Keith Olbermann Enrolls At 'Glenn Beck University'

Glenn Beck probably should have seen this coming when he launched "Glenn Beck University": the "liberal media" is signing up and mocking Beck's online classes.

One person to pay the $79 joining fee was Keith Olbermann, who presented highlights from the first online lecture, "Faith 101," on Thursday's "Countdown."

The lecture featured right-wing historian David Barton, and focused on the idea that, as Beck said in his introduction, the notion of the American separation of church and state is "not what you've been sold," but that in fact the founders wanted a much closer relationship between the two. Olbermann said the lecture also promised to teach the participants "more about American history than [they had] ever learned."

After running some clips of Barton discussing purported links between the Declaration of Independence and religious sermons, Olbermann brought on Huffington Post blogger Chris Rodda, who also joined the online classes. Rodda said she has followed Barton's work, and challenged his assertion that the Declaration is based on the Bible:

"If you Google the Declaration, 27 points from the Bible, you'll get probably thousands of hits. Because basically he usually just--he doesn't go into detail of where he gets this from in his other presentations. But he says all 27 points are based on the Bible. And people just keep parroting that and parroting that. But I guess if you asked them what those 27 points are, they wouldn't be able to name a single one."

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Talking Points Memo also dispatched one of its writers, Jillian Rayfield, to Glenn Beck University.

Horn-rimmed glasses? Check. History textbook generously amended to give due credit to religious figures in American history?

Knew we forgot something...

The lecture, which was followed by an interactive Q&A session, had only a short intermission -- cartoon Glenn Beck showed up to give viewers a pop quiz on Barton's class. But don't worry, cartoon Beck assured us. Pop quizzes were never his thing either.

Comments

[ofmenandmice]

04:48 PM on 07/30/2010

Glenn Beck University ... Cute
oh my god
if you enroll in this University you just loose 1 IQ point each lessen

[okakura]

07:25 PM on 07/20/2010

Glenn Beck University.

"Glenn Beck University."

Stunning. Simply stunning...

[gonbald]

05:31 PM on 08/03/2010

gunning, simply gunning.

[chloe4455]

05:46 PM on 07/19/2010

Could you imagine Career Day at Glenn beck Univ... Fox news recruits, Sarah PAC,

[greenmoon]

01:31 PM on 07/17/2010

Beck cracks me up. What a clown.

[BOin08]

05:14 PM on 07/17/2010

KO cracks me up- to each his own clown

[Patrick Desmond]

06:08 PM on 07/19/2010

Only a complete idiot would equate the two

[TBinSD]

02:20 PM on 07/15/2010

Howard Zinn is the best guy to go to for real American history. . . Beck is a poodle.

[gonbald]

05:32 PM on 08/03/2010

beck leaves a puddle.

[Martha12]

01:16 PM on 07/15/2010

Too funny.........

[indieyell]

03:57 PM on 07/14/2010

Glenn Beck learned about the BP media blackout, so maybe he can use his dubious and unattractive powers for good instead of confusion, for once - http://www.frequency.com/video/permission/159397

[TedEjr]

11:21 AM on 07/14/2010

Does anyone want to start a pool to see how long it takes Beck to do an Angle? In other words, threaten to sue him for copyright infringement if he broadcasts any more of the BU classes.

[lesleypalmer]

12:17 AM on 07/14/2010

Glenn Beck has a university? If I was an academic, it would be a total humiliation to have a resume with your last job as a professor at Glenn Beck University. Oh...I get it...pushing the Heritage Foundation, and Creationist take on "life".

[SaburoHakaida]

11:57 PM on 07/13/2010

Try sticking Beavis and Butthead into Glenn Beck University. See how they would drive him mad.

[beachgran]

06:53 PM on 07/15/2010

That would be pretty entertaining!

[Gert Oja]

03:14 PM on 07/23/2010

Yes. Just yes!

[ThePenArtist]

11:27 PM on 07/13/2010

I don't worry much about Keith not having ratings as blatantly overblown as Fox. Think of the age-range and technological aptitude of each group. Most of us who watch or pay attention to Keith do so via the internet. I have more important things to do than watch an hour of TV that basically re-hashes the news I've been following all day. I do watch his worst person segments in the morning. More than a few who watch Fox News and their talking heads do so because they are technologically inept and can't work those "fancy computer phones" (actual words from a friend's dad who is a huge Fox News fan) to get RSS feeds on the days news, don't know how to type in things like www.ap.org (or other reputable news sources), or they are simply so unintelligent that they need somebody to analyze the facts for them and tell them how they should feel. Fox News knows their audience. Consider the overwhelming presence of the "liberal media" on the internet, and the companies and bloggers also know that their audience in technologically adept and doesn't need to watch TV to get their daily fix of world happenings.

[spiegelp]

01:58 PM on 07/15/2010

SOn't forget the many many places in the country where MSNBC is not an option. Fox is all they have, so then they beleive it to be truth. Fox has them isolated and alone and can threaten them with not challenge. Murdock has expoilted their ignorance.

[InfernoTIE]

06:38 PM on 07/15/2010

about 5% I think is the total household edge that Fox has. No where near accounts for the ratings difference. In reality, the US is much more attuned to Fox ideologically, than it is to Bathtub Boy.

[Independent Man]

11:04 PM on 07/13/2010

I would say that "GLENN BECK UNIVERSITY" is right up there with other fin institutions like the Minneapolis School of Bartending along with the Model College of Hair Design but that would be insulting the students and the facilty that make those institutions actually credible ...

[kfdan]

09:50 AM on 07/14/2010

How about the Iranian School of Bar-tending or the Saudi-Arabian College Advance Psychology ... now these are certainly renowned institutions bound to get a-head.

[clearlythinking]

10:05 PM on 07/13/2010

Here's what should really bother us all, he may be eligible to receive government funding by offering his "students" financial aid. Seriously, we should be investigating this.

[nomad27]

09:25 PM on 07/13/2010

Last month MSNBC disappeared from my line up on Dishnetwork....so I guess Olbermann has now become even more irrelevant.

[ibkozi]

09:37 PM on 07/13/2010

Wow, you managed to block the channel. So what??? You didn't watch it to begin with. Your brainwashing requires you to only watch Fox.

[RobinD]

10:46 PM on 07/13/2010

Just because you block a channel doesn't mean it disappears. lol

[soisay]

10:48 PM on 07/13/2010

You must be one of the 23% of America with confidence that the GOP can govern America. Like a family with many children, smaller almost always means noisier.

[Scott Zwartz]

09:16 PM on 07/13/2010

Did it ever occur to anyone that even Glenn Beck doesn't believe all this garbage?

Some day Becky will confess that he was trying to find the limit of the stupidity of the American voting public but instead he discovered the meaning of infinite.

[Schalaine]

11:01 PM on 07/13/2010

If he is confessing to anything, it will have to do with tactics used to fleece his minions The love of money is the root of all evil.

[lesleypalmer]

12:23 AM on 07/14/2010

It is hard to tell if Glenn Beck is savvy or stupid. He doesn't seem very bright and is a pathological liar. But, there are many people who say absurd things with great conviction.

[floridafun]

09:11 AM on 07/14/2010

all we know for sure is he is gettin real real rich off the teabagger types ;-)

[chloe4455]

05:47 PM on 07/19/2010

Nixon did