The Glenn Beck Week That Was: Olympic Teabagging Edition
Reported by Guest Blogger - October 4, 2009 -
Guest blogged by Aunty Em
Froggy Beck, who makes approximately $49,315.00 per day (weekends included), got an extra, unplanned, Monday off this week, but I am sure he didn’t relax. Knowing The Beckineer like I do, he, no doubt, spent Monday ferreting out more corruption in Washington, D.C. and putting the finishing touches on his next book which, I expect, will be a rewritten Bill of Rights, fully-illustrated with 4-colour cartoons. It’ll be called “How Idiots Talk to Founding Fathers.” Another best seller.
Gleck had the day off because (and my imagination runs wild) on Friday he was sitting at home, popcorn at his side, watching his prerecorded, live studio audience, Dr. Phil-like, Help-We’re-Losing-The-Country After School Special: “Mothers Who Teabag.” Just as he was about to swallow a not-very-well-chewed mouthful, ‘talent’ broke into the show. NOT AGAIN?!?! The President of the United States AGAIN? WTF? Taking up his precious airtime when he spent the entire week promoting these disaffected Teabaggers, who came to offer intelligent discourse? Since billions, all across the globe, gathered on Nine-Twelve to denounce President Obama [Hell, if he can exaggerate, so can I], it’s only fair to give this unfocussed Teabagging fear another hour of air time.
It cannot be a coincidence that twice this week the president was interrupting Beck's comedy skits. It has to be a conspiracy. Any day now I expect to see a chalk drawing depicting Obama’s spider web with the FCC captured and about to be lunch.
Obviously, Beck called Roger Ailes, apoplectic, and sputtering into the phone, screamed that he wasn’t coming in on Monday and “ah, just replay that ‘frog dies bit'!” What with all the popcorn in his mouth, the bad cell phone connection, and Ailes’ advanced age, somehow that got mistranslated to “Friday’s shit,” and that’s why we ended up with what we did on Monday.
Here I thought I dodged that bullet. But it was not to be. Monday’s show-in-the-can presented such a weird assortment of fears among what Beck kept telling us were average American citizens and not bomb-throwing revolutionaries. No, the revolutionary radicals, we’re assured, are those in the White House. I feel better.
As he often does, Beck went on and on because, never forget, it’s still an opening monologue (see video below) and he had a live studio audience to entertain. This is what’s called “Priming the pump.” Not officially, of course, but that’s what it was. In fact, it was pretty much Beck’s Greatest Hits (and I use the term in the organized mob sense, not as in making the Billboard charts). He played the very old “redistribution of wealth” Obama clip, the NEA thing regurgitated, The Story of Stuff, indoctrination of children, Tides Foundation, children singing the praises of the President, mmmm mmmm mmmm. As always I may have left something out. It all comes at you so fast.
He summed up with, “You wonder why people are in the streets?” Then referring to his Mothers Who Teabag, “Let me introduce you to these gun-toting radicals.” They laughed appropriately because, lest we forget, Beck is a comedian at heart. But first, he had two very special guests to introduce. I got excited for a second. Until I learned it was Frank Luntz and Keith Ablow. Frank to put it all into perspective, of course, and Keith in case it got scary, because he’s a psychologist, yannow.
Me’n’the Mothers felt reassured. The Mothers more than me because they felt comfortable enough to spread their unfocussed fear. Me? I’m only allowed thoughts of the eventual breakdown of our society to grip me late at night, when worried about the increase of Right Wing Militias and gun sales. And they’re not comfortable thoughts by any means.
Not so with these Moms, who all seemed to have children in tow, by the way. They talked so pessimistically in the klieg lights of tee vee and right in front of the kids!!! What’s more, they seemed to fear just about everything. The recurrent dread, because they came back to it several times, was that God is, if not dead, certainly on life-support.
“We can’t have America without God,” one woman said.
Another woman thanked Beck for recommending the book 5,000 Year Leap, by W. Cleon Skousen.
Another woman said the United States was going to turn over the right to parent to the United Nations. This is a new conspiracy I’ll have to research. Beck made no comment. Maybe I’ll just wait until he does.
While all these Mothers seemed concerned the country is slipping into Socialism, one, who claimed to have lived under Communism, declared “Socialism is Communism Lite,” which I think would make a good slogan in the next election. I’m just not sure for whom.
They talked about The Obama Apology Tour: “He apologizes to dictators” and “The message goes out, there’s a lot to apologize for,” as if “My country, right or wrong” is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
My eyes were glazing over. It’s the same thing I am used to hearing from Beck. He just has a far more entertaining way of presenting his unfocussed dread.
Most of the show was a wankfest, with everybody agreeing with everybody else. However, there was one stunning little part. Frank Luntz asked to see a show of hands: “How many of you feel you are better off than your parents were?” All hands went up. Then he asked, “How many of you feel your children will have it better than you when they are your age?” Not a hand went up. It would have been a “television moment,” but Beck didn’t seem to be listening and jumped off on another point without letting what happened sink in.
But it was a remarkable moment. All these women had already given up on the future. They feel their, and "‘Merka’s" best days are behind us.
Ablow realized the import of what had just occurred and tried to bring the conversation back, but Beck was off talking about God, or something.
Thankfully there are only 60 minutes in an hour and it finally came to an end. I was now as depressed as the Moms Who Teabag. “Some people say” the Beckereeno came off like Phil Donahue, while others felt a Dr. Phil vibe. I recalled a talk show host from my youth who mesmerized me then the same way Ben Gleck does today. His name was Les Crane and, if memory serves correctly, he was even more incendiary than Morton Downey, Jr. Crane installed the shotgun mic in an actual shotgun. When he wanted to talk to the audience he pointed his shotgun at them. [While I remember that distinctly, I could find no confirmation of it.]
It always feels as if Beck is pointing a metaphorical shotgun at somebody, or group of somebodies, or organization, or office-holder, or world leader.
Tuesday was a disaster. Not for Beck, but for me. I have a livery service and my clients were traveling to a town about 35 miles away. Their business took them longer than anticipated and when I realized I wouldn’t be back in time for the show, I called Pops. I asked him to take some notes and told him I’d debrief him after the show. Pops took a nap instead.
I did manage to get home in time to watch Glenda change the Big Tote Board. He now claims to have 5 Refounders. How he plans to use these politicians willing to “rat out” the other politicians is, I guess, one of those mysteries that will unfold over time. Remember, he promoted his Nine-Twelve Teabagging Festival for 6 months. Beck’s got nothing but [air] time and he spent a lot Wednesday’s excoriating the President for the audacity of going to Copenhagen to tout Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid.
Beck talked about the huge cost of flying overseas. He even railed about all the carbon dioxide this would add to the environment, even tho’ he’s on record as disbelieving the whole Climate Change thing. He even tossed in that POTUS has only had time to meet with General McCrystal once since he tendered his troop requirements in August, but has time to go ocean hopping.
And then he moved on to Organized Chicago Corruption and introduced us to the Ma Barker of the gang, Valerie Jarrett. “Kinda like the Gotti’s. I’m just saying. I don’t know,” with that funny little shrug that tells us he really does know and will be drawing it on the chalkboard soon.
To hear Beck tell it, Jarrett has her fingers in everything rotten in Denmark. A positive decision there could lead to untold millions funneled into the pockets of Chicago Pols and the well-connected, all Democrats, leftists and friends of Jarrett. Once again he connected her to Bill Ayers, SEIU, ACORN, NEA. He even showed a Hammer and Sickle and a picture of Che, to drive the point home.
“Should this woman be anywhere near the president and the White House?”
He even alluded to the fact that she had turned down Obama’s former-Senate seat and could have been a member of “the most exclusive private club” in America. However, she turned it down and, somehow, this was nefarious in Beck’s eyes.
“She must be a rich person,” he said in his stupid voice, intimating that she stands to clean up financially if the games go to Chicago.
He summed up this segment, a less-funny than his usual monologue, by slapping up a warning label on the chalkboard where he just connected Jarrett to everything evil: WARNING: CONTENTS MAY CAUSE CANCER.
All to crap all over Chicago’s Olympic bid.
I’m beginning to empathize with those Moms Who Teabag and the depressive state of mind we’re all in. Everyone’s a defeatist. Beck was only one of a number of Faux Noise and Right Wing Blowhards to come out against the Chicago Olympic bid. Like those MWT, I’ve grown nostalgic and just a little bit weepy for those halcyon days of old. I remember a time in this once great nation when merely finding the word “Olympics” in their Alpha-bits would be enough to have the least jingoistic among us jump to their feet and shout “YOU ESS EH! YOU ESS EH! YOU ESS EH!” ad infinitum.
My how times have changed. Beck also said something very funny again Wednesday, but it was one of those kidding-on-the-square things. He was attacking what he now calls The Fringe Media (everything that’s not Fox) and how it’s Li’l Ol’ Glenn Beck getting to the bottom of all this corruption in Washington. “I say on this program, ‘I’m not a journalist’ and I’m not.”
I really can’t top that.
Thursday’s show presented a departure from the usual show openings. I hadn’t mentioned this in my previous columns, because I had been developing it for an entire essay, but The Glenn Beck Show’s openings are reminiscent of The Simpsons. Follow along with me here.
He always starts with a chalkboard gag and, instead of a couch gag, Beck gives us the daily slogan, such as, “If you think this country’s great, but the government is trying to stifle dissent, stand up, follow me.” It always begins, “If you think this country’s great,” and it always ends with, “Stand up and follow me.” However the words in between can be any gibberish-of-the-day.
But Thursday he departed from the usual show’s opening to bring a “mea culpa” from the crybaby. Normally the rest of the media, he proclaimed without evidence, would bury it on Page Two, but he’s going to put it right out in front of the show.
He really had little choice. He always said that if people can prove to him that he was making shit up, he’d correct it. So here he was forced to eat the whopper of the previous day (on another show, or I would have mentioned it) when he looked into the future and declared the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games had lost a billion dollars. OOPS!
Beck claimed he misspoke and meant to say “Calgary” and I believe him. Who can remember all those Olympics that have lost money?
Most of the rest of the show was anti-Olympics, with the fresh-faced Michelle Malkin bringing her fresh-faced opinion to a fresh round of Olympic-sized Chicago bashing.
Beck was live doing his radio show when the announcement was made that the You Ess was out of the running for the 20016 Olympics. He called it “sweet,” and then he and his stooge riffed on that for a while. Because it was not part of his Faux Noise Tee Vee Show, I feel I can safely ignore it.
Friday was Olympic-sized gloating off the top of the show, though. We were told we can now “forget Valerie Jarrett.” Huh? She’s unimportant now? Beck has a way of confusing me.
He quoted the Drudge headline “The Ego Has Landed” and commented, “True dat.” Then he latched on to the new Right Wing Meme, already swirling elsewhere on his network. In a nutshell: Obama’s now wounded and tarnished because he put his personal prestige on the line, only to be shot down by the IOC. It would never occur to him that it was simply, finally, Rio’s turn.
Displaying his propensity for self-congratulating, Beck talked about his successful book signings the previous evenings. He noted the huge crowds going around and around the block, but we need to take that with a grain of salt. We all know how bad he is at estimating crowd size and there was no mention of protestors. He also bragged that it was mostly women lined up to get his autograph because “who wouldn’t want a slice of this?” indicating himself. Then he had to admonish the crew for laughing at his obvious joke.
“Moms are realizing this government is putting their children’s future at risk.”
After more of Glen’s Greatest Hits (ACORD, SEIU, Jarrett, ad infinitum) he introduced us to a new video, discovered by his BFF Mr. Falafel. It was an anti-bullying cartoon to create sensitivity for crossdressers that’s being shown to schoolchildren. I don’t know how many crossdressing schoolchildren there are, nor do I know how prevalent bullying may be. Why? Because Beck never told me. Nor was I informed the ages of children who have been shown this video. In my mind, reaching tolerance can’t be a bad thing, but Beck won’t have it. “Whaddaya say we teach Math and History?” “Just sayin’.”
Back to the theme: “You’re awake, America. Especially Moms.”
Back as guests for the rest of the show were 3 of his Mothers Who Teabag from Monday’s show. He compared the women to Sarah Conners, of Terminator fame, who fought robots from the future who came back to the past to prevent a post-apocalyptic future. While he didn’t call for a robot from the future, he did call for a Million Mom March on Washington, which I suspect will be his next project.
Then he hosted the aforementioned Frank Luntz, providing another bookend from Monday’s show. It was a precious segment where The Toupee & The Frog schooled Teabaggers on what they should paint on their signs (video below, via Media Matters) for the next Macramé & Teabagging Festival. You really need to see it. The Word Guru knows what words work. I wonder who pays for his research?
And, with that, the week blissfully puttered to a stop.
I would be remiss if I didn’t relate my favourite Beck moment of the week, however, even though it happened on his radio show. Back in September, Beck praised Muse's new album, The Resistance. However, this week the band’s management demanded a retraction. It seems the band wants nothing to do with Beck. And now, it seems, Beck wants nothing further to do with Muse:
"My apologies to Muse. I apologize for saying that I liked them. I didn't meant to destroy all their credibility and their coolness.
"Let me just set the record straight: Muse. I hate them. It's an awful album. You should never go out and buy their albums."
Now that’s the kind of endorsement I’d like to get from Beck.
With all my love,
