Glenn Beck's Hotline to Nowhere
Glenn Beck, the popular Fox News host, has a red telephone on his desk that never seems to ring. Every now and then, in a moment of acute frustration, he will pick it up and give the camera his trademark pleading-puppy look.
What Mr. Beck wants to hear from the phone are answers, and he wants to hear them from the highest authority in the land: the phone, he says, is "a dedicated line right to the White House." And when Mr. Beck gets things wrong, he wants his antagonists on Pennsylvania Avenue to correct him. But "They don't call. They're not going to call."
One of the specific answers Mr. Beck wanted, on one of the days I watched his program last week, had to do with White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who has been caught on film quoting one of those Mao Zedong aphorisms that wouldn't look out of place on a motivational poster. She also remarked that Mao was one of her "favorite political philosophers," an honor the Chinese Communist shared with Mother Teresa.
Obviously Ms. Dunn was yet another person who deserved to be added to the long list of radicals that Mr. Beck had uncovered within the government.
What's more, no one would call that red phone to reassure Mr. Beck, to tell him that the Obama administration isn't crawling with traitors or to explain why his many nightmare scenarios will not actually come to pass.
"They won't call me," he tells the camera. "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. Call me, right now."
Yet there the mute telephone sits, a quiet symbol of Middle America's frustration. The diabolical liberals in the White House refuse even to acknowledge our queries. "Their silence is their answer," the host sighs.
Is it really? On Monday I wrote to an old friend, Robert McChesney, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois who has been a frequent target of Mr. Beck in recent weeks for his left-wing views and also for co-founding Free Press, an advocacy group on media policy. Did Mr. McChesney get a chance to respond on the red phone or any other way? No. "He never asked me or Free Press to call the red phone," Mr. McChesney wrote me.
Then I emailed Mark Lloyd, the Chief Diversity Officer at the Federal Communications Commission. Mr. Beck has attacked Mr. Lloyd numerous times in recent weeks, repeatedly airing video clips in which he appears to hold noxious views. Did Mr. Lloyd get a chance to call the red phone? "No, no one gave me a phone number to call Beck."
Nor should Mr. Beck require a phone call from the White House to understand that lots of people, including conservatives, have cited Mao and Lenin and other such demonic figures in all sorts of contexts, and that they aren't always careful, when so citing, to point out what bad people these were.
No discerning person would conclude from Ms. Dunn's dimwitted remark that she is a Maoist. That would require more evidence--and that's what makes Mr. Beck's pantomime fear and trembling so odious: He doesn't appear to be interested in further evidence, or really any evidence that doesn't serve his shtick.
Consider a few of the other grand assertions tossed out by the panic-peddling host last week: that the cause of last year's financial crisis was pressure exerted by Acorn and "the people in Washington" on otherwise-reluctant mortgage lenders; that the cause of the inflation of the 1970s was President Jimmy Carter's quest for a "socialist utopia."
These are postulates that it is only possible to believe after you have utterly closed yourself off to conventional ways of knowing, after you have decided that the reporting and analysis and scholarship on these subjects are not worth reading, and that you will choose ideological fairy tales over reality until the day a magical phone call comes from on high.
What Mr. Beck's silent phone really symbolizes is a new kind of ignorance, a coming high-tech dark age in which people can choose to blow off professional standards of inquiry; in which they can wall themselves off with cable TV and friendly Web sites, dismiss what displeases as liberal bias, and demand that any contrary view be transmitted to them via telephone call from the president himself.
Why not let Mr. Beck and his viewers have their fun? Because ideas have consequences. Maybe, as many believe, Glenn Beck is indeed the future of the conservative movement. From tea parties to town-hall meetings, thousands are signing up and fitting themselves out with their very own hotline to nowhere.
Read other Opinion Journal articles:
John Steele Gordon: Obama and the Liberal Paradigm
Heather Richardson Higgins: What Women Want on Health Care
Thomas Frank: Obama Is Right About Fox News
Persecution fantasy is Fox News's lifeblood; give it the faintest whiff of the real thing and look out for a gale-force hissy fit -- as the Obama administration has discovered by now.
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You MUST be joking. Are you suggesting that Robert McChesney and Mark Lloyd have no other means of contacting Glenn Beck other than by the red phone "prop?" The red phone was installed specifically for Anita Dunn, as communications director to the White House. If Mr. McChesney or Mr. Lloyd have corrections to the "misinformation" perpetrated by Mr. Beck, surely, SURELY, they have the faculties or at least the staff who have the faculties to figure out a way to communicate their objections to Mr. Beck. GIVE ME A BREAK!
The point of the whole matter is that Mr. Beck has not heard from any of these of your friends. Go ahead!!!! Encourage them to set the record straight!! Figure out a way to talk to Mr. Beck if you're so offended.
Your fragment at the end: 'because ideas have consequences', is chilling, really. By the way, Beck never offered (and would never) nor claimed he offered an open phone line to anyone other than Dunn, who, seemingly, ala Van Jones...is DONE...
What always annoys me is when the perpetrators of faux news cite their Nielson ratings as a kind of recognition of their journalistic excellence. "A thousand Frenchmen couldn't be wrong" would be the implication. It's a little like claiming that your trash can must really have something valuable in it because of all the flies swirling around it.
I agree with your assessment of Glenn Beck, Thomas. There's a serious rot forming around his hate exhibit.
If the WH is going to make accusations that Beck has lied, why dont they get specific?
That's definitely what I want the President to do, instead of working on all of the things that he was elected to do.
He should spend his time responding to the ravings of a man whose ability to construct a meaningful sentence makes George W. Bush look like Arthur Miller. In fact, I am so tied to my television and Fox News, that I think that the President should spend all of his time correcting all of the misinformation and outright lies that the Fox journalists tell.
Why bother trying to fix the economy or to address health issues, when all we really want is for more attention to be focused on Rupert Murdoch's media empire? More money for wealthy Australian moguls, I say!
LOL!
Glen Beck is a right wing opportunist willing to lie,cheat, and destroy all common sense with his neanderthal teabagging follower's. For him it`s all about the money, and his listeners are too dumb to see that.
You know, he should remove the red phone and replace it with a Batphone....beacause Batman is 50,000 times more likely to call him than the president of the United States is.
...makes me think of the b&w film in the fifties of joe mccarthy...as i remember, waving a pad of paper proclaiming it was a list of all the commies in the government...pure theater...and no way to dispute anything about it because, as you point out, they only want to accuse and create a no win proposition for themselves...a win-win for them.....i.e. have you stopped beating your wife?....
What's the number, I'd be happy to call Glenn and give him some answers.
Don't be silly, it doesn't have a number. It's a Fisher-Price chatter phone.
Just another example of the drive-by conservative media cherry picking a 5 second soundbyte out of the probably hundreds of available hours. Rather than making a judgment based on all available materials, Beck indicts based on 5 seconds.
Would Glenn Beck be so quick to condemn Thomas Jefferson for saying, "Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law." (1814)
He could probably do an entire program about how that makes Jefferson an atheist, and trying to tear down the foundation of this great nation.
In fact, I'm sure he would do that program if it meant a boost in his ratings, which is the only higher power he's concerned with.
The saddest part is the number of Americans who don't realize Beck is schtick and actually believe he's either a newsman or an authority on anything other than divisiveness.
"...that lots of people, including conservatives, have cited Mao and Lenin and other such demonic figures in all sorts of contexts, and that they aren't always careful, when so citing, to point out what bad people these were."
I don't recall anyone (since you don't offer a specific example)saying Mao was a political philosopher they looked to or referred to as one of their two "favorites", indicating her approval and admiration.
"No discerning person would conclude from Ms. Dunn's dimwitted remark that she is a Maoist."
So, rather than consider Ms. Dunn a Mao fan, we're to believe that the Communications Director of the White House, supposedly a communications professional, is prone to dimwitted remarks when speaking in public? Does that mean she's not qualified for the position? Which is it?
As to anybody else in the White House, I'll bet Ms. Dunn would be happy to provide them with the phone number to call...if they only would.
BTW, it seems the White House has no problem emailing MSNBC during a live broadcast to correct them on the facts, why not FNC?
The silence...on all fronts...is deafening indeed.
corecting a mistake aired by a real news organization
factual errors may be ignored by comics --- note the WH never corrects Jon stewart for his playing loose with the facts
so get over it Beck - you are below the radar
That's it?
Nothing on Ms Dunn?
With the advent of sattelite TV, taking American news and TV programs all over the world, the scariest thing is when Glenn Beck is seen and heard overseas. Many in North America take him with a grain of salt, others simply write him off as a joke, but people overseas dont know this. I live in Dubai and FOX News is on 24/7 here. Arabs tune in and think this man represents America. That's when his presence becomes dangerous and why what the Obama adminstartion is doing is understandable.
I only watch Fox for the cartoons- you know, Family Guy, Simpsons, Glenn Beck.
So why is everybody so bent out of shape about Beck's phone? So what if it's plugged or unplugged, if it's red or black? Metaphorically speaking, that fact is that nobody from the high places of government is offering answers to some pretty important questions. In the meantime the masses are caught up with trying to figure out if it's a real phone or a fake phone. Duh?
I think you missed the whole tone of the article. It wasn't about the phone, specifically. The unused phone is just metaphor for people lost in their own conspiracy theories who don't want to hear the truth. Do you really think the teabagging birthers would believe the President was born in the U.S. even if he handed each one of them a copy of his birth certificate? No. They are convinced he's a Kenyan, and that's that, and no call on the red phone would ever convince them otherwise. And by the way, one bloggers one-time comment about Beck's phone isn't "everybody" or "the masses." You might want to try reducing the hyperbole a bit. You're starting to sound like Beck.
No, I don't think I missed the "tone of the article", as you said. I think there are two sides who are so caught up in their own mindset that they have no tolerance or respect for the other. In spite of it all the hype put out by either side, truth is strong enough to stand against any storm.
"nobody from the high places of government is offering answers to some pretty important questions"
Just like nobody keeps answering my important question about how people like yourself manage to get the toothpaste out of the tube.
Why should anyone justify this loony tune's awkward ravings?
Thirty years ago he would have been standing on a street corner, desperately trying to hand out mimeographed copies of his conspiracy theories to any passers-by.
Yes, and Mr. Beck unfortunately is not the one delivering these so-called 'pretty important questions'. 'duh' is right Minnie.
What HUBRIS!
Hubris took Bush et al down. Hopefully it will do the same with Beck and his like.
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