Beck’s Dreck Taints “The Most Trusted Name In News”

I guess CNN believes that they must cater to some truly demented audience demographic out there and give page space to Glenn Beck, though why any adult with a double-digit IQ would bother to take Beck seriously is a never-ending mystery to me.

My instincts got the better of me, though, and I actually read some of his opining today along the lines of “gee, I just don’t know who I’m going to vote for in this election, because no candidate is ‘conservative’ enough for me…I only know that BARACK OBAMA IS A DIRTY LIBERAL (whisper, whisper, threatening, uppity Negro, wants to $#@! your white sister, whisper, whisper, really a SCARY MUSLIM!!, whisper, whisper), and I’ll NEVER vote for him and neither should you” (whisper, whisper, SCARY, ELITIST MUSLIM!!, whisper, whisper).

Well anyway, Beck ticks off the list of candidates and rambles about them, but as I looked over his drivel (and did a search just to make sure I was right), I noticed that Beck omitted a highly notable name.

And that would be Alan Keyes (gee, you’d think Beck would at least do a bare minimum of research before he decided to “gather his source material” by apparently gazing at his navel for an extended period of time).

As you can read here, Keyes has a pedigree that would be attractive to Beck. Under The Sainted Ronnie R, Keyes served as deputy chairman of the delegation to the 1984 World Population Conference in Mexico City, and in that capacity, he negotiated the language of the Mexico City Policy to withhold federal funds from international organizations that support abortion. And when he ran for the U.S. Senate for the state of Maryland, he took a $8,463/month salary from his campaign fund.

Even better is the notion of a “revenge factor” in supporting Keyes, since he was defeated in his run for an Illinois U.S. Senate seat (the Washington Post called Keyes a “carpetbagger” since he’d never lived in Illinois) by none other than (you guessed it) Barack Obama.

Now it’s true that Keyes isn’t really officially sanctioned by a political party at this point, but he apparently is trying to drum up support in California (kind of an odd strategy for someone who was once an avowed conservative), but I’m sure an endorsement by Beck would help that along. After all, a tortoise moves faster than a snail, doesn’t it?

And finally, I present as evidence this interview Beck conducted with conservative scholar (tongue firmly in cheek here) and writer Mark Steyn, who said conservatives should “get behind Alan Keyes or shoot ourselves.”

So please allow me to do here what Glenn Beck should have done, and that’s to help drum up support for Alan Keyes.

I believe this would have the effect of weeding out and neutralizing some of the mental misfits who give credence to Beck’s opinions by ensuring that they vote for Keyes, thus making it more likely that the most important election of our lifetimes will be decided by actual grownups voting for the most legitimate candidate instead.

Update 8/1/08: As a mea culpa of sorts, I should point out (as noted in the comments) that Beck doesn't have a recent history of spreading Obama smears about wanting to $#@! your white sister, or words to that effect (though, as Josh Marshall noted here, that narrative is clearly emerging from people who are kindred spirits to Beck).

However, Beck entertained Mann Coulter here and allowed her to refer to Obama as a "Manchurian candidate" without a word of protest, and Beck himself referred to Obama as "the antiChrist" here. Also, Beck referred to Obama as "colorless" here, which, while maybe not too offensive, was pretty dumb anyway, and Beck pulled a sneak attack against Dem Rep. Keith Ellison here, accusing him of being a "scary Muslim." So basically, anyone defending Beck barely has a leg to stand on.

Update 1 8/6/08: He's at it again - can a whole, fresh cycle of trolling comments be far behind?

Update 2 8/6/08: By the way, jarabefull left the following comment that I approved; don't know why it didn't show up...

"All I am really trying to get across is a point that Mitt Romney made. He said that bias is shallow thinking. Read widely, particularly from people who disagree with you. Argue to learn rather than to win. If you don't respect, I mean really respect, the views of people who disagree with you, then you don't understand them yet. There are smart people on both sides of almost every important issue. Learn from them all.

You can't do that when you just categorize people as clueless and bullies and unpatriotic. When you do, YOU are the one putting up a wall of misunderstanding that makes it hard to create any real progress.

Glenn Beck, Al Gore, Reverend Sharpton and even Ron Paul all have something we can learn from."

To which I replied...

"Hard for me to respect someone who threatened to kill a person he disagreed with, which apparently is fine with you, but otherwise your point is well taken."

That was being overly kind as far as I'm concerned (and quoting The Mittster??); as this point "uppity Negro who wants to $#@! your sister" is the only negative thing Beck HASN'T said about Obama.