Right-Wing Media

Michael Winship writes:

Watching Glenn Beck's performance Saturday at his "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, DC, I thought of the novelist Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry, the charlatan evangelist who seduces most of those around him with his hearty backslapping and false piety.

Robert Jensen writes:

About halfway through Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” rally on the DC mall, I realized that I was starting to like Glenn Beck.

Let me explain. It’s not that I really liked Beck, but more that I experienced his likeability. Whether or not he’s sincere, I came to admire his ability to project sincerity and to create coherence out of his incoherent rambling about religion, race, and redemption.

As a result, I’m more afraid for our political future than ever.

First, to be clear: Beck is the embodiment of everything I dislike about the U.S. politics and contemporary culture. I disagree with most every policy position he takes. I find his willful ignorance and skillful deceit to be unconscionable.

So, I’m not looking for a charismatic leader to follow and I haven’t been seduced by Beck’s televisual charm, nor have I given up on radical politics.

A follow-up to Jane Mayer's New Yorker article on the Koch brothers:

For the past two years, ThinkProgress researcher Lee Fang has been digging into the nefarious activities of the Koch family, reporting on their funding of the tea parties, the depth of their astroturfing, and their family’s record of right-wing radicalism.

Roger Ebert writes:

5. The Bill of Rights has a parallel with pregnancy. You can't be a little pregnant, and you can't be a little free. Nor can you serve yourself from it cafeteria style.

Gary Leupp writes:

Thus by mid-August a modest project by a mainstream U.S. Muslim group backed by the New York City mayor and unanimously approved by the New York City community committee has been transformed into a general attack on Muslim rights in this country. The scary thing is that disapproval is so widespread, bipartisan, and driven by irrational fear if not hatred.

TBTM Julie writes at the Daily Kos:

The "911 Mosque" debacle is being pimped by a lobbyist front with a cast of familiar characters, Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, FOX News, The Project for a New American Century - who brought us TWO Wars for Profit.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is the latest in a series of major newspapers around the country that have announced a partnership with a group called PolitiFact which will aid them in the innovative practice of letting readers know whether statements made by politicians are true or not. Here's last Sunday's front page announcement:

By David Swanson

ACORN is shutting down because of a fraudulent video pimped by the corporate media.  U.S. forces in Afghanistan have heroically laid seige to and conquered a fictional city, helping build the case for further escalation.  A cable news channel has created a right-wing mass movement by pretending it already existed.  Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted for a health insurance bill he believed would deprive more people of healthcare (and wealth and homes), because fraudulent reports had convinced his constituents of the opposite.  The peace movement was defunded in November 2008, because of a fraudulent presidential election campaign.  71% of Americans believe Iran has nuclear weapons.  41% of Americans think the quality of the environment is improving.  Has the power of the corporate media to overwhelm all before it begun to sink in yet?

By David Swanson

What it would have cost us to publicly fund independent media that would have prevented the invasion of Iraq wouldn't amount, in a year, to what we spend on a month of occupying that country. 

Diverting the cost of a month of war to a year of giving substance to our "freedom of the press" would mean that the last time someone asked you about the Teabaggers' genius in being smart enough to talk dumb enough to persuade everyone to be racists would, in fact, be the LAST time anyone would ask you how a creation of the corporate media manages to get coverage from the corporate media.

I'd like to collect all of Glenn Beck's crazy conspiracy theories on one page. Please post them in the comments below - and provide a good link (to Beck or someone writing about Beck) whenever you can. Thanks!

9/5/09 If we understand BO by who he surrounds himself with as HE told us, what does VJ911 [Van Jones] truther stuff tell us about BO's middle east policy?