Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Thee-thee-thee-uh-That's All Folks!




Political commentator Glenn Beck, who's so far over the extreme Right that he's on the verge of breaking through the partition into MaoistTopia, is leaving FoxNews. Or he's been fired from FoxNews. Hard to tell. It depends on which headlines you believe. "Fox Gives Glenn Beck's show the boot," said a headline in The Los Angeles Times. By contrast, a CNN headline noted: "Glenn Beck leaving Fox show." Who's right? Beck himself, in his usual overwrought style, went on Fox and explained his reasons for leaving to his viewers:

When I took this job -- I didn't take it because it was going to be a career for me. Paul Revere did not get up on the horse and say, ha, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. He didn't do it. He got off the horse at some point and fought in the Revolution and then he went back to silversmithing. If you have watched this program and you really -- I ask you at times -- hear me, you know what I believe is coming. If you watch tonight's show, I believe you know that I believe we're heading into deep and treacherous waters.


It bothers me to be entering this phase and feel as though you might say, well, wait, wait, wait. I've been very clear with you. I've played my cards face up. We will find each other. I'm developing other content for Fox through specials and other things, on television and beyond. I will continue to tell the story and I'm going to be showing you other ways for us to connect, but I have other things to do. And not because it's good or bad for business, but I think you, out of all the people, will truly get this. Our only business is the business of freedom and our country at this time. It's why I told you about E4. I told you at the beginning of the year, prepare to be a leader. Educate yourself. Be the mouthpiece. Never rely on anyone else to spoon feed you.

Did you follow that? I sure as hell didn't. Maybe the master, Hunter S. Thompson, put it best when he said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Whether he was fired or left on his own steam, Beck has achieved the dubious distinction of being too right-wing for FoxNews.

I hate to come out of the closet and say what I'm about to say, but I'll sort of miss the guy. I actually watch Beck from time to time. I get FoxNews and I'm one of the few lefties who finds his rants entertaining.

We haven't seen the last of Beck, that's for sure. He'll be back, on some other channel, giving some insane chalkboard conspiracy theories utilizing arrows and circles. And I applaud him for crying on the air. Some asshole liberals gave him grief for that. There are plenty of reasons to critique Beck, but getting emotional on the air isn't one of them, even if you think the guy is a pompous blowhard.

Beck will be back. Who knows? He may even get his own channel. Beck-24/7... Twenty-four hours of Beck. Day and night. Chalkboards galore. Conspiracy theories connecting Barack Obama and Woodrow Wilson to the International Communist Conspiracy. So many people love the guy. Not sure what that says about the state of the United States these days.

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