Glenn Beck loves every minute of the Beck bash. In recent days he's gotten a rock star mob welcome in South Carolina and Washington. He'd get the same fan mob turnout in dozens of other cities that he chose to travel to. His ratings have soared through the roof. He's even made the reigning King of TV right side chatter O'Reilly nervous. Beck is simply the hottest ticket item on the national scene now, and for that he can thank progressives, liberal Democrats, and through the backdoor, President Obama.
None of them learned a thing from attacking Limbaugh and the Fox Network. The thing was that the more you bash, savage, pick at and ridicule a media outlet or a gimmicky talk show host you do what ad people, P.R. flacks, agencies, and sponsors drool over, and sink a mini- king's ransom into. That is to inflate, hype, and pump up a product. In this case the product is Beck.
The Limbaugh fiasco was the first big tip that when the right side talk gabbers are twisted into a public punching bag the predictable happens. Obama played into Limbaugh's once pudgy hands in January when he tried to shoo GOP House reps away from him and then watched as Limbaugh's ratings soared to the sky. Radio affiliates that carry Limbaugh's syndicated show were in ecstasy at his ratings sky rocket. Limbaugh quickly saw the goldmine in the backdoor endorsement from Obama and mined it for all it was worth. His ratings haven't dipped a digit since then.
Worse, the attack made Limbaugh a near mythic figure to millions, put terror and a stiffened spine into GOP self-doubters and conciliators to oppose any and everything that Obama proposes. It even swelled the number and stiffened the spine of Red Dog Democrats to do pretty much the same. It gave the legion of Obama baiters and loathers a massive and fresh stockpile ammunition to blast him on the airwaves, in chat rooms, websites, and even more despicably in race baiting cartoons, emails, Facebook and Twitter posts.
Beck is Limbaugh and Sarah Palin all over again. His mug is plastered over major magazine covers and he's the topic of incessant chatter in news columns and features. The goofball satire and inane pummeling of him by Jon Stewart and the bevy of comics has inflated his image and worth even higher. The Palin attack analogy is just as fitting. The more hammer blow political shots, SNL and late night comic running jokes, and Party (both) regulars slough her off, the higher her star has risen.
There's now a Palin sighting everywhere. The haplessly inept former Alaska governor and VP candidate is a media hot ticket item; a multi-millionaire; and a rallying point for millions of Christian fundamentalist, rightside zanies and disgruntled GOP conservatives who detest Obama's policies. Even more incredible, she's the populist front runner for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.
Beck, like Limbaugh, Palin and Fox, is grinning from ear to ear at his new found ratings bonanza, swelling bank account, and media and fan adulation. And why wouldn't he? The Beck bash has worked wonders for him.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.
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THE WHITEHOUSE ATTACKS ON LIMBAUGH AND BECK AREN'T REALLY TARGETTING LIMBAUGH AND BECK.
The target is the Republican party, not those two bingo callers. It could hardly have been clearer when the Obama team called Limbaugh the real leader of the GOP. The message being pounded home is that today's Republican party cannot be taken seriously, because its real leaders are a pair of radio clowns*. The White House isn't trying pry the dittoheads who support them loose, so they don't care about either show's ratings. They're trying to use Beck and Limbaugh to create a firewall that keeps swing voters and Eisenhower republican
*A radio clown is the answer to the question "what you get when you cross a rodeo clown with a whole lot of bull?
screw his ratings and his sellout-to
Personally
All of these people live in fear. Their irrational fears are exacerbate
This is a land of free speech and when people like Beck abuse that, they must be met with opposing speech. Otherwise, theirs is the ONLY conversati
People like Glenn Beck will eventually flame out when they're continuall
What I find intresting is how other media outlets weren't all over something like that but the Tiger woods fiasco has thier undivided attention
Really, that sounds just like the way Dums rush bills thru the process. Everything is an emergency. Is the light really that bright??
What a bizzarre configurat
You article is also missing ethics. When the ability to tell truth from lies and right from wrong disapears form a society, that society is quite sick. The problem does not lie with a few democrats or with the people in the white house, the Beck/Palin phenomenon is a comment on our nation's morality, or lack there of.
I can't recall an election where entire states that happened to vote GOP were called "uneducate
The issue isn't as simple as attention has made these people popular. It's the never-endi
and actually have enough pride to resent being called any of these things. They are the ones who line up for hours in the cold to get a book signed.
(sarcasm off)
This goes to show that there are risks to confrontin
On the other hand, the Republican government of Spain was slow to call out and arrest military leaders making openly seditious statements in the years leading up to 1936. This empowered Franco and others to attempt and succeed in overthrowi
So there are also risks to not confrontin
I prefer a zero tolerance for sedition.
In light of the fact that Anti-Defam
You have dismissed Jon Stewart unfairly. He has also done a world of good, even getting a grudging apology out of Fox when he pointed out the misleading (aka Lying) film clips they were using.
You also appear to offer no alternativ
I can assure you sir, that the right wing in this country doesn't operate in a passive mode, and if the liberals do they will be run into the ground.