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Republicans And Media Conservatives Criticized Beck For "Hysteria" Over Uprising In Egypt
Kristol: Beck Is "Marginalizing Himself" Through His "Hysteria." In his February 14, 2011, column for the upcoming edition of The Weekly Standard, Fox News contributor Bill Kristol wrote of Beck's reaction to the Egyptian protests:
Now, people are more than entitled to their own opinions of how best to accomplish that democratic end. And it's a sign of health that a political and intellectual movement does not respond to a complicated set of developments with one voice.
But hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He's marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s. [The Weekly Standard, 2/14/11]
Lowry: Kristol's Criticism Of Beck's "Wild Theorizing" Is "Well-Deserved." In a February 5, 2011, post to National Review Online's The Corner blog, Rich Lowry wrote:
Bill Kristol has an editorial on conservatives and Egypt. He takes a well-deserved shot at Glenn Beck's latest wild theorizing:
...hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He's marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s. [NRO's The Corner, 2/05/11]
Fund: Beck's Use Of "Apocalyptic Conspiracy Terms" In Egypt Commentary "Goes Too Far." During the February 6, 2011, edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund said of Beck's Egypt commentary:
Look, Glenn Beck is a commentator, and I think that part of his analysis is accurate. Look, we have to remember that the Iranian regime when it collapsed was going to be a democracy, then it was hijacked by Islamic extremists and we're still dealing with them 30 years later and their nuclear weapons. And obviously Europe has a lot more to worry about - you know, by 2030, 90 percent of Europe is going to be Muslim. But to carry that and take it into apocalyptic conspiracy terms about America becoming Islamic state that goes too far, and I think if Glenn Beck had to do it over again, he might rethink that. [CNN, Reliable Sources, 2/06/11]
Time Magazine's Joe Klein: "Prominent Republicans Have Approached" Murdoch And Ailes About Beck's "Potential Embarrassment." In a February 5, 2011, post to Time magazine's Swampland blog, Joe Klein wrote:
Today, (hat tip/Ben Smith), we have Bill Kristol sticking with the demonstrators and calling out free-range lunatic Glenn Beck, for his hilarious commie-muslim caliphate delusions. This is not unimportant. Kristol lies very close to the throbbing heart of the Fox News sensibility. And I've heard, from more than a couple of conservative sources, that prominent Republicans have approached Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes about the potential embarrassment that the paranoid-messianic rodeo clown may bring upon their brand. The speculation is that Beck is on thin ice. His ratings are dropping, too--which, in the end, is a good part of what this is all about. But I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a mirror-Olbermann situation soon. [Time's Swampland, 2/05/11]
Conservative Media Denounced Beck's False Attacks On Soros And His Focus On Jewish Figures
Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg: Beck Engages In "Anti-Semitic Dog-Whistling." In a January 18, 2011, post to The Atlantic, national correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:
It's become clear to me that the Fox commentator Glenn Beck has something of a Jewish problem. Actually, he has something of a modernity problem, and people with modernity problems tend to have problems with Jews, who more or less invented modernity (Einstein, Marx, Freud, Franz Boas, etc.)
This is not, by the way, a post about Beck's singular obsession with George Soros (read Michelle Goldberg -- not a relative, except in an all-Jews-are-conspiring-against-Glenn-Beck sort of way -- on this subject). This is a post about Beck's recent naming of nine people -- eight of them Jews -- as enemies of America and humanity. He calls these people prime contributors to the -- wait for it -- "era of the big lie." The eight Jews are Sigmund Freud; Edward Bernays, the founder of public relations, and a nephew of Freud's (which Beck discloses as if this had previously been a secret); Soros, of course; Cass Sunstein, now of the White House; the former labor leader Andy Stern; Walter Lippman, who is no longer here to defend himself; Frances Fox Piven, who Beck believes is "sowing the seeds" of revolution; and, of all people, Edward Rendell.
It is fair to ask if Beck knows that these people are Jewish (It is not widely-known that Rendell is Jewish, I think). But Beck is a smart person, and has researchers at hand with access to Wikipedia. Further, most of these people on Beck's "big lie" list are already the targets of straightforward attacks in the dark, anti-Semitic corners of the Web, so an extended Google search, in some cases, would show that much of the opposition to some of these people is motivated by anti-Semitism. That said, Beck has not crossed a certain line, by identifying his targets openly as Jewish. Nevertheless, this, to me, is a classic case of anti-Semitic dog-whistling. Beck is speaking to a certain constituency, and the thought has now crossed my mind that this constituency understands the clear implications of what Beck is saying. [The Atlantic, 1/18/11]...........................................................
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