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Julie's Jottings

May 9, 2010

Glenn Beck's Memory Lapse on Joe Klein: "I didn't know who he was . . . I couldn't remember . . . ."

After Time Magazine writer Joe Klein, appearing on the Chris Matthews show on April 18, 2010, (video below) and said of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin's rhetoric that, "A lot of these statements, especially the ones coming from Glenn Beck, and to a certain extent Sarah Palin, are right up close to being seditious,” Glenn Beck immediately snapped back defensively that he loved his country and wasn't seditious. Okay, snappy comeback. You know, even before Klein said that, Beck had talked about Klein -- and not about joining his fan club . . . hell, he even had clips of the dude, prominently displayed, on his shows, as visual aids. I assume Beck looked at the clips at some point, made some attempt to know what the guy looked like who had become his nemesis. And yet, here he is now claiming he didn't even know who the guy was when he met him in person . . . no clue. Nice try, Beck, to try to now act like you couldn't care less what Joe Klein says about you, to try and play it off like you're so important and indifferent to criticism that you can't even remember what one of your harshest critics look like, but it won't fly, considering all this . . . . With (lots of) video.

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Reported by Julie at 2:17 PM

May 4, 2010

Glenn Beck Blames the Unions For, Well, Everything . . But Wait, "There Are Good Reasons to Have Unions"

It's Monday . . . as if that's not bad enough. Then there's Monday (5/3/10) watching Glenn Beck, which takes Monday to a whole new level. There were some video clips from Greece and some from Europe, and there was rioting in the streets and fires and vandalism and there were a couple of supposedly communist books, too, "The Coming Insurrection" and "We Are An Image From the Future," and of course there's the Arizona immigration law protesters [video galore] and the SEIU and the teachers' union and all sorts of other unions, and, "Unions are using their members' good names . . . they're using your money to wreak havoc on our country," but on the other hand, "There are good reasons to have unions" . . . but wait, "The unions say they are standing up for the little guy, no they are not, not any more . . . ," but he'd march with his mother-in-law to further the cause of whatever union she's in (and she even got arrested once), but then again, "Our unions have to be exposed . . . why won't the media do it?" He promised to answer the question about who organized the immigration protests . . . still waiting for that, unless maybe it was his mother-in-law. Missing from the video action, of course, was the Greatest Hits of the Tea Party Movement -- I was particularly bereft not to get to again see the video depicting tea partiers hurling racial epithets and spitting on a Congressman. Saw a lot of those awful, horrible immigration protesters, though. With video.

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Reported by Julie at 12:08 AM

May 2, 2010

The Journal Editorial Report -- By WSJ Daniel Henninger's Definition, Everybody on the Right Is A Community Organizer

President Obama is (friggin' finally) beating back his opposition, and the opposition, in the way of the right-wing opposition, doesn't like that whole "shoe on the other foot" thing. On Saturday's (5/1/10) Journal Editorial Report with Paul Gigot, the three guests were, first, not lining up to join President Obama's fan club, and, second, all staunch advocates, apparently, of hypocrisy. Criticism of President Obama aside (just another day on Fox), if you listened carefully to what each guest said, it appears that what they're most critical of is President Obama's . . . honesty. Daniel Henninger, an editor at the Wall Street Journal, said of President Obama, "Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan always tried to present themselves in public as more idealized, perfect human beings, and they sit on a pedestal . . . Barack Obama's problem is that he is taking himself off the pedestal . . . ." (emphasis mine) William McGurn, Rupert Murdoch's speechwriter (who also happens to be George W.'s former speech writer), said, "Generally in a White House you leave that kind of partisan, very partisan edge, to a vice president or other people . . . ." (emphasis mine) Wall Street Journal writer Dorothy Rabinowitz criticized the President's directness, saying, "This is the community organizer . . . ." So . . . I guess it's not what he's saying they object to, it's that he's not hiding behind others who will say it for him. Oy. With video.

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Reported by Julie at 11:58 PM

April 27, 2010

Beck Uses an Old Obama Clip to Bash Cap and Trade -- And Says Some Other Dumb Stuff, Too

Glenn Beck is marvelous in his simplicity. I mean that sincerely. The fact that the term "simple" when referring to a human being isn't necessarily a good thing . . . well, it is what it is. Here are some samples of Beck's simplistic formulas, as demonstrated on yesterday's (4/26/10) "The One Thing" segment. He's seems big on linking dependency and regulation. To Beck, the Obama Administration = dependent = regulating social justice = red tape = slavery. So . . . the Obama Administration is all about slavery now? Oh, here's another one: "Tough new international capital regime" = global government = New World Order. Since Beck read someplace that "global government" = "really bad, like spooky bad," he's completely appalled at the Americans = total silence thing. Even the Republicans failed to come through. . . "the Republicans were all for this one, wow, how does that happen?" I think he was talking about Goldman Sachs, but I'm not sure. But let me harken back to the "intellectually dishonest" charge I made against Beck in my recent post. He could be simply intellectually dishonest. Or he could be just not real smart. Or, he could be a not real smart, intellectually dishonest person with not real smart, intellectually dishonest fans. In any event, in Beck's universe, Goldman Sachs is the bad guy but not really the bad guy -- certainly not bad enough, in Beck's view, to support what the "Almighty Senate" is going to do to Goldman Sachs on Tuesday in the "good show, I mean, a good hearing." With video.

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Reported by Julie at 12:09 AM

April 25, 2010

Does Glenn Beck Know Anything At All About Cass Sunstein?

Because of a more pressing work schedule, I'm now, along with Aunty Em, keeping an eye on Glenn Beck instead of Bill O'Reilly. So, my first foray into the blathering of Beck began last week. Since at least September 2009, as reported by News Hounds, Beck has painted a red "X" on the back of President Obama's "regulatory czar," Cass Sunstein, and urged his viewers to start target-shooting. (Yes, I'm invoking violent imagery to prove my point -- when in Rome . . . .) Anyway, last week, in a segment entitled "Cass Sunstein vs. Tea Party," Beck, looking solemn and serious, invoked Martin Luther King (the Godfather of peaceful protest, by the way) to, I guess, defend the Tea Party and simultaneously take some more shots at Sunstein, "the most dangerous man in America." (What he didn't mention is that Sunstein is also "the most often cited legal scholar in the country." But hey, college dropout Beck can spar with the loftiest academics in the country -- as long as he's not held to the truth, that is.) Beck also blamed the media for the fact that Dr. King's civil rights achievements didn't happen more quickly, and he threw in Woodrow Wilson to prove some point he neither explained nor proved. My first thought was, do people really take this seriously? My next thought was, how in hell can people take this seriously? My last thought was, holy shit, people actually take this seriously. But, I soldiered on. With video.

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Reported by Julie at 11:30 PM