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Go Home Glenn Beck Goes Crazy (well, Crazier)

THE PLANK JULY 29, 2009

Glenn Beck Goes Crazy (well, Crazier)

Here is Glenn Beck on Barack Obama:

For people who choose not to watch the whole video, Beck says that Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." The degree to which this sort of thing outrages you might depend on the type of day you are having (sometimes it is impossible to let Fox dictate your moods), but suffice it to say that after watching the video, I was pretty disgusted. Whether or nor Beck should apologize is beside the point; our public sphere is already awash with too many phony apologies. The real problem is that lunatics have big megaphones. 

Over at the Corner, Jonah Goldberg (a frequent Beck guest), in an authentic profile in courage, rants about MSNBC before commenting:

Okay, so now I've watched it. I agree with a lot of it. But I don't think the words "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture" were all that well chosen (which is clear since he later contradicts himself by "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people"), but on reflection--and viewing--I don't think he has to retract anything.

A couple things come to mind. First, in the same sentence that Beck generously allows that Obama may not in fact hate white people, Beck concludes by calling Obama a "racist"! Goldberg is apparently very easy to satisfy. And finally, notice the language: Golberg "does not think" Beck's comments were "all that well" chosen. What condemnation! Even the "serious" American right is in a pathetic state these days.

--Isaac Chotiner

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10 comments

You are dead on, Isaac. Lunatics with big megaphones and far too many of them. I don't watch this cretin so I don't have a sense of how nutty he is vs. the degree to which he tries to epater le Foxoi but in any case, his comments are outrageous. And that clown Jonah Goldberg is not far behind Beck.

- liberal reformer

July 29, 2009 at 12:16pm

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Beck's statement is absurd on its face.  Everyone knows white people don't have culture.

- ratnerstar

July 29, 2009 at 12:51pm

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I don't watch much TV.

Who is a nut on the left? Olberman? Or is he just rude? Jon Stewart?  

- tembrach

July 29, 2009 at 12:59pm

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Ratnerstar, you phillistine.  Are you unfamiliar with such glorious contributions as "Leave It To Beaver," the electric slide, the musical stylings of Peter Cetera, Axe body spray, and the haute couture tribal-armband/popped-collar-Polo-shirt combo?  How dare you denigrate two millenia of blandness and douchebaggery from such a proud people?

- adaglas

July 29, 2009 at 1:41pm

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Rat,

Brilliant. Meet me at Starbucks.

Does Jonah Goldberg represent the "serious" American right? This guy?

www.businessinsider.com/jonah-goldberg-pretends-asteroids-are-the-big-environmental-threat-2009-7

Yikes.

- mpatrickhendri

July 29, 2009 at 1:46pm

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Who's calling whom a philistine? adaglas putting down the Beaver?! This shall not stand.

- cvillekid

July 29, 2009 at 1:53pm

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Let's not leave out that recent viral youtube phenom, the dancing wedding entrance.  I have never seen a whiter thing in all my life.  

Just remember: Ofay is Ok.

I fight the urge to: a) find this puffy, bulge-eyed wuss and bitch slap him. It would be worth being sent to Gitmo or whatever would happen to me. b) marching on Washington against Fox/bigotry/hate mongering c) beg bone, adaglas, ratner to keep up the best strategy and use it for fodder for real wit. On an hourly basis/

d) all of the above.

- Wandreycer1

July 29, 2009 at 1:54pm

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You have a point, adaglas.  Only white people could have taken a phrase so patently obscene as "Leave It To Beaver" and turned it into a paragon of respectability.  This remarkable accomplishment has long been ignored by traditional academics, for obscure reasons.  Personally, I suspect Obama is behind it.

- ratnerstar

July 29, 2009 at 1:59pm

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Where is Martin Mull's perspective on whiteness when we need it most?

- wildboy

July 29, 2009 at 3:06pm

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Don't forget, ratnerstar:  This was the generation that turned Jack Kerouac into Maynard G. Krebs, Little Richard into Pat Boone, and underage sex into sock hops.  On the other hand, they did manage to corrupt the shit out of game shows.  Truly a prolific time in White People's History.

- adaglas

July 29, 2009 at 3:15pm

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