Damn, I hope so! Getting ALL the insanity out of Politics would be a great thing.
Is the right turning against Glenn Beck?
“What should thoughtful conservatives do? I’ve said it before, but it is especially relevant here: Police their own side,” she advised this week. “Rather than reflexively rising to his defense when questioned about Beck, why don’t conservatives call him out and explain that he doesn’t represent the views of mainstream conservatives? Conservative groups and candidates should be forewarned: If they host, appear with or defend him they should be prepared to have his extremist views affixed to them.”
Most commentators newly awakened to Glenn Beck’s flaws haven’t even begun to confront the pathologies running through the stuff put out by the right’s most popular entertainers.
As a Beck critic who criticized the creepy aspects of his on-air personality even when he was touting awesome Friedrich Hayek books, I’d love to see more folks in the conservative movement adopt Rubin’s attitude. But they won’t. One reason is that it’s difficult to condemn Beck in isolation. Acknowledging that his show is indefensible—that’s the core of her critique—means confronting the fact that Fox News under Roger Ailes knowingly broadcasts factually inaccurate and egregiously misleading nonsense every day. How many conservatives are willing to stipulate that?
It also means departing from the conservative movement’s standard approach to its entertainers: It’s verboten to criticize anyone on “your own side” in an ideological conflict many see as binary.
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Jennifer Rubin is right: Glenn Beck is a nut. A person of integrity who valued truth and a broadcaster’s responsibility to his audience would never allow the man a platform as big as the one he’s been given. But if the right stops treating ideological allies with kid gloves, it needs to call out nonsense and conspiratorial idiocy that goes far beyond Beck. That makes the prospect of doing so more daunting, and more necessary.
That some on the right are beginning to see that maybe walking Lock-Step with the crazies in their party is stupid and harmful is a start to end some of the sickness that has taken over America is a hopeful sign.
This mantra has been a mainstay of republican politics for TOO long: It’s verboten to criticize anyone on “your own side” in an ideological conflict many see as binary. Please, please please republicans (and everyone else who walks in lock-step) change this sick mentality!!!
With the Buffoons like Bachmann, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Walker, Huckabee, Newt etc., etc., etc. now in the spotlight given a Loud Voice via FAUX media which drowns out TRUTH, the pragmatic thinkers on both sides are starting to come to their senses.
We on the left always seem to call out a Democrat who screws up which gives us the appearance of being all over the place and disloyal, but that's because we do value honesty and truth.
Getting back to a more even political playing ground by protesting the Idiots is another protest I can stand behind.
Now if they could rid themselves of their bad religion/history beliefs and leaders that have also done so much damage to America and politics that are constantly beating back women's rights, gay rights, race rights, labor rights, etc., etc., etc. we might someday be able to stand together to fight back the Corporate Demons who truly own OUR government and politicians.