Hey, blogs! Fox News' Glenn Beck has heard what you've been saying about him -- how his brand of crazyfaced paranoid fearmongering is just the sort of thing that could send the Richard Poplawskis of the world to off on a madhouse demonstration of armed derangement -- and he is NONE TOO HAPPY. How dare someone suggest that people take responsibility for the "news" they talk about, on their "news show!" Don't shoot the messenger! And by messenger, Beck means "fight attendant." And by "flight attendant," Beck means, apparently, "someone who is allowed to misinform the public, even at the risk of airborne disaster." Yes: it's possible, I'm afraid, that Glenn Beck doesn't know what he's talking about, but I'll let him speak for himself.
[WATCH.]
BECK: Blaming TV or radio hosts for the nutjob who killed three Pittsburgh police officers over the weekend is like blaming a flight attendant after a terrorist takes down a plane. In other words: Giving passengers a safety talk to prepare them for a worst-case scenario doesn't mean you are responsible should a terrorist make that worst-case scenario happen. One person is providing important information. The other is a nutjob who would've acted no matter what.
Naturally, the whole argument that some people are just nuts, no matter what you do, is something I'll come back to if ever Glenn Beck attempts to make the argument that a video game or an R-rated movie or some goth metal or a random episode of Samantha Who? inspired a killing spree. As Beck is a critic of THE CULTURE OMG THE CULTURE, it's an inevitable, looming hypocrisy. But let's dig into the flight attendant metaphor.
To me, the idea sort of hangs on the idea of "providing important information." See, the sort of "important information" that Beck provides is nonsensical, paranoid, delusions, like say: FASCISM IS ON THE MARCH, or ONE-WORLD CURRENCIES ARE COMING, or OBAMA IS COMING TO TAKE YOUR GUNS (this despite the fact that Obama has publicly supported the expansion of gun ownership to Washington, DC, where ownership was once illegal.
In short, this is providing "misinformation," something I'd daresay would be awfully hard to justify coming from a flight attendant. The point is, Beck doesn't feel responsible for the actions of this nutjob from Pittsburgh. And it's clear that he won't be giving an inch on that point. But he shouldn't be comparing himself to someone for whom taking responsibility is compulsory and disseminating misinformation is not allowed, like a flight attendant.
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