Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America

by Dana Milbank

  Conservative writer David Frum judged Beck’s interpretation of Cass’s work to be “beyond sloppy, beyond ignorant, proceeding straight toward the deceptive.”

  But effective. Two Republican senators put “holds” on the nomination, blocking it from being considered by the Senate. Finally, Senate Democrats held a vote on September 9 to try to break the Republican filibuster—and Beck came on air just as the vote was approaching.

  “It is supposed to happen—surprise, surprise, no coincidence in politics—in this hour,” Beck said. “You can still call Washington and tell them ‘no.’ ”

  He repeated his grievances. Sunstein is, Beck said, “a man who doesn’t believe we should be eating meat … a man who believes that animals should be provided attorneys in the courts of law, a man who believes that everyone must be an organ donor, a man that believes that you should not be able to remove rats from your home if it causes them any pain.

  “This is the lunatic fringe!” said Beck, who speaks with some authority on the subject.

  But, as with Holdren, the charges didn’t stick. The filibuster was broken, and the next day Sunstein was confirmed, 57–40. There have been, as of this writing, no attempts to ban hunting or meat eating or to give dogs or rats legal standing.

  Beck could do nothing more than add Sunstein to his list of Obama officials planning a progressive/communist/socialist/fascist takeover of the country. His monologues became seasoned with phrases such as “Are you crazy, Cass?” and “Extreme radical Cass Sunstein” and “the most dangerous man in America.”

  * * *

  But in Beck’s mind there were many people vying for the title of most dangerous man or woman—and as luck would have it, they all worked for Barack Obama.

  Carol Browner, a former Clinton administration official hired by Obama to advise him on climate issues, was a socialist, Beck determined. “Hard core,” confirmed his guest, from The National Review.

  This allegation stemmed from Browner’s affiliation with the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which was indeed organized by the Socialist International. But it includes such nonsocialists as former British prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

  That was enough for Beck. “She was part of Socialists International. This is a group for global governance,” he reported. “Socialist” became part of her title, as in “socialist energy czar.” Every few weeks, Beck would remind viewers of her as he built the Obama socialist conspiracy on his chalkboard. “Carol Browner—she’s a socialist,” he would say, or “Carol Browner—you remember her. She’s that socialist.”

  Beck’s “watch dogs,” meanwhile—those he reached on Twitter with a request to “find everything you can” on Browner, Sunstein, and Mark Lloyd—were beginning to come through for him. One sent him a video of Lloyd, “chief diversity officer,” at the Federal Communications Commission, discussing Hugo Chávez’s revolution in Venezuela. Lloyd described it as “really an incredible revolution.” From this Beck deduced that the FCC lawyer “is a huge fan of the socialist/Marxist revolution in Venezuela.”

  Another Marxist! “I’m just on the beginning of my research of Mark Lloyd—but he strikes me as a Marxist,” Beck proposed one night. Further, he concluded that Lloyd was “the man trying to silence free speech in America” and was “positively un-American.”

  “Have we found another Van Jones?” Beck teased his viewers one night. “I tell you the answer to that one is: No. We found someone, I believe, worse.”

  Beck’s Kremlinology was starting to get complicated. There was a Marxist green-jobs adviser, a Marxist FCC official, a socialist energy adviser, an abortionist science adviser, and a regulatory adviser who wanted your dog to sue you. Enter Ron Bloom, whose Marxist/socialist credentials include a degree from Harvard Business School and work as an investment banker before he became an adviser to unions.

  Soon after Obama named Bloom as an adviser on manufacturing policy, Beck started playing a clip of Bloom speaking: “We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market or at least find someone who’ll pay you a lot of money because they’re convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it is an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend, you should get a dog.”

  With that cynical take on the system, Bloom joined “the radicals the president has placed around himself,” according to Beck. “Why,” he asked another night, “do you think there are so many Maoists hanging around the White House?”

  An excellent question. One explanation was that Obama was, as Beck alleged, a communist who stealthily stocked his administration with secret admirers of Red China. The other possibility was that Beck, with his Internet-combing “watchdogs,” was turning any stray remark by any of the ten thousand political appointees in the Obama administration into a communist manifesto.

  This second possibility gained some weight when Beck turned his sights on Anita Dunn, the White House communications director who had used that perch to criticize Fox News. Dunn was not your typical communist: She advised corporations, worked for former Senate leader Tom Daschle, and helped to run basketball great Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign. But Beck saw her as a Maoist. His evidence: a high school graduation speech she gave.

  “The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse-tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled together, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices,” Dunn told the kids. She recalled Mao in 1947 saying, “You fight your war and I’ll fight mine.” And she recalled Mother Teresa saying, “Go find your own Calcutta.”

  It’s not terribly uncommon for an American to quote Mao; John McCain has often observed that “in the words of Chairman Mao, it’s always darkest before it’s totally black.” But Beck pounced, particularly on the “favorite political philosophers” bit. Dunn insisted she was joking—a reasonable proposition because neither the dictator nor the humanitarian quite qualifies as a philosopher—but Beck was convinced he had found another communist.

  “It’s not funny. It’s not even close to funny,” he responded on a later show.

  Beck got out his red hotline—the one for which only the White House supposedly has the number. Dunn, he alleged, is one of a few White House officials who “worship Chairman Mao.” By way of proof, he added: “Just call me if you don’t have an altar in your bedroom.” The phone didn’t ring—it was true!

  Beck liked this form of proof. “They won’t challenge—they won’t call me!” he exulted with his red phone on the set. “Communists, revolutionaries, socialists, Marxists, followers of Chairman Mao appointed by Obama to the executive branch in positions of the government—call, call me! Explain it, explain it any other way.”

  Before and after Dunn left the White House (she was there on a temporary basis for the first months of the Obama presidency), Beck continued to mau-mau the Maoists (sometimes even accompanied by photographs of executions and child labor in China): “Mao-loving Anita Dunn … one of her favorite political philosophers is Mao … the Mao fan, Anita Dunn … preaching the virtues of Mao … The Chairman Mao–lover, lizard lady, Anita Dunn … a follower of Mao … singing the praises of Chairman Mao … Every time I see an interview with her I wait for her tongue to come out. She’s spooky. I expect, like, lasers to shoot out of her eyes.”

  * * *

  In fairness, Beck doesn’t claim that everybody who works for Obama is a communist. Some of them are fascists. One night, he discussed Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, then added: “I’m going to show you the beginning of something that should scare the living daylights out of you. It is propaganda in America.”

  The conservative Web site Breitbart.com had posted a recording of a teleconference in which the communications director for the National Endowm
ent for the Arts, Yosi Sergant, seemed to be encouraging artists to produce work that supports the Obama volunteer-service agenda.

  Sergant, who during the campaign popularized the iconic “Hope” image of Obama, said on the call: “I would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the environment. There are four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service.”

  Beck interviewed the man who recorded the teleconference. The charges caused an uproar on Capitol Hill, and within days Sergant was gone. “We played the tapes of the call with Yosi Sergant,” Beck celebrated, “and Yosi Sergant had to step down.”

  But after a year and a half of hunting, Beck had only two scalps to show for his efforts, the relatively minor figures of Sergant and Jones. He began to cast his net wider. One night he went after a Canadian named Maurice Strong, who works with the United Nations. “I need videos and anything you can find on Maurice Strong and you send it to us right away,” he told his watchdogs. Beckoning to his White House hotline, he said, “The reason why this phone is not ringing now is because there are phone calls being made and they are scouring the Internet. They are sanitizing and taking it all off.”

  That was a bit obscure, but Beck was out of good targets. He finally settled on exposing people who had not yet been appointed by Obama. “You mark my words,” he said after Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. “A radical is coming. Sotomayor, I’m sorry, gang, but she’s a radical. He’s going to pick another radical. I mean, if he’s smart, he will find a gay, handicapped, black woman who’s an immigrant. She could say, ‘I hate America, I want to destroy America,’ and that way they’ll only be able to say, ‘Why do you hate gay, immigrant, black, handicapped women?’ ”

  Not only was Beck a first-rate communist hunter, but he was also a clairvoyant: The nominee had yet to be named, but Beck already knew she wanted to destroy America.

  And, sure enough, he was right. Just a few days after Elena Kagan was nominated, Beck reported that “Kagan happens to be a big fan of Cass Sunstein … who I maintain is the most dangerous man in America, okay?”

  This can only mean one thing: Kagan, too, wants dogs to sue their owners.

  CHAPTER 11

  HEY, KIDS, LET’S PUT ON A SHOW!

  Glenn Beck was burning mad.

  He was mad that President Obama was making nice to Somali pirates. “They’re sending over a hostage negotiator. Yes, I hope we’re bringing them some hot cocoa.” (Navy snipers shot the pirates dead and freed their captive unharmed.)

  Beck was also burning mad that the economy was improving—after President Obama’s stimulus bill had taken effect. Damn! “Retailers saw a better than expected number today,” he reported. “Stores including Walmart, Target, and Costco expect to boost their sales for April. Due to Easter,” he added, to make clear it was Jesus’ doing, not Obama’s.

  And Beck was really, really, really mad that Obama dared to say he’d like to see immigration reforms taken up by Congress. Slurring like a drunk, Beck mocked Obama: “I’m pretty much done, not a lot more to do, you know. I got all those things done. You know, why don’t I work on immigration reform?”

  This drove Beck to the point of … televised arson.

  “Maybe I’m alone,” he continued, “but I think it would be just faster if they just shot me in the head.” Like a Somali pirate, perhaps. “You know what I mean? How much more can—how much more can he disenfranchise all of us?”

  With that, Beck introduced his guest—Bill Schulz from Fox’s Red Eye program—and then, picking up a large red gas can, proceeded to pour the contents on Schulz. With each dousing from the can, he called out Obama’s sins, the way Jews, during the Passover seder, recite the ten plagues that were visited on Egypt.

  “Let’s say Bill is the average American here and I’m President Obama. This is the way I feel.”

  “The only fat they cut out is national defense!” (Obama’s budget had the largest Pentagon allocation in history.)

  “We have growing Social Security. We have Medicare, Medicaid obligations, right?”

  “We are buried under 1.25 quadrillion dollars in debt.”

  “Obama is apologizing to the Frenchy French for our arrogance.”

  “He’s bowing to the Saudi Arabian king.”

  “He’s also closing Gitmo and letting the terrorists onto the streets.”

  “The Congressional Black Caucus met with Fidel Castro … Ninety-three percent of [the] Cuban labor force works for the state. Sound familiar? … Seven abortions for every ten babies born in Cuba. Sure, sounds like a vacation in Disneyland to me.”

  “Obama wants to legalize the illegal aliens.”

  Schulz obediently shivered, hyperventilated, and rubbed his eyes as the fluid covered his head and shoulders. On-screen, a cartoon Beck appeared with the words “Don’t worry, it’s water, I promise.”

  “Do you have any matches?” the host asked. A production worker on the set brought him a pack.

  “President Obama, why don’t you just set us on fire?” Beck asked. “For the love of Pete, what are you doing? … We didn’t vote to lose the republic.”

  The match was lit and blown out without igniting Schulz. Beck continued the rant: “You’re spending money that leads only to slavery! … We can disagree with each other on policies, but Good Lord Almighty, man, please. Some of us don’t agree with all of the policies. We’d like to have a country left in the end of four years. No need to set us on fire.”

  Beck turned to his other guest, who happened to be the governor of Texas, Rick Perry. “Governor, you’re regretting being on this program at this point, are you not, sir?”

  “Not at all, Glenn Beck. I’m proud to be with you.”

  Beck later explained: “I just want to show you, kids, water, not gasoline. I was—I was actually told by our legal department, ‘Glenn, you can’t just do that, you’ve got to’—I said, ‘Yes, this is why our country is so screwed up if I got to actually say, that wasn’t really gasoline, kids.’ Don’t do that at home. That would be really, really bad.”

  Moments later, he had an addendum for the kids: “By the way, that was absolutely high-octane jet fuel.”

  * * *

  Love Glenn Beck or hate Glenn Beck, there is no denying the man is an entertainment genius. His props, his costumes, and his overall shtick are the worst, which is to say the best, in the business.

  The man who makes tens of millions of dollars from his TV, radio, and Internet interests likes to wear blue jeans and sneakers on the set along with his jacket and tie. The man who skipped college is rarely on air without his trusty chalkboard so he can give a professorial illustration of his points and paste up photographs of those whose scalps he would claim. The comedian Jon Stewart alleged that the populist Beck travels with two chalkboard “caddies” when he takes his show on the road.

  Stewart obviously doesn’t appreciate the high degree of risk involved in using a chalkboard for a prop on live television. One night, Beck was employing his chalkboard to find a code in various words he associated with Obama (“left,” “international,” “graft,” “revolutionaries”) and, cracking the code, spelled the word “oligarch” on the board. Except he wrote “OLIGARH.” Beck had forgotten to write the C-word. (Communists? No: czars.)

  That’s life on the high wire, and Beck likes it there. One night he’ll come out with inflated rubber balls for a round of dodgeball. Another night he’ll have an actor dress up as Thomas Paine and read Beck’s words as if they were a modern-day version of Paine’s famous Common Sense. Or he’ll pull out his red “Mao hotline” phone and wait for President Obama to refute Beck’s accusation that the White House is a den of communists.

  The night after Avatar director James Cameron called him a “fucking asshole,” Beck went on air, put on some paper 3-D glasses, and scrolled through “The ‘I Hate Glenn Beck’ Club, featuring Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Law & Order, the Playboy bunny, and
now Cameron.”

  Some of the stunts go well beyond normal bounds of taste and demonstrate why Beck is no mere “rodeo clown.” Consider his playful skit about poisoning the Speaker of the House. He had a person on the set wear a Pelosi mask, then passed a glass of red wine across the table. “You gonna drink your wine?” he asked. “I want you to drink it now. Drink it, drink it, drink it.” Moments later, he added, “By the way, I put poison in your—no, I look forward to all the policy discussions that we’re supposed to have.”

  At least he didn’t boil the Speaker of the House in a pot of water.

  Others were not so lucky. It was in September 2009, and Beck’s show was tracking over the usual ground. He had the latest on the ACORN “weasels” who were “helping to start brothels with illegal thirteen-year-olds.” He went after the Kennedys, George Soros, Barney Frank, the Service Employees International Union, the Apollo Alliance, the Tides Center, the Needmor Fund, Van Jones, the Rathke brothers, and many others, tying them all into an Obama conspiracy. “Sometimes I feel like Russell Crowe from A Beautiful Mind, trying to lay it out for you. But it’s difficult to demonstrate because it is massive.”

  Or imaginary.

  But tonight, Beck had something new to say, and a new way to illustrate things. He was going to explain why John McCain could have been even worse as president than Obama—because McCain, too, is a dreaded “progressive.”

  Beck turned to a steaming stainless-steel pot of water on the set. “Let me explain this to you using this boiling water here, and these little frogs. You know the old saying, if you put a frog into boiling water, he’s going to jump right out because he’s scalding hot. But if you place him in lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature, the frog won’t realize what is happening and die.

  “Let me get the frogs,” Beck continued, reaching his hand into an aquarium full of what appeared to be frogs hopping about. “Okay, all right,” he said, eventually pulling one out and cupping it in his hands. “So you have the little frogs here.”