O'Reilly, with Hearst, Welch , Beck and Schock

SCATTERINGS:


The pushback by Fox News on Bill O'Reilly's gilded  memoirs that claimed (finally!) he witnessed the war zone from photographs recalls an earlier day when  war was the big story  in the newspapers.    It was the time of the Cuban revolt in the late 1890s when William Randolph Hearst was in the thick of a circulation battle with Joseph Pulitizer. Hearst, forever the show-biz publisher, sent Frederic Remington, a renowned artist,  to Cuba to decorate the articles in the Hearst  papers. His memorable instruction to Remington:

"You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

* * * * *

As President Obama's policies are forever bashed by a vengeful Republican congress, you have to wonder whether the  day will ever arrive when a gentle Boston lawyer like Joseph Welch at the Army-McCarthy hearings will  go at the villainous Sen. Cruz et al  with a plaintive plea, coaxing:

"Senator, have you no sense of decency?"

* * * * *
Glenn Beck wants America to know that he's abandoned the Republican Party. Right out the door!  Not  a dime more will he contribute to the GOP.    Believes Republicans are too soft on Obama.  "They are not good,": he pontificates.   But isn't he a bit presumptuous to think that most Americans give a damn about what he is?  So, Glenn, we can only add:  "Don't let the door slam you in the ass."

And while Beck's  out, Donald Trump says he's  in .  As a presidential candidate with an exploratory committee.  Is his business that dull that he needs more excitement  as one of America's elite egotists?  Maybe.  After all , here's what he says about a candidacy:

"I am the only one who can make America truly great again."

* * * * *
Not a good week for rising Republican stars, past and present.  If you saw my earlier piece on rising stars, those bright gaseous objects in the heavens, you'll know that I have an amateur astronomer's interest in rising political stars that never made it.  Here are the latest to add to the list:

Aaron Schock,  the young Illinois Republican congressman who resigned after POLITICO   outed his extravagances in mileage reimbursements as well as furnishing his office in the Rayburn House Office Buiilding (including a bust of Abraham Lincoln and  pheasant feathers )  to create the ambiance  of Downton Abbey. Said POLITICO:

"Schock's resignation marks a swift downfall of  one of the GOP's most promising young stars and prolific fundraisers." Back to earth at age 33.

And then came word of  a return to prison of former Republican Gov. John G. Rowland of Connecticut on corruption charges. The New York Times reported that the 57-year-old ex-governor was first "elected to office at age 23 and was soon hailed as one of the Republican Party's brightest stars."

No soft landing for either of these guys.

(For some reason, Democrats don't produce as many  rising young stars.  The one who comes most readily to mind is a former Illinois senator who, as he will tell you, "won both of them". ) 
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Jim Allen: the ex-county chairman won't be playing in Farmersville anymore

Just when you wanted to believe that with the Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks and Michele Bachmanns still on the loose  in full voice, nobody could top them with dumber-than-dumb political trash talk.  Well, someone just did, and so much for the career of an Illinois  Republican county chairman named Jim Allen of the unheralded village of Farmersville, Ill. (pop. 723) in downstate Montgomery County. (If you've just pulled out your Rand McNally road atlas,  Farmersville isn't that far from Divernon, Ill.)

Allen, beset by troubled reaction from GOP higher-ups, including National Chairman Reince Priebus, resigned in the wake of his comments that Erika Harold (shown here), a former Miss America running for congress in the Republican primary,  was a "street walker"  supported by her "pimps" among Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Limbaugh settled for "slut" in recklessly ill-defining Sandra Fluke's off-hours behavior.

But when guys like Priebus are so openly annoyed by  one of the party's official enablers that he called Allen's behavior "inexcusable'" and "not to be tolerated, you know that the ex-county chairman exceeded what's left of the levels of decency for the party's alleged brand. Allen recanted with an apology, but you know how those things go these days.

But Allen did earn a  citation from Grumpy Abe otherwise known as the Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) Award. Somehow,  I still don't feel it fits the slanderous crime by this party operative.

Oh, Allen also accused Harold of being a notorious "RINO" - a Republican in Name Only.  But as they genuflect  to a Tea Party culture,  isn't it a bit of a stretch to refer to any of them as a Republican?

Cornyn revives the hostile French connection

To hear Sen John Cornyn, the Texas Republican,  tell  it, the French are back to haunt America's way of life, both in war and peace. He says he has informed by a "guy" that French-speaking people were among the illegal immigrants crossing the border into Texas.  (Some  of the others were heard "speaking Chinese or basically all of the languages in the world...") But specific mention of the French  took us back to a decade ago when the  offended patriots in the U.S.House of Representatives boldly changed the name of French fries to "Freedom fries" in  the House cafeterias in a blunt reprisal for France's  refusal to join us in invading Iraq. Not one of democracy's finer hours.

Two Republicans who led  the demolition of Gallic fries were Reps. Walter Jones of North Carolina and Bob Ney of Ohio , the latter moving on to still greater heights by pleading guilty to corruption charges and spending some time in prison for his inexcusable  bad judgment.

Sacre bleu! (Update: French fries have regained their original name and are again being served  in the cafeteria.)

P.S. For all of his partisan concern about lax border security, surely the senator must know that border crossings  are now down to where they were under President Nixon.

* * * * *

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative Great White Whale, has conducted his own probe of the same-sex marriage issue and identified the homosexual perps as the "Gay Mafia".  We're not sure where he would cast the blame for his own four marriages.

* * * * *

Proving once against that even crackpots can earn fortunes in America, Glenn Beck is now "reporting" that Rep. Michele Bachmann is being investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics because it has been infiltrated by radical Muslims.   "We have been sold to radical Islam", he warned.  "It has been infiltrated and we have documented it."
Bachmann supposedly provoked the blowback last year by asserting that important aides in the Obama Administration were connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.  

I can't make this up, but Beck can - and often does.

Is the problem the protests? Or Beck's Wall Street?

IF IT'S NOT ONE thing it's another as conservatives recoil from the Wall Street demonstrations as if colonial America had been peacefully hatched from an ostrich egg. I can tell you the weathiest among us don't like it one bit despite their respectful silence over the rise of Tea Party protests. (We want our country back! Remember?)

So it's not surprising that one of the right wing's leading head cases, Glenn Beck, has assumed his familiar Paul Revere persona by warning his audience of the revolutionary intent of the protestors. Here's what he had to say about it, and if you're not a millionaire, you can stop reading now:

'Capitalists if you think that you can play footsies with these people you're wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you."

In his view, what else can you expect from "Marxist radicals"? Or "Robespierre." Whichever comes first, I guess. Actually, Beck was among those who came first in vigorously promoting the Tea Party rallies.

There have been many other warnings from the voices on the right (and middle in some instances) who are clearly troubled by any disruption that would cause Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley et al a good night's sleep. Caught with their free-speech notions down, some of the broadcast chatterers have had no trouble being quite picky about the thrust of the protests. They have complained that there is no defined purpose, no facile organizational structure, no homogeneous leadership - just noise in the streets. It is the media's way of saying Hang on, Sloopy, the protestors will go away. My hunch, however, is that this is more than a fleeting moment of dissent. And I also have a hunch that the movement's worried critics would privately agree with me.

We went through much of this during the Viet Nam protests that eventually dominated the narrative. Good Lord. Polite society then asked, should we be listening to anti-war hippies, Communists, stragglers and the misguided sons and daughters of corporate managers - a gathering that started spontaneously and raised the ante to the highest levels of government. (It forced LBJ to step aside from the race.)

Unsurprisingly, many of the media voices and pols have not said much about the target of the protests, Wall Street's malignant schemes that ignited the great economic dive that began back in the 90s. You don't bite the hand that feeds you, and the corporate media know that better than anybody else. Americans have been slow to respond to the perps of their loss of homes, jobs, income and optimism for a better future. At least they need to see why it turned out that way.

The real problem isn't in the streets, folks.

The Wingies are spinning the earthquake

The latest word from Planet Loco:

Glenn Beck says the Japanese catastrophe could be a precursor (my word, obviously not his) to the end of the world.

Bill O'Reilly says the media are guilty of "hyping" the seriousness of radioactive fallout.

Rush Limbaugh used the tragic occasion to to joke about environmentalists.

As Joseph Welch plaintively asked during the McCarthy hearings: "At long last, have you no sense of decency?"

Not then. Not now.

Are these the cries of the wilderness?

WHO WOULD HAVE thought that we would be closing out a terribly troubled year with so much attention being paid to the minor crisis of sobbing adults? To all of the sobbers of the world it is a phenomenon for which they can give deserving credit to John Boehner. As you might have noticed, he has revived official sobbing to a new level of honored masculine achievement as he tearfully reflects on rising from an Ohio nobody to achieve the American Dream as the next Speaker of the House..

I've witnessed several instant sobbers besides Boehner. Glenn Beck, Alex Arshinkoff and my mother, may she rest in peace. Mom was a professional mourner in our little town and often showed up at wakes for people she didn't know, where she joined in tearful respect for the deceased. Unfortunately, it never occurred to her that that she was participating in the American Dream. Nor that some day as a woman with Old World traditions, she might hold public office.

Well, had she seen Boehner and the others showering tears in public, she would have been deeply moved, even though it was unlikely that she would have been motivated enough to go to the polls on Election Day.

But the current story line is sort of refreshing. The holiday season will now have a less threatening story line of pending school closings, higher unemployment and reports that Sen. Jim DeMint, the Vader figure from South Carolina, was preparing to have a voluminous report on the START treaty read, word for word, to block any further action. On the other hand there could be Republican filibusters to shut down the government altogether even though DeMint believes that forcing the pols to work through the Christmas season is totally "unChristian."

While I'm at it, may I suggest a way to discourage filibusters? Wouldn't it help if the senators were not paid for time they were idling while a distinguished colleague was reading the "Epic of Gilgamesh?"

If you really want to see uncontrollable sobbing all over the Senate chamber, I think my idea is worth a try. Money talks more than epics.

Beware the hermit crabs in the political class

THE LATE A.J. LIEBLING, the iconoclastic journalist and acerbic critic of newspapers, once described two Columbus papers housed under the same roof as "two hermit crabs living in the same shell." That also seems to be the crabby case now with the former Republican Party and its Tea Party proprietor that have been clawing the Obama Administration. In their meteoric rise, the TP's have shared time, space and manic attacks on their Democratic victims as well as bashing some of the programs that have been around for more than three-quarters of a century. For example, Social Security.

While many Republican pols find ways to lessen the political consequences of an all-out appeal for ending the program that has served countless millions of retirees, the Tea Partiers toss it into the same stew as, say, street cleaning or 4th of July fireworks. If it comes from the government (i.e., taxpayers) , it has got to go. Some of the very same pols even quietly deny that they are in accord with their Tea Party friends on all counts and that neither occupant of the shell really wants to deprive us of monthly Social Security payments. That's baloney, of course., that only the Fox News culture would have us believe.

I would excuse some Tea Partiers who only know what they heard from Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. But if you want to know what they are really thinking, pay attention to Dick Armey, the former Texas congressman and bloated chairman of FreeomWorks, whose comfort zone is squarely in the Tea Party base. In an interview with ThinkProgress at a Tea Party rally in Chicago, Armey declared that Social Secruity was a "corrupt goverment practice" and a "pay-as-your-go Ponzi scheme."

Such damning seems to come easily for a person of Armey's means who would live very well, thank you, without those monthly checks. Trouble is, such calculated madness has taken root in a lot of people for whom Social Security, Medicare and other forms for federal assistance are literally keeping them alive these days. W hen the wealthiest among us pretend to empathize with folks living on the edge, what hope is there for a level playing field in this year's elections?

Next logical step: Reforming the 10 Commandments

A FRIEND WHO FINALLY landed a job as a fast-food dishwasher in Washington reports that John Boehner & Co. have decided to strike out in a startling new direction from months of calling for changes in the Constitution.. "They've decided there isn't much more mileage to be gained with the voters who have a short interest span anyway and they plan a major assault on the Ten Commandments," he told me.

"That's pretty risky business, " I said. "The Commandments have been around for a long time."

"Apparently that makes no difference to the reformers. They say that given the current mood of the country they can't afford to pass up this window of opportunity to advance their goals for a permanent Republican majority."

"Yes, that does make some sense. What are Commandments for if you can't break them as needed. Do they want to rewrite all of them?"

"No, that would be too disruptive for all of the TV preachers who condition their troops for Republican causes. At the moment, they are only looking at the Ninth Commandment."

"Which is ---?"

"---You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. They will argue that the Commandment is obsolete inasmuch as it was handed to Moses long before there was a Glenn Beck or Michele Bachmann. But they feel a wisp of guilt when their children and grandchildren are around. By eliminating the Commandment, they can do what they are already doing without having to explain it to their families."

"Wow! They always think of something."

"They're just getting started. When Boehner becomes the House Speaker in the next Congress they have plans go after other things that we have long taken for granted."

"For instance?"

"I can only say that two congressmen from Texas came into our restaurant the other day to pass out copies of a new Boy Scout Oath."

Glenn Beck: the opposite of Plato's noble liar

THREE CHEERS FOR today's Plain Dealer for reporting another of Glenn Beck's reckless lies, this one to the throng of lemmings at the Lincoln Memorial. Rising to his task of... uh, restoring honor to America, Beck shrieked: "The government is trying now to close the Lincoln Memorial for any kind of large gatherings. This may be the last large gathering ever to assemble at the Lincoln Memorial. Historic. Historic."

With that symbolic clanging of the Liberty Bell, Beck would be assured of having his audience safely in tow for any other outrages that spewed from his platform. (No evidence that he also wet his diaper.) .

But wait! According to the PD's PolitiFact report, there are absolutely no plans to close the Lincoln Memorial to public gatherings. It noted that the Los Angeles Times had contacted the National Park Service, which called Beck's statements "baseless and wrong." Beck's propaganda team did not respond to requests to clarify his remarks. Surprise.

OK. With that settled, can we move on?. Not really. My hunch is that Beck's Svengali-like hold on his worshipers is so complete that any fan who heard this whopper will continue to spread the word that it's true. He knows that. So he continues to destroy reality. It's made him rich.

There are two ways to deal with Beck. You can ignore him and hope that he will go away. He won't. In fact, he will widen the playing field. You can also give him all of the exposure that he is seeking to nourish his mad ego and hope that somehow it will bring a lot of ordinary Americans to the front lines to challenge him and his ilk. So far, however, his style is winning with many of the Republicans campaigning for the November elections. It won't be pretty.

Glenn Beck's feel-good way of embracing your honor

GLENN BECK IS LURING the best and the brightest of his crusaders to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial this week end to, as he calls it, restore our honor. Not a moment too soon , either. After the Beck right-wingers have been wringing honor from all of us for an eternity, I've been feeling a little shaky when the Stars and Stripes passed by. The latest downer is from that Louisiana congressman who swears that America has reached the point where we must decide whether we want to make this nation a hotbed of Christianity or the cesspool of atheism. I should add that he's running for reelection and doesn't want to take the risk of his jambalaya getting cold with the voters.

As we learned from the on-site historical reports of the Spanish Inquisition, which was aimed at Jews and Muslims, Christianity had some bad days long before Beck arrived before the TV cameras. Beck, however, was very much alive when he settled most doubts about his sanity in assuring all of us that he was not a zombie. How comforting! Still, that left open a lot of other possibilities of what he might be, none of which would qualify for his comfort zone.

I guess I could show my respect for Beck's pursuit of honor by attending his rally. But I think I'll wait for an account of it in another of Anne Rice's vampire chronicles. To my knowledge Beck has never denied that he was a vampire.

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Outrage: It's all the rage in America today

OUTRAGE HAS become a defining moment in the nation's psyche, not only from the Tea Partyers, but also from a lot of other people who cannot sit still on a hot summer evening and get a therapeutic laugh from Seinfeld. ( You might already see the extent of my TV diversions.). So where to begin to make my case?

Thanks to the fact that we have an African-American president, slavery is making it back in the hot discussion of America's values. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, full of rage, lashed Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert for morphing LeBron James into a "runaway slave" - which was kind of shocking inasmuch as runaway slaves never left town as a zillionaire with expectations of starring on a NBA championship team. Gilbert, of course, had lit the fuse with a clinically isolated example of searing outrage aimed at Mr. James - who lived through the experience without a single hint of anger about his new digs.

It reached a point in that exchange of outrage that some others took umbrage that Zydrunas Ilgouskas, the Cavaliers Eiffel Tower center (and equally immobile) did not produce the same outrage from the fans when he joined his itinerant teammate in Miami. Once again, the connective tissue was outrage, which never seems to tire sports fans.

And wouldn't you know that Rep. Michele Bachmann, the loony Republican from Minnesota, again expressed her outrage that President Obama was, in her words, channeling us into a "nation of slaves." Some Republicans are outraged daily by Michael Steele, the party's national chairman. The latest outburst was produced by Steele's accusation that Afghanistan was first conceived by Obama. My only conclusion is that the GOP hawks do not want to be denied the honor of calling it their war.

The NAACP slammed the Tea Partyers with a resolution charging them with racism - a charge that was heatedly denied by the TP upper classmen who have yet to explain why there are so many racist placards at some of their outings.

Glenn Beck, who markets outrage between commercials, is doubtless at sixes and sevens now that surveys have shown that he has lost half of his audience. Rep. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican, was outraged by the Administration's demand that BP set up a fund to pay off people stricken by the oil spill. He meekly apologized to BP, calling Obama's effort a $20 billion "shakedown."

It looks like NASA's prediction that 2010 will be the hottest on record will be realized - not all of it by global warming.

Beck rants against evils of World Cup

IT MUST HAVE BEEN a slow news week for Glenn Beck, the Fox court jester. He has now ranted against the World Cup. Beck, who has made Professor Backward seem lucid in contrast, is telling his eager fans that soccer is evil, that it has been "jammed down the throats" of unsuspecting Americans by international conspirators who don't have our honorable best interests at heart. Here's his spin:"

"It doesn't matter how you sell it to us. It doesn't matter how many celebrities you get. It doesn't matter how many bars open early (He could probably name some.) . It doesn't matter how many beer commercials they run. We don't want the World Cup. We don't like the World Cup. We don't like soccer. We want nothing to do with it..."

There are two problems with Beck's babble. (1)As Media Matters points out, 120 million Americans "did enjoy" the World Cup on TV in 2006. (2)His company has its own soccer outlet: Fox Soccer Channel. I'll leave it at that and simply give him a Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) Award.

A featherhead's idea for cluckers

TWO MORE ITEMS for a time capsule that will help future historians define our generation of deep political thinkers:

SUE LOWDEN, a Republican senatorial candidate in Nevada, has proposed a simple solution to the nation's soaring health insurance costs. It works this way: the next time you visit your doctor, bring along a chicken to pay for your treatment. Although she hasn't said so, we presume the chicken is alive. Or is it? Either way, a chicken is the symbol of an old bartering system that Ms. Lowden wants to create. If the doctor refuses to go along with your feathery offer, try to persuade him or her with two chickens. She's confident it will work. "Doctors are very sympathetic people," she clucks. Sounds crazy, I know. But you must remember that Ms. Lowden is the former chairwoman of Nevada's Republican Party.

*****

Glenn Beck, the right-wing oddball, says he celebrated Earth Day by burning his garbage with styrofoam. He also leaves his car outside his studio with the motor idling to do his part for global warming. It would be nice if he made some sense once in a while. But what can anybody do about a guy who was born in a squirrel's nest and lives in a tree?

UPDATE: NEVADA? THE LATEST VEGAS LINE GIVES 500-1 ODDS AGAINST THE DOCS ACCEPTING THE CHICKENS.

Life on the maniacal front

THE VOTE IS IN, AND by a tally of 1-0, Glenn Beck has been narrowly elected as the Maniac of the Week. He outlasted Karl Rove and Liz Cheney by a single slur. More about them later.

As he has shown in the past, Beck's need for public attention, a deranged cry for help that doubtless arose in his near-drowning years ago in a rain puddle, is no thing of beauty. (On the other hand, he's lucky. Turkeys are known to drown in rain puddles because they are too dumb to raise their heads). This week, against strong competition , Beck again exposed his pathetically vacuous self by taking on America's churches. Atheists have done that, too, albeit with more restraint, but Beck is no atheist (He's a Mormon, obviously still a work in progress.) According to this Fox News payroller, anybody who attends a church that has a regard for social justice is either a Nazi or a Communist. He wants these churchgoers to flee their contaminated pews immediately.

Next in line for the Maniac of the Week Award is Liz Cheney, one of William Kristol's stable of immortals, who has publicly accused Justice Department lawyers who are defending accused terrorists of being the "al-Qaeda 7" and the Justice Department as the "Department of Jihad." Even Ken Starr, who lead the impeachment team against former President Clinton, was outraged by her smears. But can we expect anything less from the daughter of Dick Cheney?

Finally, there is the indomitable Karl Rove in the second runner-up slot for boasting in Europe of his pride in the U.S. waterboarders and insisting that it was not torture - this, from a man who never wore a military uniform himself. Rove, who has been contradicted on so many occasions, is still an unhappy wanderer staggering to the darkness at the end of his tunnel.

Even Teddy Roosevelt wasn't spared at CPAC meeting

BY NOW, MOST of the hybrid conservative-Tea Partiers have gone back to wherever they went after their Dionysian festival in Washington the past couple of days. From all reports, nobody to the left of the Washington monument was spared a nasty slam or two. But as crowds go, we did learn a few things from their angry behavior, none of which is pleasant for the few hangers-on who still dream of a political process that begins with sanity and ends with social progress.

At least, we saw the wannabes who project their future in the Oval Office and their enablers who insist that America's only salvation is a tax-less society that will somehow encourage all of us to own un-mortgaged homes, assure that everyone is physically fit without health insurance and never have to step outside without a howitzer.

Among the things that I gathered from all of this:

Based on his comments, Massachusetts superman Scott Brown , the GOP's latest hood ornament, is just one more hack to enter the halls of Congress. I mean, would a sensible man mention public anger and frustration over taxes in the same breath with the pilot who flew his plane into the IRS building? It was chilling, too, to hear others find humor in the crash.

While we're in the Massachusetts mode, it seems that Mitt Romney still has some homework to do to win the hearts of right-wing voters who refused to name him their first choice in the CPAC straw vote polls. Such pulse-checking is meaningless, of course, but not to the few like

Romney who wanted to come away with bragging rights. He tried so hard to please the crowd that he added a new description to the Obama Administration: "liberal neo-monarchists." Can you imagine a bunch of people who hardly understand the meaning of socialism trying to digest this mouthful?

We also learned that homophobia is alive and well within the ranks of those conferees. There was a skirmish between a Republican gay rights leader and a sassy kid from the California Young Republicans, and boos on both sides.

The ideological victory parade to the podium included Newt Gingrich, the plodding old warrior who is still trying to work out an uphill slalom for himself. Teddy Roosevelt took his lumps, perhaps by people who mistook him for FDR. Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a presidential candidate on a mission from God (Get in line, Guv!), showed everybody that he was up to speed on current events by arguing that somebody should emulate Tiger Woods' wife and break some windows in big government with a 9-iron. Jeez.

Sarah Palin wasn't there. She may have had the audience's best interests at heart, particularly those older fellows whose tickers couldn't endure much more excitement.

As usual, the final act was reserved for Glenn Beck, who wanted everybody to know that he was a recovering alcoholic - which we already knew. He used a blackboard and no teleprompter

to demonstrate that anyone who is pure can be redeemed, as he was.

The only downer, it seems, was Dick Cheney's rejection of the chants that cried out: "Run, Dick Run." You'd think that somebody would tell them that he's already running, not for president, but from the pursuers that are calling for his hide for his primal role in the torture culture.

P:S: A few posts ago I mentioned how the Tea Party Movement is generically linked to the old Birchers of Robert Welch. Update: I now read that the Birch Society was one of the co-sponsors of the CPAC conference. Hmmm....

Life on the slow-witted track...

WITH THE SNOW and cold at our front door, I've been spending a little more time trying to enlighten myself with the latest insights of our friends who are flapping their right(eous) wings. Below you will find some of their carefully considered thoughts:

RNC Chairman Michael Steele: "A million dollars is not a lot of money."

Former vice president Dan Quayle: A 51-49 vote in the Senate is "unconstitutional".

Rush Limbaugh: We should be "thankful we don't have Obamacare or the death panel might not have approved of Clinton's surgery."

Glenn Beck: "It is evil for Obama to turn our kids against their parents to get elected."

H.G. Wells (a timely golden oldie): 'Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. "

Fr. Coughlin vs. Beck: A duet?

THE CURRENT ISSUE of Columbia Journalism Review (May its tribe increase!) turns the page back on the current Glenn Beck phenomenon to an earlier media star - a priest, no less. In his essay "A Distant Echo," CJR contributing editor Douglas McCollam reminds us of the remarkable grip that Charles E. Coughlin - Father Coughlin - had on millions of Americans with his Sunday radio broadcasts during the Great Depression, challenging not only FDR but all others who did not fit comfortably into his matrix of political activism.

Even by today's numbers, the so-called Radio Priest might well have been called the High Priest of Political Distemper who rose quickly from an obscure parish in Royal Oak, Mich., to the voice of of an avalanche of dissent in America. McCollam gives us some numbers to reflect Coughlin's awesome influence:

"Working from his home parish at the Shrine of the Little Flower in suburban Detroit, the 'Radio Priest' built an audience estimated as high as 40 million listeners for his Sunday broadcasts - at a time when America's population was less than half of what it is today. At the apex of his popularity, he received around 10,000 letters a day and employed a staff of more than a hundred clerks and four private secretaries just to answer his mail. His church eventually had to establish its own post office branch to cope with the deluge, along with its own motel and gas station to service thousands of tourists who visited his shrine every Sunday."

At his peak, Coughlin also spoke at public rallies that drew 20,000 to 30,000 in Chicago and New York. Just as today's preening celebrities offer up their special prescriptions for a nation on its knees , Coughlin authored a book that sold nearly a million copies, McClollam notes.

Dissecting Coughlin's charms. McCollam concedes it's not an easy task.

"Reading Coughlin's sermons at a remove of 80 years, it's difficult to see what all the fuss was about. His prose is stilted, repetitious, a bit leaden. But from the beginning Coughlin connected with his listeners in an electric way. Part of his appeal, of course, was pure novelty. He was among the first to offer regular religious services over the air....

"Coughlin was also the master of identifying with the concerns and anxieties of his audience. He was emotional, dramatic and evocative..." [Sound familiar?]

The priest's attack on Communism drew the fearful attention of his audiences. Possessed by success, Coughlin formed a group called the National Union for Social Justice in 1934 and two years later the Union's endorsed candidates won several primaries. He was now on his way to endorsing a congressman from North Dakota who was supported by several splinter groups. He attacked FDR as the "great betrayer" and a liar, adding: "When an upstart dictator in the United States succeeds in making this a one-party form of government, when the ballot is useless, I shall have the courage to stand up and advocate the use of bullets." In response, FDR, who enjoyed his own reservoir of political magic, condemned Coughlin's stupidity and demagoguery.

Not the least of Coughlin's sins was his anti-semitism (Coughlin denied it although there was plenty of evidence to the contrary in the newspaper he published.)

The onset of WWII intruded on the Coughlin phenomenon and he faded into becoming a simple parish priest again. But in exploiting new electronic media (radio, no less), Coughlin was the radical master of making it work for him. McCollam introduces a profound thought from the philosopher John Dewey that is clearly appropriate today for today's media in general and Fox News/Beck in particular.

"Writing in the 1920s at the dawn of electronic mass communication, Dewey foresaw that the new technology carried with it the power to divide and "atomize" society, with individual constituencies increasingly replacing the shared sense of community.

Dewey nailed it - then and now.

As for today, McCollam neatly suggests that Coughlin's greatest lesson for today "may actually be its limitations."

"His fiery broadcasts could generate huge ratings, fill cavernous stadiums and flood Washington with protestors and irate telegrams. At times, he was able to stop major pieces of New Deal legislation in their tracks. But when it came to swaying elections, his influence was practically nil. Perhaps that fact is the Fighting Priest's most enduring legacy."

We can hope.

The more things change, the more they...

TODAY'S CRITICAL PIECEWORK:

After a holiday respite, Jack Morrison made it back into the Beacon Journal with a report he will continue to be retained as Munroe Falls law director by his political buddy, Mayor Frank Larson. When we last left Morrison, the Republican lawyer had been dismissed from the University of Akron Board of Trustees and as a member of the Summit County Board of Elections after a couple of ethics convictions. So he's batting one for three and can't complain about that, particularly after his base pay plus legal fees for his Munroe Falls work in 2008 paid $94,422. Nice work if you can get it. And he did. (Full disclosure: Sour grapes on my part since I rejected my father's advice either to become a lawyer or sell cars for his agency. In desperation, I finally landed a post-Air Force job with a small newspaper in Indiana for...um....less than $3,700 a year.)

By the close of 2009, the Republicans on Capitol Hill, their conservative Democratic friends and their noisy camp followers on the air waves had convinced me that they have evolved into the modern version of the commedia dell'arte. The likeness is all-too persuasive. The commedia was the theatrical outfit born in 16th century Italy to entertain with rather loose lips. The cast arrived on stage with the plot line well understood but went about their amusing business by improvising all of their lines. You get a sense of that from guys like Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican running for governor, with his brain-jerk comments that Obama's response to the near plane disaster was simply to "impress the Blame America First" crowd. In humorous fashion (although they didn't think so) the Hoekstra litany was repeated with improvised variations by others in a "Blame Obama First" crowd.

Who is editing Rush Limbaugh's stuff these days? Obviously euphoric after his brief stay in Queens Medical Center, Rushbo effused: "The treatment I received there was the best that the world has to offer!" Well, yes. As one who has been critical of every comma in the health care reform bill, Limbaugh may have been befuddled by his meds and didn't realize that Hawaii's health-care system is widely known as the nearest thing to socialized medicine in the 50 states. For more than three decades, employers there have been required to provide health-care benefits to part-time employes. And that state's nurses are unionized in the Hawaii Nurses Association. The best? Rush? The best?

Finally, should Glenn Beck really be ranting about alcoholics in the Democratic Party? Obviously he's never covered either party's presidential conventions. Glenn, my boy, I can assure you that excessive imbibing is non-partisan.

Palin bows to Beck: He's a bold effective hoot

SARAH PALIN, who is putting up more miles on her resume than Nellie Bly, managed an interview with Newsmax (which calls itself the "No. 1 conservative news agency on line") and added one more facet to her political mystique. When she was asked whether she would consider a presidential ticket with Glenn Beck, she replied (courtesy of Think Progress):

"I can envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I'm not there yet...But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He's a hoot. He gets his message across in such a clever way. And he's so bold - I have respect for that. He calls it like he sees it, and he's, very, very, very effective."

Just for the hoot of it, Palin is the recipient of today's Grumpy Abe Lingusitic Lunacy (GALL) award. And pu-leeze, all of you socialist liberal communist nazis out there, don't lift a finger to discourage her. Not since the new transcontinental railroad started hauling circuses across the land have we witnessed so much comedy and drama under the big top.

With Beck, she's one hoot to another.

Was the mayor really raking leaves?

WEEKEND LEFTOVERS:

What? A whole week end passed and nobody called 911 to report that Mayor Plusquellic was seen in Halloween costume blowing leaves into his neighbor's yard?

The November issue of Harper's Index reports that the volume of the average human brain has shrunk 10 pct. over the past 10,000 years, which only partly explains Glenn Beck.

Connecticut Sen. Zelig (a.k.a. Joe Lieberman) is telling his critics that his waffling is really his effort to "do what's best for America." What would be best in his case is simply to get an offshore pizza route.

Since the National Football League has always been committed to parity among the teams, might it not consider giving the Browns 10 downs for each series - or, one per yard. It's a start.

A months-long study by McClatchy Newspapers revealed that Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street giant, quietly believed the housing market would crash as it was selling $40 billion in securities based on 200,00o risky mortgage loans. The scam has produced soaring profits ($50 billion plus in 2009, $20 billion in year-end bonuses) for the firm while its clients lost hundreds of millions of dollars and left countless homeless. It recalls the words of mobster Carmine Sabatini in The Freshman when he was questioned about his financial shell game:

"This is an ugly word - this scam. This is business. If you want to be in business, this is what you do."