Here's Dixie:
On Friday, I was curious about how Fox News was reacting in the aftermath of the November elections. (I happily shut it off for a while there, so as not to sully my own good feelings). The answer: not too well. Bill O'Reilly began his show that night by declaring the Blagojevich affair has "a 50/50 chance of disrupting the nation." He never explained what that meant, but later, he did pose the question to future Fox News host Glenn Beck. Here's that entire exchange -- follow along, if you can:
O'REILLY: I got to switch it over to Blagojevich. Now, for our purposes here, we believe that this story has a 50-percent chance of igniting into a mini-Watergate. Do you see it that way?
BECK: I think -- in fact, I was going to ask you that because I saw your talking points and I wanted to know if you thought, when you said they had a 50/50 chance of igniting the country I wondered what that meant. I think it's much worse than that, Bill. I really, truly believe that this country is on the brink, that we are sitting at 1860 and it's not too late to pull ourselves back. But we're feeding on ourselves. I think this has all the earmarkings of pushing us over the edge even more.
1860? Holy crap, why is Beck so angry? Does he own a musket? He explained:
BECK: You can't continue to disfranchise people. You've got -- yesterday, our representatives say no to the bailout. Today it looks like Bush and Paulson are going to say yes to the bailout. How is that constitutional? Where did that happen where the president can just become a king and do whatever he wants? When it comes to the governor in Illinois, the guy's a dirtbag. Now, should Rahm Emanuel have spoken to the governor? Yeah, I think it's appropriate, but let's wait to hear what those conversations were.
[...]
But if the conversations were "Hey, what are you going to give me in exchange?" then Emanuel should have reported that. But let's keep it isolated on Emanuel. Let's ask why now. In fact, let me rephrase this. President-elect Obama, please, the country is on the edge. Please, you are my president. I didn't vote for you, but you are now going to be my president. Please, address the American people and do it with actions and say, "This must not stand."
No answer on the musket, and I'm not sure I actually understand why he's so upset either. You'll recall this is the same Glenn Beck who loved the president's warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, and when House Democrats (temporarily) erected roadblocks to the policy's renewal, said: "[President Bush] feels -- and I happen to agree with him -- that this congressional game-playing by [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi will end up killing Americans." That's one answer to his incredulous question about when Bush started acting like a king, and surely not the only one.
Picking apart the wild contradictions and non-sequiturs in that rant is beside the point, though -- all we can really take away is that Obama should be lucky to have adversaries like Beck and O'Reilly. Perhaps vague calls to arms are scary when the popular wind is at Beck's back, but not when Obama is enjoying historic approval ratings. O'Reilly and Beck just seem disconnected and slightly deranged, playing to an incredibly small sliver of true believers. Fine by me.
http://mediamatters.org/altercation/?f=h_column
