Dispatches from the Creation Wars

Beck must have forgotten the important point that Obama chose to continue being part African-American along with his insistence on using the name his parents game him at birth, and refused to stop being a democrat once elected president. What cheek!

Posted by: Nils Ross | February 7, 2010 9:23 AM

gave*

Posted by: Nils Ross | February 7, 2010 9:25 AM

BECK: He chose to use his name, Barack, for a reason.

Now we have to go looking for subversive ulterior motives as to why someone would use the first name they were given from birth?

If he had changed his first name to 'americanize' it, Beck would have been the first to claim it as evidence he was secretly anti-american.

Posted by: DaveL | February 7, 2010 9:46 AM

I want to know Mr Becks motives for choosing to use the name Glenn? Why did he pick that name, what does it symbolize....

Posted by: Matty | February 7, 2010 9:51 AM

Ed rhetorically asks:

He's really not this fucking insane, is he?

Well, I think it also requires the incorporation of ignorance, idiocy, and the standard mind-set of a fundie and/or conservative to completely describe why Mr. Beck makes such absurd statements, and why his audience laps it up. These traits are why we perceive his output as insane, which I agree it is.

However this is the mindset I have encountered and continue to encounter on an almost daily basis for the past 40-some years. What is now different is that the sheep are now sheperding themselves where their past leaders now submit to their will. This also creates a leadership vacuum in terms of people, money, and overriding philosophy.

These new realities have caused Thomas Franks' once prescient and accurate thesis* revealed in his book What's the Matter in Kansas? to start to break down given the failures of conservatives to competently govern in the 2000s and the reaction by their voting constituency - social conservatives' perception that Bush and the 2000s GOP are 'no true Scotsmen'. This apparent rejection (it may be short-lived) appears to be a reaction in order to continue to defend their defective mind-set and avoid dealing with their failures given that beneficent adaptation is anathema to America's form of conservatism.

Sarah Palin's speech last night is a perfect reflection of this new paradigm with one new twist that also attempts to fill the leadership vacuum. I was surprised at how much neocon content was contained in her speech. We know the neocons were the ones that pushed her at Sen. McCain's presidential campaign (primarily Bill Kristol). However I never observed their getting much leverage out of Ms. Palin since then and certainly not during the 2008 campaign.

So what has now changed since President Bush left office is that rather than food and fossil fuel plutocrats making a play for the allegiance of conservative sheep a la' the 1990s and 2000s; we now have Ms. Palin emerging on her own and being used to incorporate a Cheneyist form of neoconservatism into the Tea Party movement to fill their base's leadership vacuum.

This of course helps validate how incredibly dangerous many of us believed Ms. Palin was as her character was revealed during the 2008 Presidential Campaign and those who were able to fill her ambitious vacuousness.

One reason I became a strident supporter of Mr. Obama during the 2008 campaign was my becoming convinced that President Bush was superior to both Sen. McCain and Ms. Palin by orders of magnitude. Imagine that, one of the worst Presidents in the history of America, a man who caused damage that will last for decades; far better than the movement's subsequent candidates. I don't believe anyone could have predicted that the reaction by the Right as a response to their failures to govern; that they would be become ever more idiotic, ideological, and downright delusional.

*Franks' thesis is that plutocrats were able to use cultural issues to attract populist voters who supported their electoral and lobbying efforts even when the plutocrats' policies caused direct harm to the very populists supporting them. The descriptive power of his observations and analysis were incredibly on-point; however I believe they didn't get the recognition they deserved because he also argued for prescriptions that I found based on a moldering liberal agenda that history has also deemed a failure (not to mention a cowardly and lazy mainstream media which defines itself as an eager champion of fallacy of balance arguments).

Mr. Franks writes a weekly column in the Wall Street Journal that is often worth our attention.

Posted by: Michael Heath | February 7, 2010 10:06 AM

Three words:

General Omar Bradley

(I doubt Beck has heard of him)

Posted by: Eamon | February 7, 2010 10:16 AM

It's an extension of the time and dimensional control that the Obama family has demonstrated already. Remember that Barack was originally born in Kenya, but his family was able to go back in time to the 1960's to fake the birth announcement in the newspaper and create forged birth records! Clearly, then, Bob Obama again went back in time to have his father give him the inflammatory name, Barack, *in the past* to further his evil ends in the present.

Scary!

Posted by: Daniel Kim | February 7, 2010 10:47 AM

Mr. Obama grew up, so Barry for his childhood and Barack for his adulthood. Why insist there might be zebras when only horses live where you do? More of the "I'm just saying..." and "I'm just asking questions" rhetorical shite.

Posted by: momkat | February 7, 2010 11:18 AM

What I don't get is why Glenn Beck won't deny that he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. Why won't he even address the question? What is he trying to hide?

Posted by: Nemo | February 7, 2010 11:47 AM

That reminds me of this blast from the past

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/malkin-award--8.html

I wasn't aware that scientists had identified the "political" gene. Mrs. Schiffren must have omitted that bit from her article.

There is a common theme here: Obama isn't regularly, loudly & strenuously working to disavow the parts of his past that don't jibe with the "folks" idea of a real American. Therefore, there is something nefarious and anti-'merican going on here. He is "other". He is not one of us.

... and ignorant fuckers like Beck actually have the stones to accuse other people of being fascist? "Stalinist" even? Take a look in the mirror, Clown-Shoes.

As for his sanity, I find it really hard to believe the Limbaughs or Coulters of the world are actually sincere about half the shit that comes out of their mouths. They have an ideology but they also have a shtick and it makes them truckloads of money. I'm not so sure about Beck. He does "professional foil hat wearer" so convincingly in the media that I think he might actually be a true believer. I'm on the fence on this one

Posted by: n | February 7, 2010 12:04 PM

Kristin @ 8:

Between your two options, I have to go with #1.

To quote The Penguin, Beck is playing his newfound (and profoundly stupid) audience at Fox like a harp from hell.
And as long as doing so doesn't permanently impact his bottom line (as calling Obama a "racist" last year did in leading to an exodus of advertisers), he will continue to do.

Posted by: CHV | February 7, 2010 12:17 PM

Barack is the Swahili form of the good Jewish name Baruch, which I think means Blessed. The name is often Anglicized as Benedict. The great philospoher Baruch Spinoza, of Portuguese Jewish blood, changed his first name to "Benedict" to emphasize his differences with organized religion.

If Barack Obama had called himself Baruch Obama, Benedict Obama, or Ben Obama, what difference would it have made?

Posted by: toby | February 7, 2010 12:45 PM

This is it, folks, this is the product of years of devolution of right-wing rhetoric and talking points. Now all they can resort to is making shit up and, if that fails, reaching for vapid ad-hominem attacks such as Beck's above. The right truly has nothing of substance to offer in the national political debate.

Posted by: Sadie Morrison | February 7, 2010 12:59 PM

Sadie @ 25:

The right truly has nothing of substance to offer in the national political debate.

While I agree with your point Republicans are only down 5% in political affiliation relative to the Democrats (I include leaners since since leaning is remains a very strong predictor of voting patterns.).

Posted by: Michael Heath | February 7, 2010 1:39 PM

RE History Punk

Then there's Colonel General Ludwig Beck, one of the plotters against Hitler who was arrested after the 1944 unsuccessful assassination attempt and summarily executed.

Posted by: SLC | February 7, 2010 1:46 PM

Anyone seen the following regarding Sister Sarah's $500 a plate speech last night?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefan-sirucek/did-palin-use-crib-notes_b_452458.html

I hope the teabaggers got their money's worth.

Posted by: CHV | February 7, 2010 2:06 PM

Mr. Heath @ 32:

Well, at least a lucky steam cleaning contractor somewhere in the Nashville area is going to get big business out of it.

There's some new jobs generated right there.

Posted by: CHV | February 7, 2010 2:31 PM

What cracks me up about the hand scribble is that Palin could have just used index cards and it wouldn't have been a big deal. Did she walk up to the podium and go, "Oh crap, I forgot what my core values are!"

Posted by: Brandon | February 7, 2010 3:56 PM

Beck is simply stuck in a mental loop, obsession, that if focused on the process of turning over rocks and exposing what he sees as great revelations, hidden meaning and connections between symbols and memes. He has become the caricature of Tom Hanks character in "national Treasure", a self-identified guide to hidden connections.

In essence he is playing out the conspiracy theorist version of swooning over an all encompassing vision that reveals that "it is all connected". Having had this profound revelation and feeling of the rightness of it he is trying to explain it.

Of course the explanations always devolve into rants as he tries to communicate not just the outline but the deep feeling of the revelation.

If he was an environmentalist or naturalist he would be in full swoon over the connectedness of nature. If a humanist it would be the connectedness of humanity.

Of course those of us who grew up in the drug culture have seen this sort of swoon before. The whole connectedness thing is a popular theme. And it always comes down to three things: First, you can't communicate the feeling of oneness.

Second, everything is connected is pretty much a given if you think about it. The energy and materials from stars that make up everything and power everything. Ecosystems interlace and interlock. History, and the history of ideas, is about and written by humans. Politics are the consequence of humans seeking to self-organize and manage the ups and downs of reality. Life, and reality itself, is a series of interactive systems. That is a profound revelation to a teenage mind that has never contemplated it but it is, in the end, pretty obvious.

Third, even though everything is connected the parts don't necessarily cooperate or coordinate with each other. Most of the pieces are acting independently without any overarching plan.

This last point is where conspiracy theorists fail. Their underlying assumption is that somebody is in charge. Theirs is a rock flipping exercise to find evidence of this controlling group. If Beck was less a conspiracy obsessed nut and more religious he would be seeking God.

If he was less a gullible child that is easily fascinated by shiny ideas he would more fully apprehend the concept and be far less in awe of the profundity of it. His mooning, swooning and harping over the profundity and incisiveness of the idea makes me think of the first time I dropped acid.

But it is all delivered with childlike enthusiasm and a mix between letting you in on a special secret, guiding the apprentice to hidden knowledge, and showing mommy what a shiny rock you've found. That and a overemotional shtick that is powered by his own childish maudlin sensibilities and Vapo-Rub.

Posted by: Art | February 7, 2010 4:51 PM

The right truly has nothing of substance to offer in the national political debate.

Huh? Of course they do. You may prefer to flush a similar substance down the drain rather than decorate your room with it, but it is a substance.

In particular, their founding principle is that the only legitimate function of the State is police power, both domestically and internationally -- and that power is by right unconstrained. All other functions (e.g. regulation of the currency) is an abomination and their exercise should be stopped at all costs -- including shutting down the Government if possible.

Conveniently, having disposed of any inclination to actually govern makes it much easier to paralyze government.

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | February 7, 2010 6:06 PM

The danger is still very great even if you assume that Palin and the other extremists are unelectable. It is, if you will, a disastrous loop. The Republicans (even the previously responsible moderates) fear losing their seats to challenges from the right. They therefore adopt stances that make the extremists in their party happy. In doing so they block the government from accomplishing anything creating a gridlock that the tea-party extremists can then exploit. As we saw in the exit polls in MA, in addition to the flaws of the Democratic candidate, etc., many of those who voted for Brown did so because they wanted to get rid of someone who was part of the problem, part of the system. The fact that she was no more part of the problem or of the system than Brown was utterly irrelevant to the voters. Exit polls of those who voted for Brown showed a rather high number of voters who supported Health Care reform with a public option, who thought that Obama was doing well, liked Obama, etc. They then turned around and elected a guy who is almost guaranteed to assist in the obstructionist stance of the Republicans.

If it builds on its own strength the extremists actually can win by basically stopping the Democrats from doing anything of substance and then pointing to their failure as proof that "change" is needed.

Posted by: dogmeatib | February 7, 2010 7:03 PM

"I beliee [sic] Hussein means "traitor" in Arabic. This explains its popularity in many Muslim countries."

I nominate this for Mondays Dumbass Quote of the Day*

*given the tendency for people to pull shit out of their ass and throw it up on a comments board, especially when you can find any number of online resources giving the meaning of the name "Hussein", just by typing ""Hussein meaning" into any search engine. But given that the inter-tubes (both of them) are a vast left wing, drug takin' Satanic conspiracy, I guess it doesn't mean "handsome one" after all.

Posted by: n | February 7, 2010 8:18 PM

You're probably right, though that post had a certain troll authenticity to it. Sarcasm doesn't come across so easy sometimes. Tentative apologies to Kersham.

When does the invasion of Arabica start? These high coffee prices are kicking my ass.

Posted by: n | February 7, 2010 8:59 PM

I HOPE he's this insane... if he is, then MAYBE people are just watching a lune for the sake of entertainment.

But, I don't think this is the case... I think he's just pandering to the rest of the lunatics in society, who must be a significant portion of society since Fox talk shows try to appeal to that demographic so much.

Posted by: Adam | February 7, 2010 9:49 PM

Goddamit.

Alright, formal apologies to Kersham. A user by that name has been posting on these boards for a while and he seems pretty legit. Sorry.

"Honest officer, I thought I bagged me a bona fide troll. He was so convincing."

Posted by: n | February 7, 2010 11:51 PM

Use Obama's Education Stimulus Package to earn a Medical Assistant Degree Online http://bit.ly/a80qrv

Posted by: gonsalez | February 8, 2010 5:11 AM