We haven't written much - actually nothing - about Glenn Beck's upcoming departure from Fox News.
No matter what Beck says, this is a blow to his career. He couldnt hack it over at Headline News, and he could hack it at Fox.
Not that he's hit the ditch, mind you, he's been very, very successful. We've been listening to him again lately (KTTH m-f, 6-9a) and we gotta say it: the man makes brilliant radio. It's no wonder he commands an audience of some 12 million earballs. His company, Mercury Radio Arts is a multi-media money machine. He's got a sharp eye and ear for what can draw heat and consequent zillion$ to himself.
But his teevee show - his Fox News presence - while helping him attain the extraordinary success he's enjoyed, is also a big part of his decline. Beck started reading books kind of recently, and it went to his head. He began fancying himself an educator, then leading his "students" with blackboard "lessons" ever weirder, convoluted, and conspiritorial, all with a racial/religious tinge with bites guaranteed to YouTube.
However, even with his hi-larious aping and hystrionics, it was not great teevee.
We argue with our friend, the good doctor over at Seattle Jew, who warns with multisyllabic hysteria that Beck is the unholy American embodiment of Jo Goebbels, or at the very least, 1930's right-wing radio firebrand Father McCoughlin. Beck, for him, is Evil Incarnated Inc., scaring up a wicked mob out to herd Dr. Jew and the other righteous into the 21st century equivalent of cattle cars. (Jo Goebbels is not George Gobel's lesser brother, children... look it up... who's George Gobel, you ask? o jesus...).
We've always maintained, howsomever, Beck's a talented entertainer, an FM shock-jock with delusions of power and relevance.
(photo: Jo Goebbels)
But a politician he's not. And that's an important distinction. Even Savanarolas have to be politicians. And even entertainers can learn those skills, but Beck hasn't done that.
Beck's had it his way... entertaining on-air, wilder and wilder rightist conspiracies hogging the limelight, becoming richer, but also a laughing stock. He's even made such ubercons as Fox News boss Roger Aisles' sweat under his dewlaps... and that's saying something.
We'll say so: Beck has his people. But even if every single one of his 12 million would sign-up and follow him traipsing off to the End Times, their numbers are not politically significant; they're only large in advertising/marketing terms. An effective left-led boycott is keeping most major sponsors from running commercials on his show. His teevee viewers are a quarter of that and have been declining for a year or so.
(photo "Lonesome' George Gobel)
That's another big reason his FNS bosses are squirming enough to let him go. Acknowledging the fact that the left has no media equivalent, these are boutique audiences, tiny and select.
(photo: Roger Aisles' sweaty dewlaps)
We might agree with Mister Dr. Jew about the dangerousness of Glenn Beck if, after his impressively attended rock concert of racial subtext and discontent last year at the Washington Mall, he'd followed up by making political alliances, hiring consultants, and creating an organization to turn that moment into momentum. If he'd launched himself as the real, not just self-described head of the tea-party.
Unfortunately, of course, real activists have to work more than 5 days a week.
Instead he turned up the tin-foil factor and continued scaring mainstreamians vital to any establishment of a real power base.
Rush Limbaugh has resisted politics. He knows he can't step into the ring that your everyday state legislator does every day. Politics are an under-appreciated, uncontrollable, unmanaged, over-scrutinized, bare-fisted brawl, and of consequence to large numbers of people. Participants are hugely underpaid.
Shooting your mouth off on the radio are highly-controlled, overmanaged, wiffel fisticuffs with little-to-no real consequences. The participants are hugely overpaid.
Why would anyone trade-off the latter for the former? (Rev. Huckabee is mired in that moral quandary at the moment).
In the end, people realize that Rush and Glenn and Dori are just making great money by rocking the boat and persuading gullible listeners they’re in a hurricane.
It's not to say that someone with Beck's talents whose greed is only for power, and has more discipline couldn't rise up from the talk radio/Fox News axis to seriously endanger America's process government.
Lucky for us, Glenn Beck has squandered opportunites of that person being him.
Nice post.
What Sarah Palin, and some of these newly elected Tea Partiers, are discovering is that the actual business of governing is hard and mostly tedious work. Even at the level of your basic city council, it's a job that I wouldn't want: endless meetings on the arcana of trying to make a community work better, interrupted occasionally by a huge shitstorm you didn't see coming. All for far less money the equivalent skills fetch in the private sector. And that's not even counting the meat grinder of campaigning. It takes years of this stuff before most pols figure out how to work the system well enough to actually make a difference.
No matter what their politics, I start with a certain amount of respect for anyone who runs for political office, at whatever level. It's not a profession that (as many assume) one can jump to from another career and automatically be successful. And it's much harder work than talking into a microphone for three or four hours a day.
Posted by: Pete | April 17, 2011 at 01:56 PM
I would add Obama to the list of those who had no idea what he'd be up against. It's unfortunate that we seem to have so little patience for seeing results from those we elect, given the uphill battle they all face...regardless of party.
Posted by: Radio Queen | April 17, 2011 at 04:20 PM
Beck (aka the blackboard) uses quite a bit of self-deprecating humor - so much that comes across as a rodeo clown at times. With that said, the other two (Stu and Pat) show flashes of brilliance - Pat does an Al Gore impression that causes laughs when he does. He has nailed who Pres BO really is more than others, for instance; He has said that as Oblama extends one hand, but you had better be wary about what he is doing with his other hand - yeah, figuratively. He was spot on there, but he has missed on a number of things, because of the drama queen that consumes him at times.
He has made himself a target of George Soros/Media Matters, Van Jones and Francis Fox Piven after dishing on all of them big time - but seems to buck up to get it thrown back at him. Oblama has not rebuked him in public, but its pretty obvious that he has sicked his minions on the blackboard.
He has lost many sponsors due to his controversial comments that he owns, but has also found some new ones in the meantime - hence part of the reason for his departure from FOX. Think he will be around and keep attracting attention though.
Posted by: KS | April 17, 2011 at 07:18 PM
Gosh Michael ..
Can't you find a better target? or if you shoot at me, at least do so with some accuracy!
It seems to me that you are awfully tolerant of political porn. I draw the line at free speech at the courts, not at my willingness to sit back and comfortably watch hate mongers.
Actually, to the best of my knowledge, Joseph Goebells never made soap m.. from Jews or from pigs. And, poor old Father Couhghlin, by your standards just an entertainer, he never even got to look out the windows at an American lynching or trains headed to camps.
How exactly do youe decide that Beck is no more harmful than Coughlin?
Maybe we should ask Chief Leschi's descendants how THEY feel about another entertainer .. Governor Isaac Stephens. True, this little white man did not have the internet, but he was pretty successful in spreading Jefferson
Davis' racism to the people of the Northwest!
Who else do you find so entertaining? Trump? Palin?
All Hitler did was sign his name.
Posted by: SeattleJew | April 17, 2011 at 09:03 PM
"In the end, people realize that Rush and Glenn and Dori are just making great money by rocking the boat and persuading gullible listeners they’re in a hurricane."
More accurately, Rush, Glenn, Dori et. al make great money because people (on BOTH sides of the political spectrum, BTW) DON'T realize they're just "rocking the boat".
Posted by: John | April 18, 2011 at 06:43 AM
I've listened to Beck since he burst onto KTTH and it's obvious to me that some will go after him no matter what he says.
It's politics and he's conservative.
Beck is not a racist, yet he is called one over and over by those who need him to be a racist.
Same thing with the anti-semitic accusations... It just isn't true.
In fact, Beck is another one of those weirdo Christians who have googley eyes for Israel.
(it's creepy)
Since I'm not religious, I don't get that stuff, but Beck certainly has no racist or anti semetic feelings.
If you want to go after him, at least have some truth behind it.
Posted by: Rat_Bastard | April 18, 2011 at 08:12 AM
BREAKING
Luke Burbank sounds seriously hung over on KIRO this morning.
His dismissal is pending.
Posted by: Barry | April 18, 2011 at 09:19 AM
He's mad as a hatter lately but Beck knows how to make a buck. This new venture puts more dough directly in his pocket. Rush Limbaugh and his partner Ed McLaughlin pioneered this move in 1988. In Beck's case, the revenue opportunities are huge. Plus he has three great partners who will run the business side, leaving Glenn plenty of time to rage on the radio and in front of a chalkboard.
Posted by: casual observer | April 19, 2011 at 03:29 PM
ahahahahahah a vidoe has gone over the internet from a texas tv stations news broadcast, i believe Houston where they asent the locsl guy to Washington to interview Obama. The guy actually stand up to him when he attempts to lie about how well he did in the Texas state votinnnnnnng in 2008. Obama says " a coupel of points" and the dude sya really- it was more like 10 points although in a little more polite manner. The guy diddnt really say anything offensive to Obama...the only fault i could see was that he asked the same question in different phrasing a couple or three times. Big deal. he's a reporter. duhh. This was when he brought up the passing over of Houston as a "space shuttle city" to receive the old shuttles to display and whether this was done by Obama ot punish Texasfor their vote against him. The guy wasn't particularly obnoxious , he made the mistake of not talking to Obama like a cowering eunuch or toady like the usual reporters do. Obama was absolutley furious. Not realizing the mic and camera were still rolling tape, as he took off his mic post-interview he icily told the reporter "let me finish my answers first next time we do an interview, ok"? the reporter politlely said "ok" and Obama gaver an even more icy "thank you". What a pompous asshole. watch the video and see . Google it (News8 Houston TV interview with obama,etc)) see just how thinskinned, mean and nasty this guy really is. He makes Trump look like a Teddy Bear.
Posted by: Tommy008 | April 19, 2011 at 05:01 PM
Don't think Trump would come across like a teddy bear in a debate with the thin-skinned pompous president.
The GOP had better field a candidate with hutzpah and the ability to communicate. By all accords, the reporter got the better of the obsfuscation machine aka Pres BO and made him look like a shameless liar, which is what he is. More reporters need to do this instead of being pathetic chickenshits.
Posted by: KS | April 19, 2011 at 08:35 PM
Trump does look like a teddy bear. Teddy Ruxpin to be exact, complete with moving jaw and funny hairdo.
Posted by: Coiler | April 19, 2011 at 10:01 PM
The interviewer in the video may appear to some to be rude because he is crowding Obama's answers and talking before he is finished, but he is simply trying to get in at least two, hopefully three questions before his 5 or 7 (probably 5) minutes wiht him are over. He knows that Obama is playing a game. The game is somewhat like this- The reporter;s first question was asking Obama to explain why he's so unpopular in Texas. Besides the subject of the first question, Obama is smart enough to pick up the man's tone and body language and realize the guy is not going to give him softball, obsequious questions. Therefore Obama immediately starts slowing his answer to the first question waaaaaaay doooowwwwwnnn, hemming and hawing and circumlocuting (that's talkign in circles for our Public Schools career 1st grade teachers) hoping that he can take up nearly five minutes with his answer. The reporter will then have basically no time to even ask a second question. That's the game. And the reporter knows it.
Posted by: Tommy008 | April 20, 2011 at 09:31 AM
Yep, Obama is a one trick p(h)ony.
Posted by: KS | April 20, 2011 at 07:42 PM