There's been much rending of clothing over the publication that Glenn Beck puts out all sorts of crap. By "crap" I mean stuff that is either demonstrably false, or connections between events that exist only in his fevered imagination.
Once upon a time, there was another man who ruled via crap. He put the fear of God in to a former Army General and future President when he slimed the Chief of Staff during the Second World War and Secretary of State during the early post-war years. He lied about his service record. His name was Joseph McCarthy.
During hearings in 1954 concerning whether or not some dentists in the Army had been members of organizations that may or may not have ties to the Communist Party, McCarthy went too far. In the course of the proceedings, McCarthy broke a tacit agreement between the special counsel for his committee and the attorney representing those who were before the committee. A member of the law firm representing those before the committee had been, as a youth, a member of a left-wing organization for a couple years. This was well known, and it was agreed upon beforehand, between Roy Cohn and Joseph Welch that this young man would not assist Welch and that no one on the committee would mention either the young man's application to assist Welch, or anything about his past.
Joe, however, was having none of it. He not only brought it up; he went on and on and on about it. After having run out of steam, Welch asked a point of privilege, and destroyed McCarthy's career with one simple sentence: "Have you no decency, sir, at long last?"
It's been a long time since such a clear message of moral right was enough to rid us of a scourge. No, Beck has no decency, if he ever did. Yet, what is Beck than the offspring of Limbaugh and Hannity and Coulter and Schlesinger and the rest of the right-wing gabbers who earn buckets of money without a single virtue worthy of the name to their public careers? Like McCarthy, Beck is both reckless and cruel, but he gets paid a whole lot of money to be reckless and cruel and two million people watch him every single day because he is reckless and cruel.
Being right is no defense against success like Beck's. Being a better human being is no defense. There is, quite literally, nothing that can be done. Only Beck can destroy himself (in much the way McCarthy did, in some respects). At the point that he actually angers the folks who pay to keep him on the air, he's finished. Up until that point, we are stuck with him.
It would be nice if there were a Joseph Welch out there who could put an end to Beck. Or Hannity. Or News Corp. as a whole. There isn't.
From a better, vanished age . . .
