Joe Scarborough agrees: Glenn Beck is bad news for the conservative movement
By David Neiwert Tuesday Sep 22, 2009 4:00pm
Wow. Maybe he was inspired by his earlier session with Max Blumenthal. Or maybe it was the way Glenn Beck dissed Mika by telling her to "shut the hell up." Or maybe he's just as sick of Glenn Beck as the rest of us are.
Whatever it was, Joe Scarborough was relentless and on-point this morning in attacking not just Glenn Beck, but the conservatives who condone and empower him.
He took his cue from Peter Wehner's piece in Commentary, "Glenn Beck: Harmful to the Conservative Movement":
I understand that a political movement is a mansion with many rooms; the people who occupy them are involved in intellectual and policy work, in politics, and in polemics. Different people take on different roles. And certainly some of the things Beck has done on his program are fine and appropriate. But the role Glenn Beck is playing is harmful in its totality. My hunch is that he is a comet blazing across the media sky right now—and will soon flame out. Whether he does or not, he isn’t the face or disposition that should represent modern-day conservatism. At a time when we should aim for intellectual depth, for tough-minded and reasoned arguments, for good cheer and calm purpose, rather than erratic behavior, he is not the kind of figure conservatives should embrace or cheer on.
Scarborough was even more damning:
Scarborough: But when you preach this kind of hatred, and say that an African American president hates all white people -- stay with me -- hates all white people, you are playing with fire. And bad things can happen. And if they do happen, not only is Glenn Beck responsible, but conservatives who don't -- call -- him -- out -- are responsible.
Incidentally, Mark Levin was just as harsh in knocking down Beck.
This is certainly a good start for conservatives serious about rescuing their movement from the abyss into which it is descending. But again, as with David Brooks, none of them quite grasp the dimensions of what they're up against.
Sure, the things Glenn Beck says are completely nuts and reflect poorly on the American Right generally. That's probably because Beck is in reality a genuine far-right extremist who is gradually coming out of the closet about that -- and as he does, he's lapping up the ratings.
But Beck is far from the only extremist dragging movement conservatism to the right. The bridges between the far right and mainstream conservatives are so numerous and widely trafficked that it's hard to keep up, but they range from the extreme religious right connections that Blumenthal describes in his new book in detail, to the "Patriot" wingnut right like WorldNetDaily, which has multiple ties to the Republican National Committee. And yes, ordinary conservatives do have reason to be concerned.
This is especially the case when it comes to the Tea Parties, which actually reflect the takeover of movement conservatism by right-wing populists. They have become a fundamentally important nexus for the promotion of extremist beliefs and fringe conspiracy theories.
Because that's what Joe Scarborough is up against. Glenn Beck is just the face. There's a much larger beast lurking there alongside him.
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he just wants his own Time Magazine cover.
Disssssed St. John McCain. Truly the last straw.
He spent the entire time before the election touting John McCain.
The thing he has tapped into is that he's playing to the losing side. That's all it is. These guys lost. They can't handle it. They found their spokesperson.
Joe Scarborough has no credit. Even when he's correct on pointing out what a loon Beck is, we have to ask, "What's in it for Joe to denounce Beck?"
Beck has a larger audience than Scarborough ever will. He and his on-screen wifey Mika (what the fuck happened to her after she refused to lead with a Paris Hilton story www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VdNcCcweL0, who remembers that?), are a disgrace to TV journalism.
I'm not crazy about Ed either. We need more Maddows and Olbermanns. More Moyers.
about thr Beckerhead audience.
When someone attacks you it's it. Glenn Beck attacks Joe and Mika and magically Joe comes out against Beck
I thought that he was some part farther south.
I caught his comments this morning and it occurred to me that if Joe is throwing Beck under the bus the way he did, he must be REALLY TERRIFIED over what's happening to his tidy little CONSERVATIVE "Right of Center" world.
These people crack me up. Joe puts up a steady drum-beat of far-right-political-KRAP on his program. He pontificates ad-nauseum over the good old days in the eighties when he was really SOMEBODY in Washington DC, and he slices and dices Democrats every chance he gets. I think he pulls back just enough to hang on to his morning slot on MSNBC. He makes a charade of being fair and balanced... even though he almost NEVER IS... and I'm gonna SPIT up my coffee the next time he sez ..."If this were a Republican, THE MEDIA would be all over it for a WEEK!"
He's so FULL OF IT!
both Beck the klown and rush the bitch, use race baiting to get people pumped up. there are racists out their. they are brought out of the closet and used ie. tea bagger movement. Beck said obama is racists to give approval to the real racists. the shrinking republican party is concerned about losing the low-middle class (r) demographic since they have also lost their job(s),homes,investments and health care. if they get the voices of people that are addicted to HATE and belong to the (r) Culture Club they will convince these people to vote against their own best interest. i talk to these people to find out their opinion(s). what i hear are talking points, Culture Club BullShxt and ideology.........they will totally deny the BUSH Legacy. BUSH handed obama such a mess. when obama opened the door to the white house everywhere he stepped was SHXT. NOW obama is suppose to wave his magic wand. the republicans have a huge identity problem so they will NOT work with obama. it's party before country.
Is Beck a neo-con? a conservative? libertarian? or a republikkan?
...I'm so confused!!!
...I'm thinky he's a Neo-con!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6C6E6ayh4U&fe...
opportunistic...........i really believe that's all this is. recognize a political faction/Culture Club and use group session studies to find out what lingustics get them off and spew to the simpletons on the idiot box. it's Capitalism Gone Wild
Any insane idiot can learn the buzz word of the day even if he can't spell it.
...in whichever direction his masters want him to go...
...Beck is a very versatile tool...like a wrench that "fits all sizes" (but) only turns clockwise (right)
And I think his masters chose him because it takes a real moron to lead idiots. Even Dumbya was a little too intellectually elite for them.
...and say that Beck is very...effective.
I dont think he's a moron. (although he aint a genius or nothin')
He does his job very well. and unfortunately people like him and watch him.
but yes I will agree that the people who like him
...arent looking for "smarts" or "objectivity" ...I think they just want good entertainment. ...clowns are fun to watch...
Beck could be a great actor and probably really did spell 'oligarchy' wrong on purpose like he said.
I know some of these gun lovin' Bubba types and they really hate educated folks; even the white ones.
Beck actually spoke of the Bubba Factor when he was predicting civil war. So you could be right.
I'll bet Beck doesn't even know what a neocon is, anymore than he knows what an oligarhy is.
it's all (r) culture club bullshxt. BECK provides the low grade red meat to rationalize HATE of those unlike themselves. people that deny the BUSH Legacy want to blame obama instead. they have no idea and don't want the facts. they can't believe they voted for BUSH. you know BUSH the guy who handed president obama the financial crisis/BAILout(s), automaker bailout, record residential/commercial
foreclosures,GiTMO,worst recession in 70 yrs. UNemployment,HUGE budget deficit,iraq war, n.korea
proliferation debacle, iran, israel settlements, afghanistan war/Nation building, medicare D donut hole..........the list goes on. these people are being told it's obama's fault......... bullshxt.
because Obama is the Antichrist and Bush was just his fall guy: his John the Baptist herald, so to speak.
Glenn Greenwald at Salon has an essay on this today. It's worth a read.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/0...
sciguy!
...that hit the spot! (just what I needed)
I like Greenwald too...
When are you going to take the next step and tell your Conservatives' Honor Roll to call out Fox News?
They pretty much do everything you bashed Beck for, and more.
Why don't you just come out and say that Fox News is bad for the conservative movement?
I'm so open minded that I actually enjoy watching Scarborough sometimes. I like a rational right winger. Such as he is, Joe's about the best we've got in that department now that William F. Buckley is gone.
There needs to be rational debate between the right and the left if there is to be democracy within a two party system.
when someone such as beck or rush or o'reilley or savage is so far out that even the conservativess are turning their backs on them and make no mistake, the rats are deserting the ship, they must be way too far out even for the wingnuts who inhabit that side of the aisle. watch them as they scurry off before they they get caught up and are linked to them
I know many moderate Republcans who voted for Obama because they didn't want to be associated with the crazy rhetoric coming from the Palin/McCain side.
...I suppose Scarborough will soon be announcing that "food tastes better with salt"...or maybe he will shock us all and tell us that "Joe Lieberman makes the liberal movement look bad".
If we watch Joe long enough perhaps we will learn (by example) that "if you smear shit on yourself"..."it will smell bad."
Scarborough's a wanker.
Al Gore look bad. Still does.
The real question not being asked is -- Where does Beck go from here? Is he still going to try to make the same claims in 2012? None of his crazy conspiracies will have come true, and surely by then some of his audience will realize he's completely full of shit. Is he just riding this wave temporarily? Will he die a drunken disgrace like McCarthy?
No, his audience won't realize. They are that stupid and brainwashed.
Continue hammering O's birthplace so they can sneak Schwarzenegger (Reaganegger) in the back door.
Raise Bush's status to get Jeb in there.
Hide Palin for 3 more years...
etc, etc.......
Smoke & mirrors.
Its because Beck is a on a competitor's network.
and maybe even before that with the voting rights act. Ever since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act the southern Democrats have fled to the welcoming, open arms of the Republican party that prior to that couldn't get a foothold among poor whites anywhere.
Race division and the bizarre characteristic of poor whites to harbor a deep hatred for poor people (Ronnie tapped that one getting poor and lower middle whites to sympathize with the rich man's burden) has kept the Republican party alive among the commoners.
The Republicans have been stroking and cultivating these people for decades and now that they're coming out to wonder around and raise a little hell (albeit, most in their Rascal scooters), clean, white-pressed proper Republicans are having a fit.
You reap what you sow. As far as I'm concerned, Beck can keep on making the duck calls until the entire flock comes home to roost -- right on the blue blood's door.
BTW, Rush should know all about these people, he grew up in Cape Girardeu (sp?) Missouri, which people, ain't no Malibu or Manhattan, not by a stretch.
so much
It's a
Bittersweet Symphony
of ratsass.
Scarborough isn't one iota better than Beck.
Stop worrying so much about small radical groups and more about the corporate takeover enabled by the powerful and many with "good" jobs like Joe here.
I know this is kinda your field, but Neiwert, you're missing out on the fight of the century the more you focus on the propaganda arm, and not the source. Surely these radicals like Beck are corporate tools too, but the likes of Scarborough have enabled your country to come to this point, NOT morons like McVeigh or Beck.
...when Scarborough spends an hour in front of a chalkboard connecting Barack Obama to Woodrow Wilson and Torquemada between bouts of maniacal laughter an tears, then I'll agree.
We needn't tar everyone with the same brush. Joe at least has some integrity and many of his arguments are reason-based and ingenuous.
You're so completely wrong about Scarborough.
I actually thought so too at one point during bush's peak unpopularity when even Joe criticised his admin.
But, turns out, the more I saw of Scarborough, the more he resembles a little kid who has been bullied around, broken down and who started worshipping what he figured was the bully ideology. Look how snarky and petty he can get towards people (including guests and co-hosts), and tell me this is an adult man with convictions and rational thoughts. I see an insecure semi-sosiopath with a huge ego and little conscience for anything not directly related to himself.
He also looks exactly like someone fishy enough to, accidentally or not, kill his secretary in his office and not stand up to what happened afterwards. And THEN keep on like nothing happened.
I'm telling you. You're wrong. He has NO integrity whatsoever. :)
either.
no text
to beat up Glenn Beck among other Conservatives.
It would have more effect if it were done the minute he opened his yap and called Obama a racist. If he'd been yanked off the air the same way Don Imus was when he called the Lady Rutgers Basketball team "nappy-headed hos", but unlike Imus, Beck would be off the air permanently, I'd pay attention.
Joe Scar puts a finger in the wind to see which way it blows. I'm not forgetting when they had a discussion on what constituted torture and Mika tried to school him - Scar's response was to threaten her with her job on the air.
Joe went nuts because he's the only one with the right to tell Mika to "shut the hell up" and Beck invaded his territory when he did it.
Like dogs marking their territory....
Conservatives are bad for conservatism, like they are bad for everything else!
...disease huh?
...an illness right? ...mental perhaps?
I've been watching the show since the campaign season began in earnest. He's a little bit of a blowhard, but so is Barney Frank, whom I love. At least he spoke the truth; Glenn Beck is teh crazy.
has Scarborough ever spoken the truth? I've seldom seen it.
no on watches Scarborough's show, and telling Mika to shut the hell up. Joe figures he's the only one that gets to talk over Mika. Which he does constantly.
Glenn Beck admitted that czars are okay as long as they agree with him.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2964
...I guess that make him a communist now!
...which party is Beck gonna crash next!
...and I'm more confused than ever!
I still think Beck is a neo-con. ...Chimpster was Becks first love...
I dunno though...saying you like Obama's czar's is like flirting with Obama I think!
Hi David, is there a reason that "mika" is spelled lower-case in your tags? I mean, I understand that she is kind of milquetoast, but she's not bell hooks. If Glenn Beck gets his name capitalized in your tags, can we get Mika the same? OK, I will slither back into the long-time reader, infrequent commenter ether now :)
It has to do with our automated tagging system. Sometimes when we first create them it's picked up lowercase and then it sticks.
Joe is all over the place and changes his position all the time. Mika is a nit wit and just useless. The entire show is a waste of space and air time. Unfortunately it's the only thing on in the morning when I am getting ready to go to work. I wish I had BBC news all the time.
A: NPR for your morning listening.
B: Joe appears to be bi-polar.
C: ANYONE on the "other side" calling out Beck for his nuttiyism(just made that word up) is okay with me.
not me. the man is a monstrous blowhard. he's STILL a monstrous blowhard. I don't know how many times this week I've beat my forehead with the flat of my hand at something the man said. does this remove the red marks? not by a long shot.
raising our glasses to him now just makes him sit a little taller in his chair. the next time he says something with an air of moral superiority I'll rest easy that I had NOTHING to do with it.
he SUCKS! yeah, Glenn is nuts. birds gotta fly and fish gotta swim. Joe don't get brownie points for pointing THAT out either.
These are two people who energize the radical right and alienate everybody else.
It's just further proof that the moderate GOP have no say at all.
like, all of the other talking heads who are paid way too much...just wants to 'be popular & get ratings'...nothing more.
He's waited it out...let Glenn Beck string himself up, past any hope of reeling himself back in...now Joe can 'appear to be' a saviour of those 'true & honest' Republicans out there...hallelujah!!! Thank you Joe for showing us the error of our ways!!!
It's all total bulls**t...it's only about making as much money & feeding one's ego as much as possible...no more no less.
I have my doubts about whether the progressive movement is any better.
www.newsmediatube.com
That ain't better, but you are calling that a "movement?"
Oh it's YOU. It's just opinion. Opinions don't equal fact.
Glen Beck might do well to study the career arc of Wally George.
On one hand they don't admit that they are not right wing extremists and in the other they flaming the flames, preaching hatred and supporting people like Palin and Bush.And I'm not talking about a small group, basically all 100% of the republicans share the same feelings. So they can't run from themselves and I have to say that Joe is out of touch with republicans. Glenn Beck is not a problem for the republican party, conservatism is.
I think he is a perfect poster boy for the right, a distillation of all that they believe and stand for.
Scarborough wants to background the true right wing of America, give it a veneer of respectability and meaningful purpose, make it seem like they really want to help the US and it's people prosper.
Bollocks I say!
Let the right keeps it's number one poster boy, he represents their schizo paranoia perfectly.
If we cheer the right in their attempts to rebrand themselves as reasonable and mature then we might as well just hand over the keys to them again.
Not a huge fan of Scarborough, but give him credit on that one. I will never have respect for Republicans or conservatives so long as they continue to pander to their crazies. AND, Limbaugh is in the same crowd as Beck, when it comes to race baiting and stirring up hatred. How about calling out Rush while you're at it, Joe?
The President hates all White people over and over and over, if these scything remarks are so offensive why even bother repeating them. Is this another cover to play down the hate yet still get it out there. Anyone of moderate intelligence knows what this Hate Monger has said its on the TV, Internet and various web sites.
As far as Scarborough having been there he wasn't to effective because now he is out here trying to fabricate, what he can not imitate.
it's like a flea calling a cockroach vermin, isn't it?
It is pretty simple, Beck is intellectually stupid. Do the conservatives really want someone as dumb as Glenn Beck representing them. He brings zero intellectual rigger and real reasoned thought. He is pure gut and reactionary. I think the people of this country have had enough of this kind of personality, after George Bush.
Scarborough's rant is rooted in professional jealously, nothing more.
Aaaaand we have a winner!
that's pretty much what I was thinkin L&L.
It`s like watching greasy rats fighting over garbage!!!
Does anybody out there know what's going on w/Mika? Clearly she didn't want Joe to open up this line of discussion and it just couldn't end fast enough to suit her. She was bitting her tongue and lip all the way thru this segment. Signaling the producers, rolling her eyes, sighing.
No one listens to Joe? Apparently Glenn Beck does!
More and more Glenn Beck morphs from Howard Beale without the formerly respected career to Lonesome Rhodes, the 'commentator' of A Face in the Crowd, a magnificent Schulberg/Kazan film from the 1950's.
Glenn Beck and Joe Scarborough are on the same Ship of Fools, and The Scar is attempting to grab the last lifeboat before it goes down like a rock.
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