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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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Comparing Beck and King

Posted on: September 3, 2010 9:03 AM, by Ed Brayton

Crooks and Liars has an amusing side-by-side chart looking at the achievements of Glenn Beck vs the achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr. at various ages. Let's just say that Beck doesn't exactly stack up.

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Comments

I'm sure if King had been born a few decades later he would have become an amoral shock jock too.

Posted by: Mr Ed | September 3, 2010 9:16 AM

King and Beck - The intersection is zero.

Posted by: MikeMa | September 3, 2010 9:18 AM

How does someone like Glen Beck get admitted into Yale? Does the 'part-time' qualifier mean he really wasn't; that anyone could sign-up for some classes with available capacity?

Posted by: Michael Heath | September 3, 2010 9:29 AM

The only reason that they don't compare to each other is that you are basing the comparison on facts and logical reasoning. If shift your mind set from rational to wack-a-loon conservative and then compare what Martin Luther King, Jr. was (Plagiarist, communist, and a whore-monger) to what Glenn Beck is (righteous fighter of communism and the evil left), then Glenn Beck comes out miles a head.

God bless America, and by America, I mean the real America, not the fake America.

Posted by: Holytape | September 3, 2010 9:32 AM

Beck has described himself as a "rodeo clown". The purpose of a rodeo clown is to protect a fallen rider from the bull by distracting the bull. Beck's background is perfect for this and to the extent that we're talking about him rather than the policies, actions, and lies of the people and movement he's protecting, he's a success.

You don't need a college degree or a transformative vision of empowerment to be a rodeo clown.

Posted by: SWT | September 3, 2010 9:34 AM

Beck had a DeLorean? Man, now he's gone and ruined Back To The Future.

Posted by: D-Dub | September 3, 2010 9:35 AM

D-Dub - Perhaps you mean that famous movie 'Bek to the Past'*? - Dingo
----
* Damn! Who let Bek get the keys to the Obama Time Travel and Mind Control machine™? :)

Posted by: DingoJack | September 3, 2010 9:46 AM

Riffing off of Holytape's comment . . .

One good thing coming out of all this is conservatives taking a position that is premised on the assumption that MLK Jr. was a national leader and hero. I grew up being told by my church elders he was anti-American, a communist, a rabble-rouser, not really a Christian, and an adulterer. A handful of exceptions would give him faint praise such as, "He's a good negro looking out for his people, unlike that Malcolm X fellow or the Black Panthers who seek to destroy all that is good about America" - they were incapable of judging him on his merits alone.

Posted by: Michael Heath | September 3, 2010 9:59 AM

Michael Heath #3:
Many universities have extensions that offer adult education classes.

SMT #5:
You are right! Beck is a rodeo clown.

By the way, has Rush Limbaugh lost his voice?

Posted by: Reverend Rodney | September 3, 2010 10:08 AM

Great, now we're going to see a Beck remake of a movie, instead of Six Degrees of Separation, we're going to see Infinite Degrees of Separation. He will somehow turn this polar opposite reality into proof of their divine similarity. If he manages to pull that off I'm certain that the entire universe will simply implode in a giant wave of stupid.

Posted by: dogmeat | September 3, 2010 10:09 AM

f he manages to pull that off I'm certain that the entire universe will simply implode in a giant wave of stupid.

To quite Douglas Adams: "There is another theory which states that this has already happened".

Posted by: Dunc | September 3, 2010 10:15 AM

Rev. Rodney: `Many universities have extensions that offer adult education classes.'

And what would Beck be doing in an adult education class?

Posted by: Vincent Manis | September 3, 2010 1:04 PM

Speaking of extension (or as we call it in Canada, Continuing Studies), when I was a faculty member at a local college, I was on the committee that designed the overall Continuing Studies department. Suffice it to say that the administration followed the letter, but not the spirit, of our recommendations, and nowadays that college's Continuing Studies program is notorious for offering new-age `health' courses about auras and the like.

I rarely mention my involvement in developing this program :)

Posted by: Vincent Manis | September 3, 2010 1:08 PM

And what would Beck be doing in an adult education class?

Pretending.

Posted by: Jeremy Shaffer | September 3, 2010 1:11 PM

And what would Beck be doing in an adult education class?

Sleeping?

Posted by: MikeMa | September 3, 2010 2:01 PM

SWT @5 Gets the important point here.

Beck is a distraction. If you smack him down and he becomes a zombie rodeo clown that wears his martyrdom in the cause of radical conservatism as a badge of honor. There are also plenty of other waiting in the wings to take his place.

If you want to dismantle the machine you expose the funding mechanism and drain the cause of populist fervor. People find out that they are being slaves to power and money instead of rebels and you take a lot of wind from their sails. Go after the finding. Pullthe plug. Going after Koch and think tank funding is a good start.

Posted by: Art | September 3, 2010 2:45 PM

Re Holytape

Mr. Holytape repeats the big lie that Martin Luther King was a Communist. Of course, to a fascist goat fucking piece of filth like Mr. Holytape, everybody to the left of Hitler is a Communist.

Posted by: SLC | September 3, 2010 4:05 PM

SLC, did you miss the "...shift your mind set from rational to wack-a-loon conservative and then compare..." that preceded it?

Posted by: Modusoperandi | September 3, 2010 6:23 PM

SLC, how far off course did you have to drive to miss Holytape's point, which was obviously satirical and in no way slanderous toward Dr. Kimg? Or are you in jest?

Posted by: Sadie Morrison | September 3, 2010 6:24 PM

Re Modusoperandi @ Sadie Morrison

Whoops. I must be a little slow on the uptake today. My apologies to Mr. Holytape. Mia Culpa.

Posted by: SLC | September 3, 2010 9:46 PM