Beck delivered a lot of lies in his keynote speech to CPAC a couple of nights ago. He also said a lot of stupid and misinformed shit that was wildly applauded by the audience, which is to be expected at a gathering that included The John Birch Society and sundry dumbasses.
All of that is par for the course. But now some of the leading lights of the Republican establishment are starting to get a little queasy from what they're hearing. And by "establishment", I mean people like William Bennett:
"The first task of a serious political analyst is to see things as they are. ... And there is a difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. To ignore these differences, or propagate the myth that they don’t exist, is not only discouraging, it is dangerous."
And others...
You see, Beck's rantings are all well and good when he's merely giving a chalktalk about how Obama and the Democrats are Marxist Nazis (which is kind of like feline canines, but never mind). The GOP is more than happy to let him bark such nonsense at the end of his chain. But when he breaks his chain and starts making unpleasant noises at the entrenched Republican establishment in Washington, well, shit just got real:
I would not have said that the only people who can stop Obama should be excoriated for being just as bad...It would never occur to me to say that. I don’t know what the objective would be.
The above would be Rush Limbaugh. And when the de facto leader of the Republican Party starts clearing his throat disapprovingly, you'd best start writing your apology.
(That actually brings up an interesting scenario: what happens when a fellow conservative media titan challenges that wheezing old junkie? We already know what elected officials do: they grovel like bitches. But what about another conservative media superstar? Could get interesting.)
But I digress. The list of establishment conservative figures condemning Beck continues with Mark Levin, a popular right-wing radio host and author:
I have no idea what philosophy Glenn Beck is promoting. And neither does he. It’s incoherent. One day it’s populist, the next it’s libertarian bordering on anarchy, next it’s conservative but not really, etc. And to what end? I believe he has announced that he is no longer going to endorse candidates because our problems are bigger than politics. Well, of course, our problems are not easily dissected into categories, but to reject politics is to reject the manner in which we try to organize ourselves.
Levin's even starting to sound a little bit panicky:
He also told Beck to "stop dividing" conservatives at a time when there is unprecedented "unity" in the movement.
There's little doubt that Beck is getting dangerously close to crossing the line. Oh, I don't mean all the crazy, stupid, lying shit he's been spouting for the past couple of years. That was all good, as far as the Republican Party was concerned. But now he's taking on the GOP establishment. We've previously seen the Republicans get a little nervous when the rabble started getting a bit out of hand during the 2008 election. But they've mostly happily courted the Tea Party faction. As long as they stay on their leash.
It will be interesting to see how far Glenn Beck is allowed to stray before he's put back in his kennel.
