Sunday News Shows: More Beck
The lead story this morning on Fox News was—Glenn Beck!
Beck came across as totally likeable on Fox. He was self-deprecating, sincere, and affable—a suit of characteristics that he wore to better effect than those he sported yesterday before the crowd of hundreds of thousands on the mall.
Chris Wallace: “Let’s talk, in the time we have left—and it may be your favorite subject—Glenn Beck. I’ve never seen anyone like you – you’re not a newsman…not a politician…what are you?”
Beck: “I’m a dad, I’m a concerned citizen…I’m a guy who took one class [when I was thirty] because it was all I could afford in college…I’m a guy who made a lot of mistakes in life and bottomed out…and decided I needed to learn…only because I bottomed out and realized that I didn’t believe in anything….I wanted to figure out what the real truth is. “
There’s nothing more moving than the amazing grace of a man lost that is now found—and who is humbled by it. Beck's is a Horatio Alger story. I think Beck’s incredible charisma, and his enormous appeal to thousands of Americans, boils down to just that: his humility, his sincerity, and his reformation, traits that can be hard to come by in anyone, and most especially in the celebrity culture of the media elite. Though, I often wonder what a cynical conservative like H.L. Mencken would have thought of this show-stopping performer.
There were a couple more fresh and newsworthy exchanges between Wallace and Beck.
Wallace: “Do you feel that you have a role—and I mean this seriously—do you feel that you have a role in trying to save this country?”
[Beck: a quizzical pause, and then:]
Beck: “Ah…you don’t?!”
Wallace: “I...no, I just ask questions for a living.”
Beck: “I forgot I was with an actual journalist.”
And later in the interview came this huge, honest, and rare admission.
Wallace: “Do you regret calling Obama a racist and saying he has a deep seated hatred for white people.”
[Beck, staring straight into the camera:]
Beck: “Of course I do."
"I don’t want to retract the, um, I want to amend that…I think it is much more of a theological question that he is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology which [sees the world in terms of] oppressor and victim. Racist was…first of all it shouldn’t have been said, it was poorly said, it was…I have a big fat mouth sometimes and I say things…that’s just not the way people should behave, and it was not accurate. It is liberation theology that has shaped his world view.”
Following yesterday’s rally, the conservative blogosphere was aflame with cries of a Palin/Beck ticket for 2012. Beck’s response, when asked about it by Wallace: “Not a chance.”
****
Now, slumming for a change—the Chris Matthews Show.
Matthews views the conservative revival—of which Beck’s rally is a part—as motivated by, what else, hysteria. Of course, Matthews himself is known for his hysterical rhetoric. On the show today, he said of the conservative revival: “this is ethnic, this is tribal” and tried to goad Reihan Salam, who was a guest on the show, to say that the “villain” of these conservatives is Barack Obama.
Salam, who among so many others, is too smart for Matthews, did not fall into his Rube Goldberg trap. Salam explained that the Beck constituency, who are mostly white Americans hailing from small or rural towns, are not “have nots” motivated by anger, but are “are nots,” motivated by frustration—the frustration of not feeling connected to nor represented by Washington.
Joe Klein, guest journalist and infamous Journolister, was too happy to fuel Matthews’ fodder: “Glenn Beck is obviously a paranoid lunatic who is a great entertainer … he is exploiting something in our country when the economy is bad and our country is at war.”
To Klein, disaffected conservatives are primarily motivated by anger, not conservative principals. Salam, however, hit the nail on the head when he said that events like Beck’s rally are “ultimately about identity and pride.”
Reporter Kelly O’Donnel, also a guest on the show, made another distinction. As part of her reporting, she has attended tea party rallies and interviewed some participants. Doing so, she claims to have seen a “Divide within the tea party movement.” There are mainstream Americans who are concerned with taxes and “spending and have a thoughtful position” and there are those conservatives whom she sees through a glass darkly: they “want to raise the crazy signs.”
I have also seen some distinctions—but what I see is not crazy at all. It is a loose divide between those conservatives motivated primarily by fiscal issues and those motivated primarily by social ones. And I think these earnest folks are going to be negotiating their way through the historical briar of Republican party politics this November, with their eyes on that shinning house on the—capitol—hill.
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Jun '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
As a group, the Eastern Journalism Establishment understands the motivations of America's Bible Belt about like a dog understands calculus differentials.
Aug '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Very well said. Emily.
Spot on, etoiledunord. Before discussing the Tea Parties, Restoring Honor, or the vast center of American values and ideas, the first question should be, "Do you believe in God?" If the answer is no, then there's really no point in further discussion. If it's yes, then one can refine the question. But at least there'll be a useful starting point.
Jun '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Is anyone on these Sunday shows doing anything other than preaching to their own personal choir? Emily, I understand that you must watch these shows, but is the rest of America, or the persuadable America, watching. I think not. At the risk of sounding cynical, do the likes of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann think they are doing something important or even significant in this national confirmation of prejudices? If they do their ratings should disabuse them of that notion. Still, their inflated self-regard and the money probably serve to buffer reality sufficiently enough to allow them to continue. The only hope we have is that eventually reality will catch up to fantasy.
Jul '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
This dog is smarter than the Eastern Journalism Establishment:
http://www.ohmidog.com/2009/08/18/this-dog-wont-take-treat-from-obama/
May '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
For all his histrionics, my sense is that Beck is a humbler, more honest man that the vast majority of our elected officials. Which may be damning with faint praise, but still: it's laughable the extent to which Beck is demonized as a harmful lunatic by people who use equally charged rhetoric in the service of statist policies.
There's no greater danger to an MSNBC host than someone in the overlapping portion of a Venn diagram showing "People invited to Hardball" and "People smarter than Chris Matthews." Every viewer lost is one they can't afford, not to mention the risk of Matthews, Olbermann, or Maddow having a complete breakdown at the realization of their own idiocy.
Jun '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Jason, can a Venn diagram properly show mutially exclusive sets?
Edited on Aug 29, 2010 at 12:27pmJul '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
These are the same people. There's no divide. It's as if folks think that social conservatives vote in favor of a massive expansion of government entitlements. They're conservative.
Edited on Aug 29, 2010 at 3:09pmMay '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Emily Esfahani Smith:
Salam explained that the Beck constituency, who are mostly white Americans hailing from small or rural towns, are not “have nots” motivated by anger, but are “are nots,” motivated by frustration—the frustration of not feeling connected to nor represented by Washington.
What's wrong with being motivated by anger? Anger is a response to perceived injustice. Like of all emotions, motivation is precisely the point. Anger is not only acceptable, but appropriate, when it is founded in reason and directed into reasonable actions.
Frustration is a form of anger, anyway. Frustration is anger immobile and impotent. I'd rather see a people angry and actively striving for justice than frustrated and cursing at their TVs.
Aug '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Emily Esfahani Smith: Though, I often wonder what a cynical conservative like H.L. Mencken would have thought of this show-stopping performer.
Was Mencken a conservative?
He was a renowned reporter and satirist, an elitist, an energetic but somewhat amateur linguist ("The American Language" is a classic not so much for linguistic insight, but because of the huge volume of information collected). And he disliked FDR. He seems to have been a contrarian and provocateur. But I wasn't aware that he was particularly conservative.
But then, what I've just said exhausts pretty much all I know about Mencken -- oh, and that he coined the word "Booboisie". I don't really know what to make of the man. Would Mencken make a good topic for a future post?... A slice of colorful Americana? Or am I not missing much in my ignorance?
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Aaron Miller
What's wrong with being motivated by anger? Anger is a response to perceived injustice. Like of all emotions, motivation is precisely the point. Anger is not only acceptable, but appropriate, when it is founded in reason and directed into reasonable actions.
I think part of virtue, or being a virtuous person, involves transcending your anger (or your frustration--and I agree with you frustration is just a form of anger).
I also think that transcending anger is also what makes men and women great.
Jefferson, for instance, was very angry with the British, but he channeled that anger into the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln's anger at the injustice of slavery never led him into a hatred of the South or of Southerners, and he counseled strongly against that. Same story with Gandhi, Mandela, and MLK Jr.
And that paragon of virtue and greatness once said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Of course, anger is a natural and understandable reaction in certain circumstances, but I still think that as mature operatives in the political arena, we are at our best when we prevent anger from controlling us.
Edited on Aug 29, 2010 at 5:40pmJun '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Emily: The best cinematic meditations on anger are Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Sam Pecienpah's Straw Dogs (1971). Now I grant there is a great difference between "political" anger and "personal" anger, but the emotion, the anger we feel from time to time, is something without which life, as we know it, would not be possible. Our anger as much defines who we are as does our capacity for love. One might even argue that one is impossible without the other, for in order to love others we must first love ourselves, which takes me back to the amour propre I alluded to in another thread. If you recall the Christian imperative is to "love thy neighbour as thyself", it is significant and vitally important that the imperative does not end with neighbour and in fact it can be argued that the command would be meaningless if it did end with a period (.) after neighbour.
Jul '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
When I read accounts of the rally all I came away with was that somehow;
Glen Beck in front of a Predominantly White Crowd was speaking about what the Predominantly White Crowd should do to keep the Predominantly White Crowd's position and traditions in the nation.
There were also many and varied speakers which made the Predominantly White Crowd cheer, even though the Predominantly White Crowd didn't have a lot of signs, though some had T-Shirts.
Anywy, the Predominantly White Crowd of 300,000 plus numbered 87,000 which were Predominantly White.
Meanwhile, Al Sharpton led Tens of people in what wasn't a Predominantly White Crowd in a counter rally.
I think that's what they said happened.
Jul '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Oh come off it Emily.
Your naivete is either insincere or revealing.
Who do you think protested during the first Tea Party? People who were happy?
How about folks who fought in the War for American Independence?
Do you think any of these folks were angry?
I wish that Ricochet would install an ignore button for tripe such as this.
Emily Esfahani Smith
I think part of virtue, or being a virtuous person, involves transcending your anger (or your frustration--and I agree with you frustration is just a form of anger).
I also think that transcending anger is also what makes men and women great.
But anger is the motivator. I wonder how you navigate with such logic.
Edited on Aug 29, 2010 at 7:39pmMay '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Emily Esfahani Smith
Jefferson, for instance, was very angry with the British, but he channeled that anger into the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln's anger at the injustice of slavery never led him into a hatred of the South or of Southerners, and he counseled strongly against that. Same story with Gandhi, Mandela, and MLK Jr.
In those cases, anger was a force for good. If anger is properly a response to injustice, then it is also properly motivation to secure justice. We don't need to transcend anger. We need to channel it and never let it rule us. When it does, that is called "rage". Displays of anger guided by reason and temperance can be prudent.
God exhibits anger throughout the Bible. In the New Testament, Jesus becomes angry and overturns the tables of the money changers at the temple (an action for which there is no mention of regret). If God is entirely good, and God can be angry, then anger is not always wrong. Anger and sadness exist only because sin exists, but they can be morally proper responses to a broken world.
That's the key.
May '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
This whole argument makes me think of VDH's outstanding book, "Carnage and Culture." One of the key ideas I came away with was the success of Western civilization in warfare came from our tendency to fight war with unequaled ferocity when pushed to go to battle.
A vast majority of people feel that we have been saddled with a con-man bent on degrading our country so that we are no longer a "nasty little hegemonic bully." It would be one thing if he campaigned on this, but Mr. Hopeychangey wangled his way into office with a lot of race-guilt manipulation and the fallacious posturing of a "centrist." with the willing deceit of a fawning media.
Now his ACTIONS seemed intent on hocking us into second-rate status...and the debtors are p**sed. It's clear out here in flyover country even if the elites are still feeling tingly in the leg.
If we aren't ANGRY about that, then this country is lost.
Jul '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
The difference is that when we express our anger, we don't look like a bunch of unwashed, drug-addled, rabid, seething lunatics.
We look like beer-bellied, graying guys in lawn chairs and soccer moms in "Don't Tread on Me t-shirts."
And we clean up after ourselves.
Jul '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Emily, there is such a thing as righteous anger.
Charles Bronson made a career out of it.
And our Revolution was animated by it.
I would posit that the opposite of righteous anger is cowardice. Or leaden apathy.
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
Let me quote an eminent authority: the screenplay for The Mask of Zorro.
Even if anger is righteous and even sometimes divine, Zorro was not a wimp. Or a loser. And yes, I'm thinking now of Patton:
Jul '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
James Poulos, Ed.: Let me quote an eminent authority: the screenplay for The Mask of Zorro.
Even if anger is righteous and even sometimes divine, Zorro was not a wimp. Or a loser. And yes, I'm thinking now of Patton:
Aug 29 at 9:43pm
Oh...dunno...Zorro's costume was awfully effete....
May '10
Re: Sunday News Shows: More Beck
This question of anger would have been a great one for Harvey Mansfield. Rage is the first word in the Illiad, though rage is different from anger. Achilles was not a wimp or a loser either. I can't imagine a manly figure like Achilles transcending his rage for more than a short period of time.