by Steve Milloy
I read with sadness today that FOX News is ending Glenn Beck’s daily show. Congratulations, George Soros. You won that round.
As someone who has appeared on Beck’s show several times, including when it was on CNN, someone whose work is cited in two of Beck’s best-selling books, and as a former long-time columnist for FOXNews.com, it is sad that Beck is losing his 5pm daily soapbox with which he has ably, if not melodramatically, warned America about the enemies within it.
Yes, Beck made errors in judgment — mainly converting from a guest-based news show to the preachy, messianic, one-man “do your own homework” scold show — but he had his facts right. That’s why Soros targeted him for removal from FOX.
Although Beck was a relative late-comer to efforts to expose-the-red-menace, he has done more than anyone to expose the comrades since Sen. Joe McCarthy. Both should be viewed as heroes.
I, for one, will miss Beck (even his preachiness) weekdays at 5pm. He was right and spoke the truth. There’s not much of that to be had these days.
I am somewhat disappointed in FOX News. It should not have given Beck the freedom to change his show’s format so radically. By allowing Beck’s ego to go unchecked, FOX News set him up for the Soros-incited sponsor boycott.
I’m not buying any flotsam about Beck voluntarily “moving on” to greener pastures with his own cable channel or Internet-based programming. He may do those things, but that is not really “moving on” so much as it is retreating into media oblivion. Beck will likely find his new endeavor less satisfying and less successful than drawing in 2 million-plus viewers per evening on the most-popular cable news station — not to mention the fact that his show was the perfect forum for turning his books into best-sellers.
It would have been great if Beck could have operated in peak form through the 2012 election. That would have been most helpful in defeating and dislodging the red menace that he nightly spotlights. But I suppose we should be grateful for the time we had. We’ll have to continue toward that goal, Beck or no Beck.
I am saddened by the loss of Glenn Beck’s show. While his style can be criticized, his message cannot. He has done an admirable job of exposing many internal enemies of this nation, people in positions of power who would harm rather than help the country solve our very serious issues. Yes, he has become a crusader. But that crusade is much like Paul Revere’s ride, trying to warn us of serious problems on the horizon before it’s too late. As Mr. Milloy says, Beck spoke the truth and has been right far more often than wrong. He leaves a very big hole.
Beck’s
secret’ is the same as Limbaugh’s – he exposes the lies of the left by using their own words out of their own mouths. They are demonstrable hypocrites, and the one thing a hypocrite cannot abide is public exposure. This is why he has become the ‘daemon celebre’ of George Soros and the Left. Do not fear that this is the last of Beck. Now that he knows how to push the buttons of the MSM, he can get them to give him free air time on all their soap boxes anytime he wants. They manipulate others so much that they are themselves easily manipulated.
“No one is more gullible than a liar,” and Beck knows how to use their gullibility against them.
…. After a couple of weeks of intermittent watching I just couldn’t watch him very long. Eventually I couldn’t stand to watch him at all …
Me, too.
…. I find O’Reilly to be an (insufferably) phony blowhard, whose “facts” always bear watching, and I don’t watch him and he remains.
The well-established yellow-press-TV-person, O’Reilly brought with him from Inside Edition and retains the ‘TV-Watcher’ demographic that Mr Murdoch can sell to advertisers. He also worked very hard at maximizing the buffoonish Mr Beck’s fatal overexposure. (Was the kind of friend, that is, Mr Beck was having when he wasn’t having a friend)
A friend of mine called Beck “creepy”. I didn’t find that to be true. I found him to be childish. I didn’t notice that quality on his TV show, but it was obvious on his radio show. His historical work was great, but his deliver and technique was irritating and exhausting. After a couple of weeks of intermittent watching I just couldn’t watch him very long. Eventually I couldn’t stand to watch him at all.
Beck has been a force, and he may be out of the picture from now on, but what Rush did for talk radio, Beck has done for the public’s demand for historical foundation for what is going on in the world. Others will pick up that baton and it will be much better received and I think it will be demanded.
What I find interesting is that I found Beck factual but too irritating to watch and he is gone. I find O’Reilly to be a phony blowhard, whose facts always bear watching, and I don’t watch him and he remains. In both cases of Beck and O’Reilly it is all about them. However, both Rush and O’Reilly understand that what he does is as much about entertainment as it is news. And I can hardly listen to either one of them. I can understand how it requires a large ego to do what they do, I just can’t understand why they can’t control it. But then again….who cares what I think….they are both rich and famous.
You have apparently not listened to Glenn very closely, at least on the radio. Nearly a year ago he was suggesting to people that he was going to be moving on to different ventures in 2011. Those suggestions became much more clear warnings to people by October, thus ‘you need to start doing your own homework’. By January he was saying things like “I’m about to decide that all those I can reach this way are on board the ark and it is about to move on.”, in addition to clear statements that he was not happy being constricted to NYCity due to the FOX cable show. That was followed by trips to Texas, and elsewhere and expressed desires to move. Also, with his many ventures now, I bet that the TV show is just a bit too draining of his time … ask Rush Limbaugh about that.
I would have been amazed had he continued to be on the FOX show by the end of this year… and statements by anyone to the effect that he was driven away from the cable show are a real stretch, given that he easily broken all viewer records, even at his current level, which still more than all the other cable shows combined in his time slot. As for “his viewership is down” – well, yeah, compared to the super-high levels all FOX shows had during the ZeroCare debate last year, but he is still drawing a huge number of viewers compared even with October/ November election season.
I was never much of a fan of Beck’s style or content and almost never listened to his radio show or watched his Fox show. A while back, I did catch Beck and his sidekick get into a long, puerile giggle fest ridiculing a woman as being stupid because of her North Carolina accent. I immediately wrote him off as an elite buffoon, not worthy of serious consideration.
…. Beck made errors in judgment especially in converting from a guest-based news show to the preachy, narcissistic/messianic, one-man scold show ….
In the end Mr Beck provides but a TV-Watcher’s look at a D-List radio guy talking to himself — and his show was/is just about as boring as FoxNews’ already pretty boring Built-In-Fairness-Doctrine TV gets.
He did speak the truth but his entertaining got out of hand and overshadowed what I hope were good motives in addition to making money.
To paraphrase Tavis Smiley . . . . Media takes one up . . . just to shoot em down . . . .
I did not care for Glenn Beck . . . . but, I’m pretty sure he has raked in plenty of bucks . . . so maybe he has a nice nest egg!