(Diarist's note: Satire.)
Many of us have laughed -- scoffed, even -- at Glenn Beck for making weepy, angsty teenagers look like Steve McQueen.
His emotions are laughable, his rhetoric is silly if not pathetic, and his scrunched-up, "I'll be OK eventually, goshdarnit" face is nigh unphotographable.
But is there more to this man than meets the eye?
I say yes. And I believe I have proof.
Follow me, won't you?
If you've watched Stephen T. Colbert's segment on Glenn Beck, you know about Beck's Project 912. (And if you haven't, what the hell kind of person are you?)
The project is actually pretty pragmatic. It encourages personal responsibility and overall good citizenship.
But because most people here dismiss Beck as an opportunistic shill whose only attraction is how ridiculous he seems, they gloss over the specifics of the project.
I've chosen to highlight a few because I believe they encapsulate the Democratic ideal:
I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
Think this is a Republican ideal? I could get into the various Republican scandals that suggest otherwise to me, but instead, look at who moved the bookkeeping for our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan into the budget instead of supplemental bills:
A Democrat.
If you break the law, you pay the penalty.
Under the Bush administration, we tortured. There is no other way to say it, and there is no need to say it differently.
Americans tortured people. Violated the Geneva Convention. Rewrote the law to allow torture.
Under the Bush administration, we broke the law, and we paid the penalty internationally. But that administration wasn't interested in mending wounds or even acknowledging them.
This administration understands the penalty we have paid in not only international standing but increased recruiting ability on the part of fundie wackjobs whose idea of a good time is blowing themselves up.
And it is determined to not break the law.
(There's also the attorney firing scandal, any sentence with "Interior Department" in it, the mishandling of the Stevens prosecution ...)
It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or share my personal opinion.
Under the Bush administration, you had to say a loyalty oath to be admitted to a Republican rally. People were turned away from public political events because of bumper stickers. They were followed to those rallies and threatened.
Barack Obama holds a town hall meeting, and a woman starts a question that criticizes his Cabinet and administration appointees.
The boos start.
Obama silences them. "This is a legitimate question," he says.
It is not un-American to disagree with or challenge authority. Indeed, that is the only way to ensure that authority has considered another perspective.
So, OK, that's some interesting stuff, right. Points to ponder, whatever.
But nothing here screams Democrat and not, say, independent or just free thinker.
And nothing screamed Democrat to me, either, until I considered something else.
It's one of the core values of Beck's project. It isn't the first, and it isn't the last, so it's sure to get lost in the mix there -- ideal placement for a covert mission to spread Democratic ideals.
Hope
Need I say more?
Now, Glenn, if you're reading this:
We know your secret, buddy. We've figured out you're a secret Democrat! But it's OK! We won't tell! You just keep recruiting Fox "News" viewers who talk about needing hope and needing independent and critical, fact-based discourse.
And when the 2010 elections come around and we gain Pennsylvania's other Senate seat (at least), you'll know your six-month propaganda work for the DNC has paid off.
Well done, Glenn. You've managed to get some of America's most dedicated wingnuts to unknowingly embrace core Democratic values.
I'd offer to buy you a beer to celebrate, but I'm pretty sure you'd just cry in it.
UPDATE with comment from 912@foxnews.com:
Dear iampunha,
With respect to your recent blog post on the Liberal Daily Kos website, here are a few facts to set the record straight:
When the world changed on 9/11, Americans responded with resolve by emphasizing their Faith, their family values, their dedication to security and their love of Country.
It is these values -- not any of the Democrat Party -- that Glenn Beck's Project 912 emphasizes.
Glenn Beck is not a member of the Democrat Party. All FOX News anchors are independents. This enables them to be part of the only network that provides fair and balanced reporting on the day's most important news events.
Daily Kos, on the other hand, provides unabashedly Leftist coverage of news of interest to only a fringe of America and socialist Europe -- hardly representative of the center-right nation recent elections have shown us to be.
Regards,
Marcia Van Kamp
Project 912 Liaison
P.S. Post this on RedState and I will cut you. You live at [address redacted] still, right? Yeah. Don't think Turd Blossom doesn't have a file on you. It'd be a shame if ... anything happened.