October 16, 2009

Glenn Beck ended his show with another his patented weepfests yesterday. It was special. And not just because it was about as sincere as the last time we saw Beck cry.

No, this one was special because it was accompanied by a loopy rant about how "life was simple" in the Golden Days of America, and then rambled into a weird metaphor comparing the nation to teenagers who innocently get stuck at a party and have to come home to mom and dad and face the music.

No, really. I'm not exaggerating.

Apparently the straying behavior for which we have to face the consequences now has something to do with having elected Barack Obama as President. Because the entire preceding show was a rant attacking the White House as riddled with "radical Marxists" who want to transform America into a communist state.

What got him especially worked up was this video featuring White House Communication Director, Anita Dunn:

Well, Beck will somewhat rightly get to claim this as a coup -- Dunn reportedly is on her way out anyway, but Beck will get to claim he helped push her -- because it's frankly a pretty dumb statement to say that Mao and Mother Teresa are two of your favorite political philosophers. (Both leave a lot to be desired, frankly.) Per "Revolution," "When you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao ..."

Now, I always thought people who rejected Marxist thought out of hand were playing into their hands, so I have read Mao's "Little Red Book." And there is wisdom to be found there, along with a tyrant's blindness. Still, the line from Mao that Dunn quoted was not only innocuous, it is -- like much of Mao's "philosophy" -- rather generic in nature. Who, after all, can really object to the admonition to persevere in the face of being told to give up? Certainly not Glenn Beck.

No, he just objects because the person who said it was Mao.

Look, Anita Dunn never said she subscribed to Communist ideology; she just said she admired Mao's writings. (At times, even ardent anti-Communists like George W. Bush admitted to being fascinated by Mao.) There is, in fact, a substantial difference.

Still, Beck is all worked up because he thinks radical Marxists have taken over the White House -- even though the best he can come up with is McCarthyite smears like this. We've been bad teenagers, letting these evil radicals into the government.

You have to wonder what he thinks the consequences of that ought to be.

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