Well, yesterday a little bit defiant Glen Beck explained what he called his "Hillary remark" that he made on Katie Couric's webcast Tuesday.
If you missed his explanation, you can catch up here , here or here.
Being that I usually always ingest Beck with a little skepticism, what he said did not surprise me. I can even see where he is coming from. However, if you thought Beck was not a conservative, he has now left no doubt that he indeed is one.
Here's the one thing: let's forget his frog boiling for a minute and concentrate on the narrative of his analogy. He explained that Obama has galvanized the opposition much better than McCain ever could. He said to think about boiling a frog. If you put the frog in tepid water and then bring it to boiling, the poor frog never knows what has hit him and he boils. This example has the frog as the American people, the water as The March Into Liberalism (an evil), and the temperature is McCain. In other words, McCain would have brought us to Liberalism so slowly we would not even notice, thereby becoming complacent and falling right into it.
But, Obama supposedly did us the favor of his boiling water of Liberalism and requiring the frog (the American people) to be thrown into said water. He preferred it this way because we all know that frogs will jump right out unhurt.
Ya got that? Yeah. I think there was jumping, but it was Beck jumping the shark.
Included in his near-rant were his very real accusations against McCain: Progressivist philosophy, immigration amnesty, cap and trade support, and bailout funding. I agree with McCain on immigration amnesty in order to get into the system. Reagan's amnesty saved Social Security ten years later, plus it is physically and economically impossible to find and deport them all now. I disagree with McCain on cap and trade, but I really believe he would have gotten it greatly diluted and less destructive if it had passed under him. And I was not for bailout funding either, but McCain has said had he known how badly they were going to do it, he would have opposed that, so I accept that and do not hold it against him because an awful lot of people did the same or stood there like deer in the headlights.
I think Beck has been wrong-o bong-o from the get-go about McCain when it comes to the progressive label. Here's a test: the self-avowed progressive Hillary Clinton herself would not in a million years label McCain one, so Hello? Point of View here. From Beck's POV, BOTH of them are, hence Beck is far-right on this issue. Logic is a hard thing to dismiss. Trouble is, this issue affects all others in his POV. Apparently, if you are progressive about anything, then you are one? That's a flimsy stretch in my book. And, Beck's entire argument about Teddy Roosevelt's "evil" New Nationalism, IMHO, is hogwash. Is Back actually willing to be against child-labor laws? Back in that day? I suppose if one were so rigid that any tiny restraint on business was wrong, then yes. He should be concentrating on Wilson, who not only lied and misrepresented himself while campaigning with his New Freedom platform that he abandoned once he was elected, at least TR saw there could be monopolies that were good for us. Wilson was too rigid. All were bad.
Bottom line on this: Only a conservative Christian aka hard-right aka strict Constitutionalist would still choose Obama and all we have been through. I'm even more confident now that he is pretty much Rush on TV now. He may have some libertarian leanings on a few issues, but I'm thinking those are only those economic issues that Republicans believe in, too, like unrestricted and unregulated free markets. Beck is definitely not a moderate or centrist, and that, I think is his real hate-on with McCain, because McCain is a moderate. If Beck is lying and he really is a Republican, then he does not want the party to be led by a moderate (too late for that, aka both Bushes).
All of this is backseat to the over-riding importance that McCain would have mitigated Pelosi and Reid better than Obama has. And he most likely would have been a one-termer, but that's a pure guess. Beck's popularity benefits from Obama more -- much, much more -- and I still will bet money here and now if we could be flies on the wall, we'd discover that's heavily at play here.
Which, as I said, not a cause for boycotting him. Just know what you are getting. What Beck has done beneficial is that he has been a decent substitute for the news media, uncovering information that the Lamestream media has withheld.
It is always hard to coexist with someone who feels as if they should be your enemy, but if you are worse-off alone, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
I have to add, yesterday's on-air stunt and near-rant unsettled me a little. I guess I expect him to hold things together a little better and not be so...rigid. I see him now as less rational. And I feel myself not as open to him as before. Perhaps it is time for me to move on. I don't share his passion for his social conservatism. It's more than a little like I don't share the thirst for Obama's Kool-aid.
In vampire terms, Beck's blood is drying up for me. We shared issues but not loyalty oaths. And when one casket closes, another opens, right? LOL I've been noticing lately that MSNBC in the morning and daytime are getting a little more centrist. Apparently The Bottom Line has won out over there. I'm actually enjoying Morning Joe more than the Curvy Couch Fox Crew, and Dylan Ratigan isn't bad after that. I still cannot stand Chris Matthews so I may stay with Beck for now.
Now that we have that figured out, let me tell you where I went yesterday that gave me some well-loved stress-busting laughter and giggles. I happened upon a site called People of Wal-mart. It shows photos of Wal-mart shoppers, along with the occasional parking lot bumper sticker on shoppers' cars. You browse it by page and it goes on boringly and then all of a sudden, there is a hilarious photo. I'll cut you a break and give you links of some of the ones I laughed at: Oh..My..God, That's a First, All Smiles, Tails, and Tell Us How You Really Feel. Be sure to read the captions, cuz some of them are as funny as the photos. Oh, rated R, probably.
