CNN's Dangerous Blowhard (Glenn Beck)

[Ian David]

CNN's Dangerous Blowhard
By Jeff Cohen
November 28, 2006

Jeff Cohen is the founder of the media watch group FAIR and author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.

Turn on CNN Headline News—a supposed “news” channel—on weekday nights and you’ll be subjected to the lectures of a loudmouthed, factually-challenged, occasionally funny know-it-all whose shtick is that he’s “just a regular American schmoe.”

His name is Glenn Beck, a smiley-toothed monologist and proselytizer who is a recovering alcoholic, talk-radio host, convert to Mormonism and self-described “rodeo clown.” His crude rants would be easy to ignore, except that CNN—part of the Time Warner conglomerate—has chosen to give Beck a primetime platform which he uses day after day to cheer on a confrontation with Iran. (Imagine what an informed foreign policy critic could do with such a nightly forum.)

In Beck’s world, he and his endless parade of like-mindedly hawkish guests are the only ones who see the danger: “It’s Iran, stupid!” Most of U.S. officialdom and media are asleep at the wheel again, Neville Chamberlain-style appeasers.

Here’s a typical exchange from Beckistan, as our fearless interviewer engaged rightwing Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu in mid-November:

NETANYAHU: Iran is Germany, and it's 1938, except that this Nazi regime that is in Iran, that's a religious kind of fanaticism. But it wants to dominate the world, annihilate the Jews, but also annihilate America. Remember, we're the small Satan. You're the big Satan.

BECK: Right.

Beck’s CNN guestlist is replete with often obscure, simplistic hawks. In his segment asking “How Long Until Iran Gets Nukes?,” Beck’s expert was novelist Joel Rosenberg, a Jewish-born born-again Christian who describes himself as a “senior advisor” to Rush Limbaugh.

More:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/28/cnns_dangerous_blowhard.php

[valerief]

1. He's the scum I get on my shoes in the rain. nt

[Anakin Skywalker]

2. I Still Think "Glenn Beck" Is the Name of a Beer, a Putrid, Cheapo Beer.

[sam sarrha]

9. the kind that makes you smell like acetone and you dry heave the first 2 sips.. of each can

[SlavesandBulldozers]

18. hey. leave Beck's alone.

its one of my favorites. cool crisp, never watered down. smooth as a mountain stream. It just doesn't get any better than this.

[Olney Blue]

3. I speed surf through his show when I'm changing channels.

[KSU Wildcat]

4. You give him way too much credit.

He is not dangerous...just a blowhard....

[rpannier]

5. A senior advisor to capt oxycotin

That certainly speaks volumes.
He's not merely an asshat...he's a major league f**kwad asshat.

[Zookeeper]

6. I haven't seen his show, however....

when I saw the promos I was shocked that CNN gave him an hour of prime time. Fox, yes. CNN, no.

[sam sarrha]

7. he is just an O'Rieley in a puffy smiley faced shit eating morons suit..

[Radical Activist]

8. This piece would be more effective if

Cohen didn't sound so personally insulting toward Beck. Jeff is a good writer. He should stick to the issues.

[PassingFair]

10. I sent a couple of e-mails to CNN

about the JERK.

They didn't respond.

I hope he will just GO AWAY if I IGNORE him.

[AJ9000]

11. The "liberal" media will put him on, but where are the likes of Chomsky - Vidal etc.?

Oh no, they're too radical to be seen.

[threadkillaz]

12. Anyone who trashes an American city (San Fran) daily on the radio..

.. is UN-AMERICAN!

[FVZA_Colonel]

14. I really don't think that people like him would care if the Big Quake

were to strike and San Francisco were to be washed into the ocean. It's just disgusting.

[snowbear]

13. Forward the article to CNN's comment for the Glenn Beck show!! ---->

Right on the article, there's a function that let's you forward the article to anyone you feel should read it.

If enough of us forward it to CNN -- maybe we don't have to just keep wishing Beck would go away ---- maybe CNN will read what the public actually feels about him?

Who knows? :shrug:

This is CNN's e-mail address for commenting on the Glenn Beck show ---> http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4b.html?80

This one lists all of CNN's contact e-mails ---> http://www.cnn.com/feedback/

I think they need to read the article..

[Rev. 1-18]

15. Glen Beck

Hannity is the real dangerous nut job. This guy should just put on his Nazi uniform.

[Blue-Jay]

16. Beck is about as dangerous as a ham sandwich.

And half as intelligent.

[last_texas_dem]

17. I'm a little surprised CNN has kept him as long as they have

I mean, there *are* plenty of right-wing blowhards who do last on the "news" networks (just how many networks are going to give how many opportunities to Tucker Carlson to have a show that actually succeeds? Although he's hardly the foulest right-winger in cable news land...) but most of the really out-there or offensive ones haven't lasted for too long when the cable channels attempted to give them a shot. I'm thinking of Alan Keyes and Michael "Weiner" Savage, but there are probably others as well. (Whether a really "out there" liberal would last on a cable news channel will never be known as the cable news channels would never consider actually giving them a show.)

I've never watched Glenn Beck's show (as I told CNN I wouldn't in an e-mail when I first heard they were considering putting that trash on the air) so maybe he's toned down his nastiness (although definitely not his wingnuttiness from the sounds of his cheerleading for war with Iran) in going from radio to TV. But the oddest thing to me is that they put him the "Headline News" network which, until recently, at least as far as I can remember, was a straight news network. I would think if they were putting a "personality" (cough, cough) on the air they would put them on the actual CNN channel, since it has a variety of different shows headed by different anchors and isn't focused on just reporting news stories over and over. (I think 24 hours of news over and over was definitely preferable to 22 hours of news plus an hour of wingnut Beck and the obnoxious Nancy Grace, but I know I'm biased.)

(Oh yeah, and sorry for all the parentheses in this post; I should work on organizing my thoughts better, I know...)