This interested me, because I was just thinking to myself that Glenn Beck was probably a dry drunk. If you know someone who's successfully been through a 12-step program, you probably know what I mean. Because the AA veterans I know are some of the most truly compassionate, non-judgmental people I've ever met, and they have a real sense of humor about their shortcomings. They live their principles.

Beck seems to think that speaking calmly and reasonably some of the time simply cancels out all the other hateful, divisive nonsense, and his new line is that it's all just "political discourse." That strikes me as nuts, because what Beck does is deliver his information is a very consistent frame: Certain people are doing unthinkable, illegal, immoral things that are undermining the Constitution and destroying our country. He insinuates this in such a way that any listener who thinks of themselves as a patriotic American simply has no choice but to hate and hopefully destroy the people Beck tells them to hate -- because what moral person wouldn't?

Glenn Beck appeared on the "Today" show Wednesday to promote his new self-help book, "The 7," and he wound up clashing with Meredith Vieira about his political views and saying that he used to be "a very bad man."

Beck appeared with his co-author, Keith Ablow. Vieira told Beck that, from his own account in the book, it seemed like he had been a "nasty guy" in the past.

"I was a guy that I would've hated," Beck said. "I was a very bad man."

That's when Vieira turned to Beck's professional life. She noted that one of the things he advocates in the book is letting go of anger, and that, especially in the wake of the Arizona shooting, critics have accused him of "adding to this dialogue with hatred." She tried to run through a list of some of his more controversial statements, and they talked over each other as each tried to make their points. At one point, Ablow jumped in, defending Beck.

"If you're the therapist for the country, you have to tell the truth," he said. "He says to the country...'you're drunk.'"

"Do you really think that people don't know the things that I say?" Beck said, as Vieira started to highlight some of his statements. She asked him if he regretted any of them. He said that he didn't regret any "jokes" he had made about people.

"You don't think that that contributes at all to a climate of anger or hate?" Vieira said. "Ask Jon Stewart that," Beck said. "Ask The Simpsons that question."

"I'm asking you that question," she replied.