Liberals Target Glenn Beck Show For Extinction

President Not Moore Valuable?

New Selective Outrage From The Left


Liberal organizations and bloggers are in overdrive, after nationally syndicated, conservative talk show host Glenn Beck was said to have threatened Michael Moore's life. It's sparked a write-in and telephone campaign to get Beck off the air, via his syndicator, complaints to the FCC and calls for his arrest.

Don't these lefties have a very selective sense of outrage?

Here's what Media Matters, a leftist site, claims Beck said on May 17:




BECK: Hang on, let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could.

I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore," and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do?

And then I'd realize, "Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death." And you know, well, I'm not sure.

If this transcript is accurate (and indications are that it is), then it's not something conservatives can condone or defend.

Sure, regular listeners know Beck's crazy man routine, intended to be entertainment. Looks like it crossed the line here.

"Progressives" have a fairly good track record ruining talk show hosts, they pretty much wiped Dr. Laura off the map, after her comments about gays several years back. More recently, they scared most of Michael Savage's advertisers away, after his cable television outburst about "sodomites".

Now they have their sights set on Beck, who's in a fairly vulnerable position, having recently lost some key affiliates in Atlanta and elsewhere. Once touted by Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks as the next big talk radio star, Beck's popularity has declined, but still does well in some cities.

Perhaps they see him as an easy target.

Funny how when two liberal talk hosts called for the President's extermination (previously documented here) the left was silent. Nothing came of two outrageous incidents by nationally syndicated host Randi Rhodes, other than an apology after the second instance.

As reported by NewsMax in April:

The controversy stems from a Social Security reform bit on her program, in which someone from the fictional "American Association of Armed Retired People" says, "A spoiled child is telling us our Social Security isn't safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us.

"Well, here's your answer, you ungrateful whelp," says the imagined retiree - and then four gunshots ring out.

Now they're hopping mad, from blogs to lefty activism sites, furious that Beck isn't the subject of a police investigation.

Is Michael Moore's life really more valuable than the President's?

From a discussion at the Daily Kos, it's clear liberals are pretending their own incidents never occurred. Here's "Let's Be Frank":

What would the right do if Al Franken said this?

They would do everything in their power to rip him apart and permanently destroy his reputation, send complaints to the FCC and lobby to get him taken off the air.

That is exactly my point. I refuse to play the character assasination and free speech suffocating game that the right does, and I will not stoop to their level with this "gotcha" game.

Frank is miles off in the first part of his statement, conservatives spent very little energy trying to remove Rhodes and a local host from the airwaves, probably realizing it would be a futile effort.

However, a Secret Service investigation was demanded in each case, because civilized Americans know it isn't okay to encourage the President's execution.

Note: early reader responses to this piece point out that Beck's context must be considered. Was it part of a parody skit? True, but that's exactly how the second "Randi Rhodes Show" incident went down, a recorded bit she was able to blame on production staff in another city. We can consider the circumstances, but shouldn't made excuses.

Unlike the left, conservatives don't feel the need to stand by everything done or said by people who claim to subscribe to the movement. In the Rhodes case, clearly there should have been more outrage from the left, but mostly they covered for her.

Conservatives don't want to get into that habit, either.

Frank's second point, considered flame bait in the discussion, is just as wrong.

The left invented this "gotcha game", see the above examples. It really began with years of unsuccessful efforts to remove Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves, from advertiser boycotts, to Congressional efforts to reinstate the FCC's former Fairness Doctrine, known on Capitol Hill as "Hush Rush" legislation.

A radio industry discussion of the matter is found here.

So far, conservatives seem to be unaware of the movement against Beck, with little or no discussion about it on right-leaning sites so far. Ignoring it would be foolish.

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