nothing more than put lipstick on a pig.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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What Does “Countdown” Have Against Andrew Johnson?

OK. I know this is not of any great significance but it gets under my skin all the same.

Back in May, Rachel Maddow was subbing for host Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s “Countdown” when she was discussing precedents for presidential impeachment. Along the way she made a remark about the impeachment of “Andrew Jackson”. Ehhhhhh, no. The president in question was Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln’s successor. At least Rachel corrected herself after the commercial break.

Last night, when David Shuster was subbing for Keith Olbermann it was deja vu all over again. This time the trivia tidbit was that “Andrew Jackson” had pardoned the entire Confederacy in an act of reconciliation. Yikes! There was no Confederacy to pardon when Jackson was president (waaaay before the Civil War). Again, the president in question was Andrew Johnson.

Could it be that Keith Olbermann is more careful about what he is reading off the teleprompter so he catches these dumb mistakes before they leave his lips while his substitute hosts can’t seem to keep up? I don’t know what the problem is but I wish the “Countdown” research staff and the substitute hosts would get their act together, at least for the sake of the kids who might be watching and may want to learn something.

Needless to say I’ll be paying close attention to “Countdown” on Friday, November 21 when whoever is hosting the show that night makes the following faux pas:

Tomorrow marks the 45th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Approximately two hours after the shooting, Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

Reading Between the Lines of the Williams-Ahmadinejad Interview

From the desk of The Rigorist

MSNBC Nightly News : ‘Response … will be a positive one’

Somebody at MSNBC has got to be smart enough to know what actually got said in this interview. Still, the polit-speak surrounding the meaning was so thick they thought they could tack a headline on it that would make Obama look good. Who’s got boots tall enough to slog though this? Who would waste their time collecting this rank fruit?

I do. I would.

A Death in the Family

Watching MSNBC Friday afternoon and evening was like sitting in the living room of a family in mourning. Understandably so. Moderator of “Meet the Press”, host of MSNBC’s “The Tim Russert Show” and NBC Washington Bureau Chief, Tim Russert had collapsed while preparing for Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press.” He died soon thereafter.

It was hard to watch the MSNBC coverage because this was no obligatory tribute. There was a genuine sense of loss. It was heartbreaking to watch Andrea Mitchell choke up as she recalled how Russert was the only one besides her own father who would affectionately call her “Mitch”. Throughout the afternoon and evening’s coverage the predominant message was what a high bar Russert had set for his NBC peers and the news industry in general. He set a high standard for how to conduct oneself personally and professionally.

However, I think he also set a high standard on how to die. Tim Russert died doing the work he loved to do. He had a genuine passion for his work and in this most unusual political season, he was like a kid in a candy store. He was at the top of his game, most recently (back in May) declaring Barack Obama the Democratic nominee before it was officially so, yet by his pronouncement, making it so for anyone who was following the race. If Russert said it was over then surely it was.

So we take from the sad news of Tim Russert’s passing a lesson on how to live and how to die. Enjoy every minute of life right up until the end if you possibly can. By staying on top of your game every day of your life you guarantee that when your time comes, you go out on top. That’s what Tim Russert did.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Appeasement and Impeachment

MSNBC had a field day when Chris Matthews on “Hardball” nailed conservative commentator Kevin James on whether or not he knew what the word appeasement meant. After some 24 attempts at getting an answer, Chris finally got Kevin to admit he didn’t know what he was talking about.

In full self congratulatory mode, on “Countdown with Keith Olberman”, Friday night guest host Rachel Maddow interviewed Chris about the confrontation and they shared their concern that words, especially hot button words, be used properly. Unfortunately, earlier in the same episode, Rachel noted a political anniversary by saying that back in 1868, “the Senate actually came close to impeaching a president”. For an analyst and a network so intent on the proper use of words, Rachel and MSNBC blew it big time. The president in question, Andrew Johnson, did not come “close” to being impeached. He was impeached. He was NOT convicted. What Rachel should have said was that the Senate came close to convicting and thereby forcing out of office a president. To make the mistatement all the more glaring, she identified the president as Andrew Jackson. Fortunately, after a commercial break, she corrected that whopper but neglected to correct her use of “came close to”.

If MSNBC is going to self righteously pound its chest over historical accuracy, they need to do some fact checking before opening their mouth.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

Hardball Needs to Play Hardball with its Staff

On the 5pm Monday edition of MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews”, a story about Barack Obama was accompanied by a graphic of Osama Bin Laden. After the commercial break, Matthews apologized for the error and moved on with his show.

Over a week ago, MSNBC correspondent David Shuster was suspended when he suggested that the Clintons were exploiting their daughter, Chelsea, for their own political gain. The point could be argued one way or another but Shuster’s choice of words (that the Clintons were “pimping” Chelsea) was most unfortunate. Despite an on air apology, Shuster is still suspended. If Hillary had her way, he would have been fired.

Well, I think the more appropriate target for firing is whichever staff member “mistakenly” called up a picture of Osama Bin Laden during an Obama story. On the eve of the Wisconsin primary, a major news show “confuses” the most inspirational candidate of our time with America’s number one fugitive, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans in the World Trade Center attacks of 2001. This mistake cannot get simply passed over with a curt apology from Chris Matthews. The parties responsible should be fired and their dismissal should be announced by MSNBC in a prominent venue (perhaps tomorrow nights edition of Hardball). I don’t blame Matthews personally for this screw up but I do hold him responsible to make sure the error gets publicly rectified.

In a country where a sizable percentage of ignorant Americans think Obama is a Muslim, this mistake on Hardball only serves as a subliminal reenforcement of that inaccurate impression. When the show ended this evening, I called MSNBC and voiced my concern. I’m now calling on MSNBC and Matthews to do the right thing and make it clear that encouraging any association between Obama and Osama, however accidental, is unacceptable.

Respectfully,
Rutherford