Saturday, April 11, 2009

Worst Republican of the Week

I am not even going to do the list. I am just going right ahead and going to call Glenn Beck Worst of the Week. Granted, his insanity gets more nucking futz, day by ever loving day. And I am not giving him the award on account of any particular thing this week, but to him just for being him.

Here is how I got to this choice. I have, for at least a couple weeks, been thinking about the question whether or not it is a good thing, generally, for Beck to be his increasingly nucking futz self? And that leads to the underlying question, is it a good thing (for the rest of us) that the GOP is increasingly dominated, both in its elected officials and it's cheerleaders, by increasingly insane or at least crazy talking and acting people? And I have to answer that no. Not good. And here is why.

These crazy Republicans are defining deviance down. The more like loons they act, the more common it seems for people to be loony. And for my purposes, I do not want the definition of normal to include some really crazy kinds of thinking and talking and acting. That is what kills a society.

If I might borrow the line from Bill Buckley, I would like to be known as one of the fellows who stands athwart this trend towards the normalizing of craziness shouting STOP!

And only to make matters worse, I was rolling some tape off the web of Beck appearing on O'Reilly's show, and he had the audacity (and well delusional lack of self awareness) to criticize (liberal?) journalists and commentators on other networks as being bitter and angry and not normal. I think I need to run that again. Yes he said it. I can not make this shit up. The loony tunes nutter who is saying Obama ain't a commie but he's a fascist, the two-bit actor who cries on camera because he loves his country that much, who actually broadcast a story about the tin foil hat theory about the FEMA concentration camps (debunked it, but that was only after raising the profile of something that was more nuts than either the Troothers' or the Birthers' theories) is now the arbiter of what is normal?

And O'Reilly has flat out accused the head of GE of specifically hiring people to specifically go after him. Not only is he your ordinary garden variety of crazy but let's add paranoid to the list.

Edit to Add:

I swear, I gave Beck the award not even knowing about this stunt:



I really don't know where the line is with him; whether this is all, or mostly an act, and he is laughing all the way to the bank, or whether or not he is really at least 1/2 that nuts, if not more so.

I don't want to say, but if you watch this vid, pay close attention to the end. He switches off the Howard Beale insane news anchor persona, looks at the wet guy, and starts cracking up.

Makes me think it is partially an act. The ability to drop out of character like that says a lot about the fact he had been in character, just before the 'reset.'

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