"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world".
-Anne Frank,
Diary of a Young Girl, 1952
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Political Clowns or When Comedians Take The Stage
I am not a social commentator and I don't usually get paid for pretending to be. Actually, all I get for it are "good jobs" or "no, I don't think so's". I am also not a journalist or a reporter, but the Internet lets everyone have an opinion- fact based or not- and I decided to hold my own soap box tangent because it makes me feel better. So when I took the time to get to know one political commentator a bit better, I was floored at the idea that Glenn Beck has a fan club, let alone a strong following.
Beck is the new big man on campus and the latest class clown to throw a pie in the face of politics. He himself claims to be a commentator, NOT a reporter. HE claims to be an entertainer. I recently, as of yesterday, watched part of his TV show as he reminded his audiences of how ALL that he says is pure opinion. He has made other claims to remind us that he doesn't fact check- something any person with a Wi-Fi connection can do. He has no regard for what he says, and neither does his parent channel, Fox News. To me, the biggest question is: Why are we lending our ears to a comedian about how we should behave in politics?
Beck's opinions have been spouting forth like the word of God, something he seems to know a lot about. Yet, in an interview on the popular show, The View, he can't even get his facts straight. He goes so far on his radio show to inflate the facts about a chance meeting with Barbra Walters and Whoopi Goldberg, and then thinks that they may not bring it up on their show. Even Hasselbeck couldn't argue that he seemed to have stepped out of line with his lack of tack and factual knowledge. Maybe this is saying a lot for The View, but they fact check.
This commentator is also really good at saying some really mean things, just to get the ratings he needs. He went on earlier today, ranting about how Obama made September 11 a National Day of Service. Beck was furious that this was signed into law (an article stating that Congress refused to push it through because they were in recess) and went on and on about it, noting to everyone in his office that he would not want to have this day be of service- he needs that day to grieve and remember. His main concern? Who was in on the decision? Did the families of the victims know? According to Beck, in grave detail, a hodgepodge of companies and liberal groups where present by conference call- and non of the families had been asked. However, if you do a little digging, as I did, for about five minutes, you will find a nice article (taken from the "Fair and Balanced" news site that houses Beck's TV program) on the National Day of Service as something put together by 9/11 families to pay respect to all those who lost their lives that tragic day. The article can be found here: http://origin.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,94503,00.html and is dated back to early August. Beck, who himself has said to "hate 9/11 families" didn't bother to do his homework. And he usually doesn't.
We wouldn't put this much stock into our actual comedian news reporters, like Stewart and Colbert. And they have staff writers and fact checkers. Lots of liberals love to get their news from them, but they aren't taking to the streets because they know their comedians are on a comedy network. Even when Colbert "pretended" to run for president, he backed out, understanding his role in the media. Stewart is smart and informed, something you can tell because he doesn't treat his interviews as personal attacks (unlike Beck who took the liberty to scream, repeatedly, at a caller because she did not understand his stance on the health care issue). We see Stewart and others as the political comedians that they are, and no one is handing Dave Chappelle or Dane Cook a radio show to have political opinions. Leave the opinions at home. Take the five minutes and do some fact checking.
I'm not personally attacking Glenn because he thinks he's funny and has an opinion. He does a great job voicing his opinion to high heaven, and getting a large group to rally behind him. My problem with Beck is the fact that we are suppose to take him seriously, until he says some rude and nasty thing, gets mass coverage, and then we're suppose to remember he's just a entertainer and just giving commentary. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet, A LOT of people view everything he says to not only be fact, but facts worth starting fights over. "It is time to go to Washington! It is time to stand or sit in the middle of the street if you have to!" He isn't holding himself accountable because we, as smart citizens, should know when and when not to take him seriously. Here, for your enjoyment, are some other lovely things to attribute to Beck, care of Wiki quote:
(Copied from an older blog no longer available)
Beck is the new big man on campus and the latest class clown to throw a pie in the face of politics. He himself claims to be a commentator, NOT a reporter. HE claims to be an entertainer. I recently, as of yesterday, watched part of his TV show as he reminded his audiences of how ALL that he says is pure opinion. He has made other claims to remind us that he doesn't fact check- something any person with a Wi-Fi connection can do. He has no regard for what he says, and neither does his parent channel, Fox News. To me, the biggest question is: Why are we lending our ears to a comedian about how we should behave in politics?
Beck's opinions have been spouting forth like the word of God, something he seems to know a lot about. Yet, in an interview on the popular show, The View, he can't even get his facts straight. He goes so far on his radio show to inflate the facts about a chance meeting with Barbra Walters and Whoopi Goldberg, and then thinks that they may not bring it up on their show. Even Hasselbeck couldn't argue that he seemed to have stepped out of line with his lack of tack and factual knowledge. Maybe this is saying a lot for The View, but they fact check.
This commentator is also really good at saying some really mean things, just to get the ratings he needs. He went on earlier today, ranting about how Obama made September 11 a National Day of Service. Beck was furious that this was signed into law (an article stating that Congress refused to push it through because they were in recess) and went on and on about it, noting to everyone in his office that he would not want to have this day be of service- he needs that day to grieve and remember. His main concern? Who was in on the decision? Did the families of the victims know? According to Beck, in grave detail, a hodgepodge of companies and liberal groups where present by conference call- and non of the families had been asked. However, if you do a little digging, as I did, for about five minutes, you will find a nice article (taken from the "Fair and Balanced" news site that houses Beck's TV program) on the National Day of Service as something put together by 9/11 families to pay respect to all those who lost their lives that tragic day. The article can be found here: http://origin.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,94503,00.html and is dated back to early August. Beck, who himself has said to "hate 9/11 families" didn't bother to do his homework. And he usually doesn't.
We wouldn't put this much stock into our actual comedian news reporters, like Stewart and Colbert. And they have staff writers and fact checkers. Lots of liberals love to get their news from them, but they aren't taking to the streets because they know their comedians are on a comedy network. Even when Colbert "pretended" to run for president, he backed out, understanding his role in the media. Stewart is smart and informed, something you can tell because he doesn't treat his interviews as personal attacks (unlike Beck who took the liberty to scream, repeatedly, at a caller because she did not understand his stance on the health care issue). We see Stewart and others as the political comedians that they are, and no one is handing Dave Chappelle or Dane Cook a radio show to have political opinions. Leave the opinions at home. Take the five minutes and do some fact checking.
I'm not personally attacking Glenn because he thinks he's funny and has an opinion. He does a great job voicing his opinion to high heaven, and getting a large group to rally behind him. My problem with Beck is the fact that we are suppose to take him seriously, until he says some rude and nasty thing, gets mass coverage, and then we're suppose to remember he's just a entertainer and just giving commentary. Nothing more, nothing less. Yet, A LOT of people view everything he says to not only be fact, but facts worth starting fights over. "It is time to go to Washington! It is time to stand or sit in the middle of the street if you have to!" He isn't holding himself accountable because we, as smart citizens, should know when and when not to take him seriously. Here, for your enjoyment, are some other lovely things to attribute to Beck, care of Wiki quote:
- "Hey, does anybody notice this crazy thing that we’re on the road to socialism? I’m just saying. Wow. We got — we got the SCHIPs thing going for us. That’s great. There is the change that we were all hoping for, really, seriously. Hey, I got an idea. If we’re going down the road to socialism, I mean, why not really go for it, huh? Comrades, good news from the western front, our glorious revolution is starting to take hold. Oh, the revolution of change. Our fearless leader has just signed in SCHIPs, and earlier today, he spoke out against capitalism. Listen up."
- And it was from America. Progressive movement in America. Eugenics. In case you don’t know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. …. The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening. So I guess I have to put my name on yes, I hope Barack Obama fails. But I just want his policies to fail; I want America to wake up."
- But the second thought I had when I saw these people and they had to shut down the Astrodome and lock it down, I thought: I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims. These guys -- you know it's really sad. We're not hearing anything about Mississippi. We're not hearing anything about Alabama. We're hearing about the victims in New Orleans. This is a 90,000-square-mile disaster site, New Orleans is 181 square miles. A hundred and -- 0.2 percent of the disaster area is New Orleans! And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we're seeing on television are the scumbags -- and again, it's not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New Orleans got out! It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention. It's exactly like the 9-11 victims' families. There's about 10 of them that are spoiling it for everybody. (Taken from http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200509090003)
(Copied from an older blog no longer available)
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