Glenn Beck

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“This Echo Chamber Deluded Its Believers To The Point That It Sometimes Apparently Killed Them”

February 11, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Donald Trump, Milosevic with a trophy wife, hopes to add a stripper pole to the Lincoln Bedroom.

In his latest op-ed, Nicholas Kristof credits Trump as “smarter than critics believe,” asserting that the hideous hotelier “understood the political mood better than we pundits did.” I think it more likely that Trump is a blowhole who merely threw shit at the wall and was as surprised as anyone that it stuck. If you could go back in time to moments after his candidacy announcement and ask him what line would get the most attention, I doubt he would identify the “they’re rapists” slur about Mexicans.

Kristof goes on to belatedly state what many people (myself included) have been saying for months: The GOP created this Frankenstein monster of a political season it can’t control, though he illustrates it with an interesting fact about echo-chamber misinformation manifesting itself in the real world. An excerpt:

Political nastiness and conspiracy theories were amplified by right-wing talk radio, television and websites — and, yes, there are left-wing versions as well, but they are much less influential. Democrats often felt disadvantaged by the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, but in retrospect Limbaugh and Fox created a conservative echo chamber that hurt the Republican Party by tugging it to the right and sometimes breeding a myopic extremism in which reality is irrelevant.

A poll released in September found that Republicans were more likely to think that Obama was born abroad than that Ted Cruz was. That poll found that Trump supporters believed by nearly a three-to-one ratio that Obama was born overseas.

The Republican establishment profited from the insinuations that Obama is a Muslim, that he’s anti-American, that his health care plan would lead to “death panels.” Rick Perry has described Trump as a “cancer on conservatism” and said his movement is “a toxic mix of demagoguery and meanspiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition” — indeed, but it was a mix that too many Republican leaders accepted as long as it worked for them.

This echo chamber deluded its believers to the point that it sometimes apparently killed them. During the 2009-10 flu pandemic, right-wing broadcasters like Limbaugh and Glenn Beck denounced the call for flu shots, apparently seeing it as a nefarious Obama plot.

The upshot was that Democrats were 50 percent more likely than Republicans to say that they would get flu shots, according to a peer-reviewed article in The Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. So when the pandemic killed up to 18,000 Americans, they presumably were disproportionately conservatives.•

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“Call It Unreality TV”

January 22, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

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Donald Trump, a mix of Mussolini and QVC host, is loathsome to different people for different reasons. 

Take good people for instance: They despise Trump because he’s a lying, egotistical, demeaning, manipulative, racist, xenophobic, sexist misery. There are coke dealers who are more honest. The man is a human waste product.

Now let’s consider terrible people like Glenn Beck and L. Brent Bozell III: They abhor Trump because he isn’t “legitimately conservative.” Well, that’s true, but it probably should be at least #453 on the list of reasons to not support him. That would be like Democrats saying that John Wilkes Booth wasn’t a good representative of their party because of his questionable stance on land taxes. Of course, you can’t expect much from Beck, a cynical salesman of gold-plated bunkers, or Bozell, who once referred to President Obama as looking like a “skinny ghetto crackhead.”

Those shitbags are two of the right-wingers enlisted for a National Review “Against Trump” cover story. In all fairness, some of the essayists do make a moral case as well against hideous hotelier. From Mona Charen:

In December, Public Policy Polling found that 36 percent of Republican voters for whom choosing the candidate “most conservative on the issues” was the top priority said they supported Donald Trump. We can talk about whether he is a boor (“My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body”), a creep (“If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her”), or a louse (he tried to bully an elderly woman, Vera Coking, out of her house in Atlantic City because it stood on a spot he wanted to use as a garage). But one thing about which there can be no debate is that Trump is no conservative—he’s simply playing one in the primaries. Call it unreality TV.

Put aside for a moment Trump’s countless past departures from conservative principle on defense, racial quotas, abortion, taxes, single-payer health care, and immigration. (That’s right: In 2012, he derided Mitt Romney for being too aggressive on the question, and he’s made extensive use of illegal-immigrant labor in his serially bankrupt businesses.) The man has demonstrated an emotional immaturity bordering on personality disorder, and it ought to disqualify him from being a mayor, to say nothing of a commander-in-chief.

Trump has made a career out of egotism, while conservatism implies a certain modesty about government. The two cannot mix.

Who, except a pitifully insecure person, needs constantly to insult and belittle others including, or perhaps especially, women? Where is the center of gravity in a man who in May denounces those who “needlessly provoke” Muslims and in December proposes that we (“temporarily”) close our borders to all non-resident Muslims? If you don’t like a Trump position, you need only wait a few months, or sometimes days. In September, he advised that we “let Russia fight ISIS.” In November, after the Paris massacre, he discovered that “we’re going to have to knock them out and knock them out hard.” A pinball is more predictable.

Is Trump a liberal? Who knows? He played one for decades — donating to liberal causes and politicians (including Al Sharpton) and inviting Hillary Clinton to his (third) wedding. Maybe it was all a game, but voters who care about conservative ideas and principles must ask whether his recent impersonation of a conservative is just another role he’s playing. When a con man swindles you, you can sue—as many embittered former Trump associates who thought themselves ill used have done. When you elect a con man, there’s no recourse.•

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“He Thinks Palin Is An Idiot. He Thinks She’s Stupid.”

May 23, 2011 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

"He thinks things are going in a bad direction."

From “The Elephant in the Green Room,” Gabriel Sherman’s just-published New York magazine piece about FOX News honcho Roger Ailes, a ghastly man whose face looks as if it should be attached the hull of a ship:

“So it must have been disturbing to Ailes when the wheels started to come off Fox’s presidential-circus caravan. (Coincidentally or not, this happened more or less when Donald Trump jumped on: ‘They like me on the network,’ Trump told me. ‘I get ratings.’) The problem wasn’t that ratings had been slipping that much—Beck’s show declined by 30 percent from record highs, but the ratings were still nearly double those from before he joined the network. It was that, with an actual presidential election on the horizon, the Fox candidates’ poll numbers remain dismally low (Sarah Palin is polling 12 percent; Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, 10 percent and 2 percent, respectively). Ailes’s candidates-in- waiting were coming up small. And, for all his programming genius, he was more interested in a real narrative than a television narrative—he wanted to elect a president. All he had to do was watch Fox’s May 5 debate in South Carolina to see what a mess the field was—a mess partly created by the loudmouths he’d given airtime to and a tea party he’d nurtured. And, not incidentally, a strong Republican candidate would be good for his business, too. A few months ago, Ailes called Chris Christie and encouraged him to jump into the race. Last summer, he’d invited Christie to dinner at his upstate compound along with Rush Limbaugh, and like much of the GOP Establishment, he fell hard for Christie, who nevertheless politely turned down Ailes’s calls to run. Ailes had also hoped that David Petraeus would run for president, but Petraeus too has decided to sit this election out, choosing to stay on the counterterrorism front lines as the head of Barack Obama’s CIA. The truth is, for all the antics that often appear on his network, there is a seriousness that underlies Ailes’s own politics. He still speaks almost daily with George H. W. Bush, one of the GOP’s last great moderates, and a war hero, which especially impresses Ailes.

All the 2012 candidates know that Ailes is a crucial constituency. ‘You can’t run for the Republican nomination without talking to Roger,’ one GOPer told me. ‘Every single candidate has consulted with Roger.’ But he hasn’t found any of them, including the adults in the room—Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney—compelling. ‘He finds flaws in every one,’ says a person familiar with his thinking.

‘He thinks things are going in a bad direction,’ another Republican close to Ailes told me. ‘Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she’s stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven’t elevated the conservative movement.'”

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Shocker: Glenn Beck Uncovers Socialist Threat

September 14, 2010 in Fake, Humor | Permalink

Glenn Beck: It's Murray Sunshine who threatens our very way of life. (Image by Gage Skidmore.)

He may be controversial, but you have to give that fat-necked scumbag Glenn Beck some credit. While the necrophiliacs in our so-called government are busy spending tax dollars on flag-burning fluid and members of the liberal media are having gay orgies on gunboats, Beck has singlehandedly uncovered one of the most dastardly socialist threats our country has seen in decades. And the most stunning news of all is that menace is present on our own land.

After tireless research on the computer in his office during a coffee break, Beck spent half of a recent episode of his Fox News show outing 92-year-old New York City resident Murray Sunshine as a dangerous radical on par with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Sunshine, a retired upholsterer who for decades did volunteer work as a community organizer, is apparently determined to destroy our sacred ideals.

“This Murray guy is a one-man Al-Qaeda, but the liberal elite doesn’t report it.” Beck said. “He’s the kind of dangerous operative leading the Obama Administration around on a leash. He is now infiltrating the government as he has previously infiltrated the education and legal systems. He is a threat to our once-great nation, which already needed to have its honor restored.”

Murray Sunshine: I met Gus Hall once. He wasn't as tall as you might think.

For his part, Sunshine isn’t denying the charges that he’s a card-carrying member of the Socialist Party, even taking out his wallet and showing the card to representatives of the media who gathered outside his Bensonhurst apartment.

“Oh sure, I’m a socialist,” Sunshine said with a smile, an evil socialist smile. “I have been forever. I still like to sit in the diner and read my Weekly Worker. And I have several buttons with slogans about laborers uniting.”

For many years, Sunshine registered voters in poor communities, trying to allow them a representative voice in their government, probably pleasing Castro to no end. He also worked in soup kitchens, gave out free turkeys at Thanksgiving and was active in maintaining a neighborhood public garden. Sometimes he would attempt to converse with recent Dominican immigrants in Spanish Harlem about Karl Marx and they would look at him funny.

It began to rain and as the reporters dispersed, Sunshine offered them an umbrella and bus fare, just the way Stalin taught him to.

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Decoder: Glenn Beck’s Comments At The “Restoring Honor” Rally And In Its Aftermath

September 2, 2010 in Politics | Permalink

Glenn Beck: Fills emotional voids at reasonable rates. (Image by Gage Skidmore.)

Glenn Beck: Of course I regret calling Obama a racist. I have a big, fat mouth.

Decoder: Also my ass, stomach and neck are really big and fat. Sores on my back and chest fester with pus. My brain is damaged from drug and alcohol abuse. I have sinister eyes on my gigantic, stupid head. My breath stinks with decay. My soul is soaked in tarantula piss. I have viscous fluid emanating from my ears. It’s likely a mixture of dog vomit and vampire snot. My bowels produce green feces. I eat them with a spoon and crap them out again. But mostly, I have a big, fat mouth.

Glenn Beck: The story of America is the story of humankind.

Decoder: Except for all that boring shit that occurred on Earth prior to 234 years ago. Maybe some of that stuff departs from America’s story, but who gives a fuck.

Glenn Beck: [The early American settlers] didn’t have the right to worship God as they saw fit. So they got down on their knees and they didn’t want to come to this land, they did just because that was what God wanted them to do. With malice towards none, they got into their boats and they came.

Decoder: Luckily, it was a really long trip and they were able to build up a lot of malice along the way. It was a really nice big fucking bowl of malice, which was good because there were many, many people that needed slaughtering.

Glenn Beck: I have been going to Mt. Vernon. I went to the National Archives, and I held the first inaugural address written in his own hand by George Washington.

Enjoy some complimentary gunfire, new friend. No malice intended.

Decoder: Unfortunately, Mother Jones looked into this boast and called bullshit on me. I “didn’t lay a finger on any precious documents, much less George Washington’s inaugural address. That would be a major violation of policy. Those kinds of treasures are only handled by specially trained archival staff.”

Glenn Beck: Today America turns back to God. For too long this country has wandered in darkness.

Decoder: I like to pretend that at some point in the distant past America was greater. The country was actually nowhere near as great during its founding. Women were second-class citizens, people of color were treated as property and voting rights were limited at the time. But if I can feed some Americans’ nostalgic need for a utopia that never existed, I can create an emotional bond with them that will help me sell them crappy hardcover books and substandard gold bullion.

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Decoder: Glenn Beck’s Comments About The “Restoring Honor” Rally In Washington D.C.

August 27, 2010 in Politics | Permalink

Glenn Beck: Dead soul stored in neck fat. (Image by Gage Skidmore.)

Glenn Beck: This is going to be a moment that you’ll never be able to paint people as haters, racists, none of it.

Decoder: For one moment, I will stop being a hateful racist.

Glenn Beck: This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the Civil Rights movement.

Decoder: We’ll take it away from the people who are doing good work with it and fuck it up.

Glenn Beck: Help us restore the values that founded this great nation.

Decoder: They really need restoring because opportunistic shitheads like me have degraded them repeatedly in the name of profit.

Glenn Beck: I know that people are going to hammer because they’re going to say, “It’s no Martin Luther King speech.” Of course it’s not Martin Luther King. You think I’m Martin Luther King?

My first name was not Martin.

Decoder: I’m not even Martin Luther Vandross.

Glenn Beck: I’m sorry, oh so important media, that I forgot the date [of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” Speech.]

Decoder: Oh, wait. I also forgot that I work in the media. I conveniently forget lots of stuff.

Glenn Beck: Do not bring [to the rally] any sort of weapon, including a pocket knife, firearms (real or simulated), ammunition. explosives or incendiary devices of any kind, knives, blades, or sharp objects of any length.

Decoder: If I have to tell people to not bring firearms and explosives to a so-called civil rights rally, exactly what kind of assholes support me?

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Decoder: Glenn Beck’s Comments About Potentially Losing His Sight In A Year

July 23, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Glenn Beck: Breathes through his ass. (Image by Gage Skidmore.)

Glenn Beck: A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because I can’t focus my eyes.

Decoder: He was a podiatrist, so he threw me out of his office.

Glenn Beck: I went to the best doctor I could find while I could still go to the best doctor I could find.

Decoder: This remark is intended to disparage health-care reform. I’m suggesting that there will be no good doctors to go to once there is universal health care. That’s complete bullshit.

Glenn Beck: He did all kinds of tests and he told me I have macular dystrophy. He said, “You could go blind in the next year or you might not.”

Decoder: But he said I’d definitely get even dumber in the next year. That’s guaranteed.

Glenn Beck: That day, honestly…[trying to make himself cry]…

Decoder: I’m trying to force myself to well up with tears to make it seem like I’m a sympathetic figure. But I haven’t always shown sympathy for others. Remember that time when I was a radio host, according to Salon, that I made fun on-air of woman who had just had a miscarriage? I bet she didn’t have to pretend to cry. Also: I’ve made fun of the blind in the past.

Glenn Beck: I know what my wife looks like, I know what my children look like, I have a great imagination, I know what colors look like [trying to make himself cry], but I love to read.

Decoder: Yet I’m still a complete fucking assclown. Books must be overrated.

Glenn Beck: What a blessing…because I know God.

Decoder: He’s the one who vomits when he looks down on me from heaven. Usually, he vomits Mexican food on me. I don’t know why he likes Mexican food so much. He’s very mysterious.

J.C.: That breakfast burrito isn't sitting right, Glenny. (Image by Jack Merridew.)

Glenn Beck: After I stopped feeling sorry for myself…

Decoder: I will never stop feeling sorry for myself.

Glenn Beck: …I truly came to a place that is the greatest blessing: Lord if you need my eyes, they’re yours. They were yours the whole time, anyway.

Decoder: I like pointing out stuff to God because he needs a genius like me doing the thinking for him.

Glenn Beck: Thank you for letting me see as long as I have. That’s a blessing.

Decoder: I’ve wasted every blessing I’ve ever had in life. If anything, I’ve used them to make the country worse.

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Decoder: Glenn Beck And Other Speakers At The “Take Back America” Rally In Tyler, Texas

April 26, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Glenn Beck: Mayor of all the assclowns. (Image by Gage Skidmore.)

Glenn Beck: Do you believe our Constitution was divinely inspired?

Decoder: Oh, you don’t believe that? You think it was written by brilliant but flawed men? That if it was divinely inspired it wouldn’t have allowed for slavery and it wouldn’t have reduced women to second-class citizens?

Glenn Beck: If God is with us, who can possibly stand against us? The answer is no one.

Decoder: But maybe God isn’t with me, in particular. Maybe God has reason to be mad at me. According to Salon, I’m the jackass who mocked a woman’s miscarriage on live radio. I like to blame my poor behavior on my former coke addiction, but maybe I’m just a cruel, cynical prick who wants to collect money and satisfy my massive ego.

Glenn Beck: We must remember who we are. We must remember what brought us here. We must remember what protected us. We must remember these rights do not belong to us–they come from God.

Decoder: I have trouble remembering things because I was a cokehead for many years and my brain is fried.

Glenn Beck: I have no thought of what God has in store for these people, our children, our grandchildren. He just questions you to stand in place and that is our job–to stand where he wants us to stand.

Decoder: But what if he wants us to stand in the river? You know, the one by the sewage plant. That would suck.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry: Secessionist jackhole with excellent hair.

Texas Governor Rick Perry: If you care about America, if you care about taking this country back, you find you a Tea Party. Get involved. The Tea Party is an army I’m proud to be in.

Decoder: I really, really want to be President and I think that somehow pandering to the Tea Party will help. It’s another wrong bet in a long career of wrong bets.

Texas State Representative Leo Berman: I believe that Barack Obama is God’s punishment on us today.

Decoder: There is no bigger punishment from God for a racist like me than our country having a brilliant African-American guy as President. I liked the country a lot better before it was a meritocracy.

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Decoder: Glenn Beck And Iowa Congressman Steve King Discuss Health Care Reform

March 19, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Glenn Beck: Confident and stupid. (Photo by Gage Skidmore.)

Steve King: I have a fair amount of anxiety about what’s happening to our liberty in America this week, Glenn, but other than that, I’m healthy.

Decoder: Though it doesn’t matter if I’m healthy or not, because every member of congress has wonderful health care thanks to the taxpayers.

Steve King: If tens of thousands pour into [Washington D.C.] again, like they have numerous times before, pack this capital, jam this capital, surround this place, don’t let anybody in or anybody out, they will have to capitulate.

Decoder: Okay, I didn’t realize how illegal that would sound. It sounds like we’re taking hostages. I mean, I want it to be a cool kind of hostage-taking. You know, like Denzel Washington in that hospital movie, John Q. Okay, bad example.

Steve King: Drop your plows and your hammers and get on a plane or a bus or drive your pickup truck. Come into Washington DC, fill this city up.

Decoder: Leave behind your covered wagons, your gas lamps and your charwoman. Come forth upon a chariot and a mighty wind. Or just take the Acela. It has wi-fi now.

Steve King: They intend to vote on the sabbath, during lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God.

Decoder: The God-given freedom to drop dead without health care.

Glenn Beck: You know, I sense we’re talking to Congressman Steve King from Iowa, one of the good guys.

Decoder: One of the good guys who made derisive comments about the IRS right after a terrorist rammed a plane into an IRS building, killing a U.S. military veteran. One of the good guys who complained when deportation of Haitian illegal aliens was temporarily halted in the days after the earthquake. One of the good guys who said that the “optics” of someone who looked like Barack Obama winning the Presidency would please terrorists.

Glenn Beck: They’re going to vote for this damn thing on a Sunday, which is the sabbath, during lent. You couldn’t have said it better. Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity that it is an affront to God.

Decoder: Even Fox is embarrassed of me.

Steve King: I don’t know how they can hole up and go into their private meetings in these secret formerly smoke filled rooms and with the guards on the outside of the door and put these things up and keep it a secret.

Rep. Steve King: Rated tickle-worthy by Eric Massa.

Decoder: The entire health care bill is online and available to the public. Just put down your plow and hammer for a second and log on.

Glenn Beck: You’re not a dirt bag, are you?

Decoder: Because that’s my act and bad enough I have to share it with Hannity.

Glenn Beck: How have we never met? I don’t know, Steve King, how we never brushed up against each other.

Decoder: That sounded gay. I didn’t mean for it to sound gay.

Steve King: In Czechoslovakia and Prague, people came to the town square and they just stood there and they held up their keys and shook their keys and the rattle of those keys was the rattle of the breath of liberty emerging in Czechoslovakia and there were so many of them and they came in such great numbers that in the end the communist government fell and freedom prevailed in Czechoslovakia and it prevails today.

Decoder: I know that all of our current leaders were freely elected. I just don’t like when they turn out to be non-white or try to do things I don’t agree with. When that happens, there should be a Velvet Revolution.

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Decoder: Eric Massa’s Comments To Glenn Beck

March 12, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Representing New York's slap-and-tickle district.

Eric Massa: I wasn’t forced out. I forced myself out. I failed. I didn’t live up to my own codes. I own this. I take full and complete responsibility for my misbehavior. And goodness only knows what allegations they are going to throw at me.

Decoder: I’ve done so much stuff even I can’t remember it all. God knows what they’ll find out.

Eric Massa: Now, they’re saying I groped a male staffer. Yes, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe and four guys jumped on top of me.

Decoder: It was the best date ever.

Eric Massa: We all lived together, all the bachelors and me.

Decoder: Unfortunately, they weren’t confirmed bachelors.

Eric Massa: If somebody on my staff was offended, was uncomfortable, thought I was inappropriate–I own that. That’s why I resigned.

Decoder: I resigned for stuff much worse than that.

Eric Massa: Yes, I do believe in God.

Decoder: Especially his sexy, long-haired son, Jesus.

Eric Massa: I mean, I don’t know how else to put it. I own this misbehavior.

Decoder: I also own a lot of sex toys and pornos.

Eric Massa: At this point, people will be told to say anything about me.

Decoder: Mostly the truth. And that won’t make me look good.

Eric Massa: [Being a congressmen] literally for me is 120-hour workweek.

Decoder: Taking my pants off so frequently is time-consuming.

Eric Massa: Congressmen spend five to seven hours a day on the phone, begging for money.

Decoder: And for phone sex.

Eric Massa: And, by the way, when you are a freshman, you have to fill out sheets of everybody you call and how much money per hour, and they have coaches to teach how to get more money from each one of your phone calls and who to call and what data points they have on them to tickle them, to make them more apt to give you money.

Decoder: Wow, I can’t stop talking about tickling.

Eric Massa: I mean, people say that I’m making this stuff up. I’m just telling you what I learned in 14 months in the United States Congress–by the way, a Congress I deeply love.

Decoder: I want to love many congressman very, very deeply.

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Decoder: Glenn Beck’s Speech At CPAC

February 24, 2010 in Humor, Politics | Permalink

Are you too afraid to debate me, Woodrow Fucking Wilson? (Photo by Gage Skidmore.)

Glenn Beck: I have to tell you, I hate Woodrow Wilson with everything in me.

Decoder: I will dig up Woodrow Wilson’s grave and fuck his skeleton. Seriously, I’ll do it. I’m that nuts.

Glenn Beck: (Writes “Progressivism” on the chalkboard.) This is the disease. This is the disease in America.

Decoder: It caused an outbreak of Abolitionism, civil rights, workers’ rights, voting rights, women’s rights, gay rights, disability rights, Medicare, public education, public libraries, consumer protection, etc.

Glenn Beck: Somebody just sent this to me this week. (Holds up book.) It’s “Progress and Democracy for Rhode Island.” You can’t read the date here but it’s 1938.

Decoder: I’m going to read from an arcane book nobody read even back then and pretend it represents all contemporary progressives.

Glenn Beck: It is big government–it’s a socialist utopia. And we need to address it as if it is a cancer. It must be cut out of the system because they cannot co-exist. And you don’t cure cancer by–well, I’m just going to give you a little bit of cancer.

Decoder: Oh, crap. My colonoscopy is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. I might have to get Janet to have them move that.

Glenn Beck: (Reacts to a towel being placed at the podium by staff.) I’m like Elvis.

Decoder: I mean Old Elvis: bloated, senseless, weepy, embarrassing. I just need a karate outfit. I’ll ask Janet to order me one of those.

Glenn Beck: I’m a–I’m a recovering alcoholic. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and um, I screwed up my life six ways to Sunday,

Decoder: Tough to believe I ever had a drinking problem, huh?

Glenn Beck: I mean, you know, if drinking wasn’t causing me a problem in my life I’d be drunk right now.

Decoder: Instead of just acting drunk right now.

Glenn Beck: When the Republican Party says, wow, I’ve got a problem, please don’t say you’re just like me. Oh, and I’m just like you. No you’re not. Because I would never go to Washington. You will.

Decoder: And then you’ll have to deal with the realities of governing. You won’t be able to hop around on stage in front of a blackboard like a brainless demogogue. You’ll have to think and reason and compromise like adults. I would never stoop to that.

Glenn Beck: America is not a clown show. America is not a circus.

Decoder: Of course, that makes it tough to explain my success.

Glenn Beck: America is an idea. America is an idea that sets people free.

Decoder: Free to think just like me–or else.

Glenn Beck: (Attempts to erase blackboard but eraser doesn’t work well.) This isn’t going to work out well.

Decoder: I mean erasing the blackboard but my life also.

Glenn Beck: When did it become something of shame or ridicule to be a self-made man in America?

Decoder: It never did, but it sounds really populist to say that. Also: I have personal issues about my lack of academic credentials.

Glenn Beck: The Roaring Twenties–it was the largest expansion of the middle class ever. It–people started having telephones, and that evil electricity, and cars, and radios.

Decoder: I really believe electricity is evil. It silently mocks me.

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