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Chris Matthews and his panel name Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, the birthers and their ilk and white tribalism as the plague of 2009. The right wingers will of course take this as proof that Matthews is part of that 'librul' media and complain about the tingle up his leg while forgetting about Mitten's chin and Grandpa Fred's Aqua Velva.

MATTHEWS: Welcome back. And more of our look back at this year. Next category, we're calling it a "Plague on All Our Houses." First, swine flu – now, that was a big, big deal this year. The birthers, another kind of plague, the people who pushed the idea that Barack Obama was not born in America. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk -– the nutty talk went off the rails this past summer. Here is Beck:

GLENN BECK: This President, I think, has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don't know what it is.

BECK: This guy is, I believe, a racist.

MATTHEWS: And our last plague, those reality TV wannabes. The balloon family and those White House gate crashers. Howard, another rich list. By the way, Glenn Beck, white people. What's that supposed to mean?

HOWARD FINEMAN: Well, it's hard not to name him the "Plague of the Year." And not for ideological reasons. Because I think the name calling, the shameless name calling, and stirring up of the worst in our society is something that should be condemned. It was a year ago, almost a year ago, that we were all out there on the mall, when Barack Obama was sworn in as President, one of the great moments in American history, no matter what your politics are, no matter who you are, where you come from, and to sort of drag all that through the mud I think is a plague.

MATTHEWS: Yes, bring back tribalism.

FINEMAN: Yeah, exactly.

KATTY KAY: I would say the birthers, and I think because it's insidious...

MATTHEWS: Same deal, by the way.

KAY: I think it’s a similar deal, and with the birthers, it's getting at this idea that Americans somehow don't like anything that's foreign, that anything that's foreign is suspicious. And there's no evidence of this. And the way that people like Sarah Palin have said this is an issue without actually coming out straight and saying I think he wasn't born in America. There’s a very mean-spiritedness about the birthers, I find, worrying about...

MATTHEWS: I think it’s tribalism, white tribalism.

NORAH O’DONNELL: It is, and it's an effort to delegitimize the President in some way, to offer an ad hominem attack in many ways...

KAY: Without even straight-up attacking.

O’DONNELL: ...suggesting he’s not credible, he’s not American. And it’s sort of a way to – it’s racist in many ways to do it.

MATTHEWS: John, you've got a book coming out, a big one, coming out very early this year, right at the new year time. And you’re going to be on here to talk about it. Was this something that was simmering, this sort of tribalistic resentment of Barack Obama being what he is?

JOHN HEILEMANN: Yeah, it’s funny, you know, people forget that this happened at the end of general election in 2008 where John McCain and Sarah Palin were out at their rallies and you started to see, when she started to talk about how he was palling around with terrorists, you started to see the early incipient kind of signs of what became the birther movement, where you’d have people standing up calling him a socialist, calling him a communist...

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

HEILEMANN: ...calling him an Arab. You know, that stuff was out there, and you only saw it at the very, very end. And by that point, Obama was so far ahead that people kind of ignored it. But it was there and they activated it.

MATTHEWS: And did you hear that Palin was saying that later on, more recently, she wished they’d done more of that Reverend Wright stuff, more of that ethnic stuff, that racial stuff? She wanted to push that.

HEILEMANN: She was very unhappy about going after Reverend Wright.

MATTHEWS: To John McCain’s lasting credit he refused to play the racial card, which is always easy to play in this country, as we’ve seen.

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The right's latest fake controversy is what happens whenever any Democrat happens to bring up historical truths about conservatism -- like the fact that it has been on the wrong side of right and wrong for much of the nation's history. They scream and shout about how mean liberals are and then cover over these truths with a pile of afactual excrement.

Here's what upset them so. Harry Reid accurately laid out the sorry history of conservatives in America whenever important and momentous advances in civil rights and the betterment of life for all Americans happen to arise: They stick up for the forces of oppression, hatred, and economic deprivation.

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this slow down, stop everything, let's start over."

"You think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted slow down, there will be a better day to do that. The day isn't quite right.

When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

The only thing right-wingers heard was that "Reid compared opponents of health-care reform to opponents of slavery."

Well, not exactly: He was pointing out that there was continuum to all of these, a common thread. That is, the opponents of health care, just like opponents of civil rights for minorities, and opponents of the vote for women, and opponents of ending slavery all had one big thing in common: They were all conservative.

Rather laughably, Sean Hannity and Karl Rove try to cover this over -- as does Michelle Malkin -- by pointing out the wonderful things Republicans have done over the decades, such as Lincoln freeing the slaves. Of course, what they don't mention is that these things were achieved by people who would today be considered liberal Republicans. Malkin also wants you to remember those Democrats who fought against civil rights: Of course, she conveniently omits the history of the Southern Strategy and the way old-line bigots like Strom Thurmond joined the GOP en masse in the 1960s and '70s, thereby transforming the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Neo-Confederates.

(Oh, and a reminder to Karl Rove, who claims that "Joe Wilson got in trouble for speaking the truth": He should ask Wilson sometime his views on Lincoln.)

And what they especially avoid confronting is that Reid is right in that opponents of ending slavery were CONSERVATIVE, and opponents of health-care reform are CONSERVATIVE. The contexts change with the shifting challenges of our respective eons, but we can always count on one thing:

When conservatives stand up to fight against common-sense advances that improve the lives of Americans, we can feel a sense of surety that history will prove them wrong. It always has in the past.

By the way, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison was whining on Fox's Your World (with Eric Bolling filling in for Neil Cavuto) that Reid's remarks were "over the top" and asking him to apologize:

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Looks like our own Nicole isn't the only one slamming the Swiss for this. Jon Stewart takes a whack at them as well.

Your defense of Glenn Beck is touching on AOL, but it comes up very short and very sad. You claim that the big bad lefty meanie comedians are picking on Beck even when he is sick. Well, let's get something straight. Glenn Beck is inciting violence and helping legitimizing radical militia and white nationalist movements that otherwise would still be chatting on their MySpace pages. And the hatred that he is helping to unleash on this country is indefensible.

He was the butt of a few jokes by comedians at a time that you disapprove of. OK, are you now saying that the ADL is also being mean to him when they call him the "fearmonger in chief?" Will you weep for him over that too?

What did you think of those gun-brandishing "patriots" who showed up for teabagger protests? Were you happy to see all that vitriol targeted at President Obama by a lot of clueless robots who are out their because of talkers like Beck who have only one goal in mind -- to tear down this president after Bush and conservatism tore down our country for the last eight years?

It's not as though Beck himself hasn't been demonizing people -- his McCarthyite attacks on a number of people have not only been absurdly distorted but viciously personal. And it's not as though Beck is an innocent in the media personal-attack game; indeed, you may recall that he was responsible for one of the ugliest on-air smears in broadcast history: When Beck had a falling-out with a former radio-show partner named Bruce Kelly, who became a competitor in the Phoenix market, Beck embarked on a series of dirty tricks, including an invasion of Kelly's wedding. But Beck hit a new low a little later:

The animosity between Beck and Kelly continued to deepen. When Beck and Hattrick produced a local version of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" for Halloween -- a recurring motif in Beck's life and career -- Kelly told a local reporter that the bit was a stupid rip-off of a syndicated gag. The slight outraged Beck, who got his revenge with what may rank as one of the cruelest bits in the history of morning radio. "A couple days after Kelly's wife, Terry, had a miscarriage, Beck called her live on the air and says, 'We hear you had a miscarriage,' " remembers Brad Miller, a former Y95 DJ and Clear Channel programmer. "When Terry said, 'Yes,' Beck proceeded to joke about how Bruce [Kelly] apparently can't do anything right -- about he can't even have a baby."

Two wrongs don't make a right, and here at C&L we've avoided making it personal with Beck (beyond pointing out his utter lunacy). Just because we choose to pitch clean, though, doesn't mean we much mind seeing a toxic clown like Beck face a little chin music.

Please, spare us the tears and defend somebody who truly deserves it.

John Amato...

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Rupert Murdoch, probably the most powerful media mogul in history, submitted to an interview with Sky News Australia's David Speers last week that was incredibly revealing. (We'll have a follow-up post to some of the other things he said. The full interview is here.)

And probably the most revealing was his full-throated defense of Fox News and its War on Obama -- and particularly Glenn Beck for calling President Obama a racist.

When Murdoch poo-poohed the notion that Fox's news coverage was slanted, while its opinion shows like Beck's were supposed to be opinionated, Speers pointed out that the problem was how far Beck was going:

Speers: Glenn Beck who you mentioned has called Barack Obama a racist, and he helped organize a protest against him and others on Fox have likened him (Obama) to Stalin is that defensible?

Murdoch: No, no, no, not Stalin, I don't think, ah, not one of our people.

On the racist thing, that caused a (unintelligible). But he (Obama) did make a very racist comment. Ahhh -- about, you know, blacks and whites and so on, and which he said in his campaign he would be completely above. And um, that was something which perhaps shouldn't have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, he was right.

Well, just for anyone interested, we've provided both in the video above and in transcript below exactly what everybody said.

First, here's what Beck actually said that Murdoch thinks was "right":

Beck: This president has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture, I don't know what it is. But you can’t sit in a pew with Jeremiah Wright for twenty years and not hear some of that stuff and not have it wash over you.

... This guy has a social justice – he is going to set all the wrongs of the past right.

... I’m not saying that he doesn’t like white people. I’m saying he has a problem – he has a – this guy is, I believe, a racist. Look at the things that he has been surrounded by. Let’s look at his new green-jobs czar.

Now, what exactly was it that Obama said that brought Beck to this conclusion -- and which Murdoch claims was a "racist" thing for him to say? Well, he was talking about the Henry Louis Gates arrest:

Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. And that's just a fact.

As you know, Lynn, when I was in the state legislature in Illinois we worked on a racial profiling bill because there was indisputable evidence that blacks and hispanics were being stopped disproportionately. And that is a sign, an example of how, you know, race remains a factor in this society. That doesn't lessen the incredible progress that has been made. I am standing here as testimony to the progress that's been made. And yet, the fact of the matter is that, you know, this still haunts us. And even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and hispanics are picked up more frequently and often time for no cause cast suspicion even when there is good cause, and that's why I think the more that we're working with local law enforcement to improve policing techniques so that we're eliminating potential bias, the safer everybody's going to be.

And this was racist exactly how?

I suppose if you redefined "racism" to include "bringing up historically and factually accurate information about racist behavior of white people", then I suppose you could say that. I don't think we're there yet, but Rupert Murdoch is obviously working on it.

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Even with cognitive dissonance this striking, they still think they've got a right to withhold civil rights from a whole segment of the population:

Maggie Gallagher's disdain for Marriage Equality New York board president Cathy Marino-Thomas was palpable. The feeling, we're guessing, was mutual. The two shared the stage at Hofstra University's “Day of Dialogue," and even outside the confines of a 30-second spot, Gallagher was still trafficking in misinformation. And eye rolls.

We do appreciate the debate over whether our "intolerance" for bigotry is, by definition, hate — of the very same variety we call out and despise daily on this website. That's Gallagher's position: By labeling Prop 8 supporters as advocates of hatred, we're being intolerant ourselves, showing no respect for a difference in viewpoints.

But what Maggie does not, and may never understand is the difference between agreeing to disagree, and actively endorsing discrimination against an entire group of people. For that, we cannot be tolerant. [..]

But here's the soundbite we're holding on to, as Maggie addresses Marino-Thomas: "[Your marriage] may be better, but it's not a marriage. … It's probably better than my marriage to hear you talk about it. I wouldn't talk about my marriage in such glowing terms."

It's so sad that someone who cannot speak well of their own marriage feels it's their right to fight to keep others from having that legal union.

On a related note, it's not a serious move so much as a political statement, but here in California, someone has decided to fight a real threat to the sanctity of marriage: the ability to divorce:

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen today authorized the backer of an initiative that would ban divorce to begin collecting signatures to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters.

John Marcotte now has until March 22, 2010, to collect 694,354 signatures of registered voters in order to get the measure on the ballot next year. The proposal would change the California Constitution to "eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California."[..]:

ELIMINATES THE LAW ALLOWING MARRIED COUPLES TO DIVORCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California. Preserves the ability of married couples to seek an annulment. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Savings to the state of up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for support of the court system due to the elimination of divorce proceedings.

While I obviously don't want my rights taken away (not that I'm planning on divorcing my husband, mind you. He's stuck with me.), I do appreciate the sentiment behind it. My gay uncle's marriage does not harm my marriage, threatens no one else's relationship and it's a ludicrous argument to claim it does. However, the ease in which we may end marriages (one-third of all first marriages end within 10 years, according to the CDC) certainly does. If these wingnuts want to hold up marriage as the foundation of society, then put up or shut up.

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h/t The Political Carnival:

The owner of a restaurant in Georgia says he's merely against what he calls a "sub standard healthcare plan," that he stands by his president, and is simply exercising his First Amendment rights.

I call it something else.

Yeah, I would call it something else as well.

When you walk into the Georgia Peach Oyster Bar in Paulding County, you feel like you've walked into a different era.

Behind the pool tables stands a mannequin in a Klu Klux Klan costume, but it's what's outside of the Patrick Lanzo's restaurant that has some people angry.

Lanzo put up a sign that reads "Obama's plan for health-care: N*&%*r rig it."

CBS Atlanta's Michelle Marsh asked Lanzo why he put up the sign.

"I've been putting up signs for 22 years and I've put up all kinds of political signs," said Lanzo.

“Why did you use the N word?” Marsh asked.

“Well, I’ve used it most of my life. There are different ways to put your opinion up, but that's just the words I choose,” Lanzo answered.

Despite the sign, Lanzo said he's not a racist.

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Conservatives are so against President Obama that they actually hoped America would lose the 2016 bid for the Olympics. That would have been a huge stimulus package, but Republicans show their true colors about job creation for their own country.

Americans For Prosperity show their hatred for America.

During the Americans For Prosperity's "Defending the American Dream Summit," blogger Emily Marie Zanotti of American Princess interrupted a discussion about engaging the right online to announce that Chicago was out of the running -- and the room erupted in applause.

"If anyone cares, Chicago is out," Zanotti said. When the crowd asked what happened, she said, "The very first vote, they did not have any chance at even negotiating. They were out on the first vote." That news was met with more cheers and high-fives.

The Weekly Standard also embarrassed their publication with this one.

Soon after news broke that the International Olympic Committee had rejected Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics, which President Obama had personally lobbied for, Weekly Standard blogger John McCormack published a celebratory post on the magazine’s blog, titled “Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!.” McCormack wrote that “Cheers erupt at WEEKLY STANDARD world headquarters.
--
But the post has now been changed. The reference to cheers have been removed and the title has been shortened to a non-exclamatory “Chicago Loses.” The current post neither acknowledges nor explains the changes that were made.

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Rep. Alan Grayson had to remind the Republicans that they need to remember what country they live in.

"Someone should remind them what team they're really on"

And the money keeps coming in for Rep. Grayson.

A poll that appeared on Facebook which asked if President Obama should be murdered was pulled and now the U.S. Secret Service is investigating.

The U.S. Secret Service is investigating an online survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated, officials said Monday.

The poll, posted Saturday on Facebook, was taken off the popular social networking site quickly after company officials were alerted to its existence. But, like any threat against the president, Secret Service agents are taking no chances.

"We are aware of it and we will take the appropriate investigative steps," said Darrin Blackford, a Secret Service spokesman. "We take of these things seriously."

The poll asked respondents "Should Obama be killed?" The choices: No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.

The question was not created by Facebook, but by an independent person using an add-on application that has been suspended from the site.

President Obama will never allow himself to comment on this hatred, but this is serious stuff. If a poll like this was discovered when Bush was in office, it would be FOX News' number one story for weeks and weeks and would probably end up on Meet the Press in a roundtable discussion that would go something like: Should President Bush be worried? And are left-wingers fomenting this hate? I think the Secret Service has its hands full, that's for sure.

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Michelle Malkin was the featured guest on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night to talk about President Obama's address to the United Nations, and it was a sight to behold. A wretched, horrifyingly ugly sight, but yeah, a sight:

Malkin: He doesn't like this country very much. And I think you did a great video tour there of all of his wonderful hits on his "We Suck '09" tour, ah, so far. And this latest speech before the United Nations and its cast of villainous characters -- it was really a Legion of Doom parade that he dignified with his presence -- and he solidified his place in the international view as the Great Appeaser and the Groveler in Chief!

Hannity finds it "almost shocking" that "Obama was saying we're not going to force our values on you." Malkin correctly calls this "a rejection of American exceptionalism" -- as though that were a bad thing. Maybe that's one of the differences between movement conservatives and sane people: The latter do not harbor megalomaniacal visions of American power ruling the world and forcing our values on other nations.

Ah, but we liberals are so naive, Malkin says, because "hatred of America is never going to go away" -- which is probably true. On the other hand, policies that arrogantly inflame and deepen that hatred are not, you know, really in our best interests.

And then Malkin finishes with a flourish:

Malkin: With this speech, and over the last eight months with his policies of retreat and surrender, he has solidified his place as the weakest of weak leaders of modern American history. There's no question about it! They laugh at us! He is a laughingstock.

There she goes, projecting again.

At some point, you have to wonder whether these people understand that the angrier and more venomous and more hateful they become, the more disempowered they become? Because the only people who are going to be convinced by this kind of nastiness are already True Believers. And even some of them may take pause at how bottomless is the pit from which this stuff crawls.

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Chris Matthews was off this week with Norah O'Donnell filling in so there is one good thing I can say about this week's show. None of the guests were interrupted or talked over. That said, check out this ridiculous "Matthews Meter" question. And six of their panelists thought the venom was partly Obama's fault, including Howard Fineman.

Once again driftglass nails this one in his post Sunday Morning Comin' Down -- "The Tell-Tweety Heart" (warning, not safe for work):

Epilogue:

While six of the "journalists" who make up the "Matthew's Meter" say, yes, the anti-Obama hatred was unavoidable, six say Obama partly brought it on himself.

Fineman: He didn’t talk to Main Street. He needs to spend every minute of every day constantly reassure crazy people on the Right that he doesn’t want to abort Sarah Palin's baby and shoot grandma in the head or turn Murrica into a Franco-Islamic Communist Caliphate. This is perhaps unfair, but after all, he is Black.

Jokeline: I was at some town meetings this summer, most recently in Arkansas. And this is an awful lot about race. And not just because of Obama’s name or skin color. If you’re working class white, you’re seeing Latinos and Asians.

driftglass: And bears. Oh my.

But why is this coming up now during a health care debate?

Jokeline: Because they’re being egged on by demagogues in the Republican Party. By Boss Rush Limbaugh. And I call him The Boss, because there is not a single, Republican elected official who is willing to call him out on his lies.

Cooper: Because there are a lot of White people – particularly in the South – who have just lost their s#%t over a Black man being President.

Fineman: Let me repeat it in case I was not condescending enough the first time – this White House needs to constantly kiss wingnut ass every way they can think of. Maybe it’s unfair, but after all, he is Black. Also he was forced to behave like a filthy, filthy Liberal to save the economy from crashing and burning, and the doublewide trailer crowd who his policies probably saved from living in refrigerator boxes and begging for nickels on freeway overpasses will never forgive him for it.

There's lots more at driftie's place. Go on over there and check out the entire post. I don't want to give too much of it away to spoil the fun, but I thought it was priceless.

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Tim Wise asks when the Republican Party is going to reject the racist rhetoric and dog-whistle politics coming from the likes of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other right wing radio and television hosts. Don Lemon asks him if they are aware that they are doing it or not and as Wise notes, it doesn't matter. They still need to be held accountable for their actions and the predictable outcomes of those actions.

Don Lemon should have known better than to have even asked that question. Of course they are fully aware of what they are doing. It is exactly what they are being paid very highly to do which is to deligitimize our President in the hopes of taking him down because he has a "D" behind his name. They did the same thing to Bill Clinton even though he could have just as well been a Republican with the way he governed, and they're doing it again to Barack Obama. The GOP has been playing the same games with the dog-whistle politics and race baiting for ages now. So to answer Wise's question about when are they going to reject stoking that racism. Never. Never, ever as long as it wins them elections.

LEMON: OK. So we are going to continue our discussion now over the health care rallies and the tone of what's going on in the country. Tim Wise joins us. He's frequent here on the show. The author of "Between Barack and a Hard Place" and among the most prominent anti- racist activist in the country. Thank you, sir. Always good to see you.

TIM WISE, AUTHOR "BETWEEN Barack AND A HARD PLACE": You, too.

LEMON: You heard the chairman from Florida say no, it is not race.

WISE: I did.

LEMON: It does a disservice. You heard David Sirota say it is the elephant in the room.

WISE: Right. Well like I said in the show before, it is the background noise of a lot of the opposition, not all of it but a lot of it. You know, when you have someone like Glen Beck saying as he did about a month ago that the health care debate isn't really about that. It is just reparations for black people, where you have Rush Limbaugh yesterday on the air saying first that community service is the first step towards fascism, which is bizarre even for him.

And then almost immediately after that saying one of the problems with America is too much multi culturalism. You wouldn't say that unless you are trying to stoke white racial resentment. And so when you say those things, I want to know when are Republican leaders going to condemn that kind of rhetoric because that is where race is being interjected. It is interjected by us, it's interested by the leading talk show hosts in this country.

LEMON: I mean, but is it knowingly or is it maybe unwittingly they're doing it and maybe they don't realize they are doing it.

WISE: Well, two things, it may be either or but it doesn't matter. I mean, racism needs to be evaluated based on outcome. If you do something which has a predictable consequence, you have to be accountable for that consequence. So for example, when Glen Beck lied and said that Van Jones was involved in the Los Angeles riots which was not true. That is a very clear, as David said, dog whistle politic moment.

You're saying that because you know that the L.A. riots are viewed as this racialized rebellion and it scares white folks to death. So you say that about this man. It isn't true. Glenn Beck had to know that wasn't true. That is a way to scare white folks. Where race comes in, it is old fashion but it's white racial resentment that they are trying to whip up.

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Probably the most ironic -- no, make that flat-out bizarre -- aspect of Glenn Beck's ultimately successful campaign to force out Van Jones is that it was predicated on Jones' supposed indulgence in extremist rhetoric ideas.

This isn't just a matter of the pot calling the kettle black. It's more like the black hole calling the sunspot dark.

Glenn Beck's history of indulging in extremism -- not just turning a blind eye to its presence, but promoting it outright to an audience of millions -- is so deep and wide that whatever indiscretions Jones might be guilty of fade into total insignificance.

Of course, we're all familiar with the remarks that lie at so much of the root of this matter: Beck's outrageous claims that President Obama is a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred of white people", which prompted a largely succesful campaign by Color of Change to encourage advertisers to pull their support for Beck's Fox News program. But that, frankly, is barely scratching the surface.

Keith Olbermann has put out a plea for information about Beck's own background in outrageous remarks. Of course, all he probably needs to do is go through the C&L archives on Beck for everything he needs.

Still, what Olbermann -- and everyone else wondering how to fight back from this latest round of right-wing viciousness -- should focus on is the inordinate number of times that Beck has simply promoted extremist ideas and memes straight out of the most fringe elements of the American far right.

It goes back several years. Beck, in fact, openly promoted the John Birch Society and its "New World Order" conspiracy theories frequently when he was still at CNN Headline News. As I observed at the time:

Beck is busy building a narrative that not only opens the Pandora's Box of mass public consumption of far-right conspiracism, it also portrays the most hateful and paranoid and poisonous bloc of American politics as credible and normative.

Since joining Fox in January of this year, however, the tendency has not only intensified, it's simply gone off the rails.

Most notably, Beck has actively promoted ideas, theories, and concepts taken directly from the far-right "Patriot"/militia movement, many of which in turn derive from the ugliest sector of the right, white supremacy:

-- He "war-gamed" out an apocalytpic American future in which society has completely crumbled, leaving behind a "Road Warrior" society in which militias remained the only defenders of the remnants of white society.

-- He told his audience for several weeks running that he "could not disprove" the existence of concentration camps run by FEMA in which conservatives were to be rounded up. After a few weeks of this, he finally ran a segment that in fact did debunk these claims, explaining that in reality all of the supposed "evidence" for these camps was the product of a long-running hoax that began in the 1990s with the "Patriot"/militia movement. (He then later claimed that he had done nothing to promote these theories.)

-- He ran several segments, including one on his radio show, in which he promoted the concept of the secession of Texas from the Union. A little later, he tried to pretend he didn't agree with the concept while in fact giving a secessionist the opportunity to promote his plans to Beck's audience.

-- He regularly promoted "one world government" paranoia. This included a supposed plot to put us all on a global currency controlled by the New World Order.

-- He tried to argue that the chief cause of the sour economy was the United States' reliance on a central banking system.

-- He hosted an entire hourlong segment devoted to promoting militia-derived constitutional theories about state sovereignty.

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Eric Boehlert at Media Matters wonders if Glenn Beck has forgotten that the entire reason he is in hot water with advertisers revolves around the fact that he called the President of the United States a "racist" and someone who has "a deep-seated hatred of white people".

Because, you know, in all of his lashing out this week and last at his critics, he has yet to address this central point. Certainly he has not apologized for it. In fact, he's acting as though he never actually said it. As Boehlert puts it:

I ask because watch this clip below of Beck on Bill O'Reilly's show this week and watch as the two men bemoan the attempts by nasty liberals "loons" to shut Beck up; to snatch away his Freedom of Speech.

What's rather astonishing is that while Beck and O'Reilly clearly make (indirect) references to the ad boycott campaign, they never explain to viewers what sparked the outrage. They never explain why. They never explain the campaign was launched in direct response to the fact that Beck went on national television and called the President of the United State a "racist"; somebody who flashed a "deep-seated hatred of white people."

At Fox News, that smear has been flushed down the memory hole, and all that's left is playing victim.

Ah, but here's the one thing: If you've been watching Beck this week on his program, he's been imploring his audience to record it -- write it all down, even -- because it's the Most Important Stuff They'll Ever Watch on the Teevee.

That's because, if you watch what he's been doing so far, what seems to be emerging is that he is basically building a case justifying his declaration that Obama is a racist who hates white people.

This became crystal-clear midway through his Fox News program Thursday night, during a segment featuring ex-Democrat now complete loser Patrick Caddell and the ever-vivacious Michelle Malkin to heartily agree with whatever craziness came burbling out of his mouth.

They were all gathered to talk about the "army" of "thugs" that President Obama is planning to gather under the combined umbrellas of ACORN, SEIU, Color of Change and whatever other insidious "radicals" Beck believes he's uncovered.

And what does this "army" of "thugs" look like?

Why, they're all black people, of course.

Watch the segment and observe the examples he offers of the kinds of "thugs" he says Obama intends to incorporate into his army: some gun-toting Black Panthers, a shot from a Louis Farrakhan sermon before a Nation of Islam gathering, and a group of young black men doing military-style exercises.

This, as he explained earlier in the show, will be "Obama's SS."

So we now can see the arc of Beck's thesis this week: He was right to call President Obama an anti-white racist because he is this very moment forming an army of militant black thugs to take over your white neighborhoods and threaten your children and impose a liberal fascist state.

Or something like that.

You do have to wonder when the honchos at Fox will realize that Glenn Beck may bring in the ratings, but he is inflicting a deep scar on their brand name that will be a long time fading.

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Glenn Beck seems to be feeling sorry for himself for having brought down a brickload of opprobrium -- and fleeing advertisers -- for having called President Obama a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people".

So he brought on the big guns to defend his teary-eyed self: Rush Limbaugh. No black hole emerged from the critical mass of so much wingnuttery on one program, but it did produce a yawning maw of first-tier fearmongering, colored with a garish streak of self-pity.

Beck started off the festivities with a brief reference to his, ah, persecution at hands of liberal blue meanies:

Beck: Oh sure, they're tearing me apart -- but none of the facts! Write what you learn on this show down. Write these questions down and demand answers.

Because it's not my America we're talking about here. It's all of ours -- left, right, Democrat, Republican -- all of our freedom of speech is on the ropes. And questioning your government is not only important, it is -- in a democratic republic, which I think we still have, it is required of you. Freedom of speech is under attack.

Then came on the Big Man himself, who declared Beck heroic for bearing up under siege from those liberal meanies, who want to "silence" right-wing talkers like themselves:

Limbaugh: This whole administration is as radical and far left as any that the country has ever had. And what they're trying to do here to communications is simply stifle dissenting voices. They're trying to wipe out any opposition. If you look at Barack Obama and his track record as a politician, it is to clear the playing field. He doesn't even like debating his opponents. He just wants to get rid of them.

Quoth the man whose frequently-expressed desire to "do away with all the liberals" inspired The Eliminationists. But then, Limbaugh is nothing if not the Master of the Projection Strategy.

Thus inspired to new depths, Beck then unleashes one of his patented paranoid fantasies about how somebody from the right is going to do something ugly and give the Obamabots the excuse to "seize power overnight":

Beck: If you watch MSNBC, I contend that you will see the future. Because they are laying the ground for a horrible event that will be -- eh, what they're laying the ground for, anything from the right, they're -- some awful event -- and I fear this government, this administration, has so much framework already prepared that they will seize power overnight before anybody even gives it a second thought!

Hmmmm. Yeah, it'll be the fault of those darn liberals at MSNBC -- and not right-wing fearmongers like Beck and Limbaugh who are constantly frothing up mindless hysteria about Obama and the Democrats -- who will be responsible when some right-wing extremist blows up another federal building. Right.

Limbaugh, in response, saves the best for last:

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