Posted on 01/12/2013 9:47:01 AM PST by Mozilla
Glenn Beck spent the first fifteen minutes of his radio show today discrediting rival conservative host Alex Jones after his epic showdown last night with Piers Morgan.
Beck explains, “Piers Morgan is trying to have gun control. He is trying to make everybody who has guns and who believes in the Second Amendment to be a deterrent to an out of control government look like a madman. So now he immediately books the madman and makes him look like a conservative. He’s not a conservative.”
Of course, Beck didn’t save all of his animosity for Jones, happily dishing it out to Morgan as well. After calling them “two of the most dishonest ‘journalists’ of our age,” he went on to explain why his listeners shouldn’t trust either one of them.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
Buckley was a big fan and supporter of Rush Limbaugh and talk radio.
I was a subscriber of National Review until they endorsed Romney in 2007, and I don’t remember them being disdainful of “Limbaugh, talk radio, and Fox News”.
With all due respect and consideration, the fact that one has or does not have children to be justifiably relevant in the national conversation about conservativism and how to stop rabid liberals from taking our freedom isn’t something I see as an ideological necessity.
It is either conservative and just, or it isn’t. The fact that the parents may be Republican, and lawyers is not a consideration for me, either. John Edwards was a lawyer, Bill Clinton and Hillary, too. Along with Barack and Michelle Obama... to my latest knowledge, none of them are state-licensed lawyers now.
Longtime conservatives (including myself) were accustomed to Firing Line, with its dignified discussions, Buckley's mid-Atlantic accent, and a Bach intro; and we regarded NR's high editorial standards, Buckley's love of obscure words and rambling sentences, and the approving references and discussions of classical music in NR as part of the conservative idiom.
In contrast, Limbaugh was on talk radio -- until then, mostly the province of scream and shout local programming; and Limbaugh spoke boastfully, like a radio DJ, was full of parody and banter, and had a rock music intro.
Yet (as you correctly point out) Buckley promptly and warmly embraced Limbaugh and welcomed him into the fold. And that is my point about Beck. He is additive to the appeal and energy of conservatism even if he at times he seems overly wound up. Bek has an audience and a conservative message that merits our approval and support.
You miss my point. My friends, as Jewish lawyers, are of a demographic that is not normally conservative Republican. Yet they find Beck a more appealing personality than Limbaugh, and they find Beck’s teaching efforts helpful in raising their teen daughters to be conservatives. To me, that was an example of why Beack has the audience that he does.
I was National Review readership and a Buckley fan, you don't speak for all of us, I don't know why you claim we felt that way.
How did we miss that? Why are you claiming these things?
National Review eventually moved left and self destructed, after Buckley died, but I don't recall the things that you are claiming.
Beck’s issue is not his conservatism, it’s how he paints the picture. He’s very doom-and-gloom, in my opinion. When he gets into his “educational” portions, he seems to make the left invincible in their organization. Rush educates while showing their buffoonery, mocking them while fighting them. Personally, I much prefer Rush’s approach.
I think Beck is a huckster.
Rush is trying to promote conservatism, Beck is a huckster selling himself.
Not all, and not a majority thought that way. Yet the criticisms and views I described were often expressed by conservatives. The potency of Limbaugh and talk radio was not apparent at the start.
I heard Limbaugh himself say that Buckley’s support did much to settle qualms about him and talk radio.
I like both, and I think Limbaugh is far shrewder than Beck about operational politics. Yet Beck has a following.
I will admit that I am really disappointed in Glenn. SO he wants everyone to accept homosexuality, and he is publicly mocking someone who is really scared.
I don’t agree with Alex Jones, I just see someone who is about as freaked out as I felt for a few days. I feel sorry for Alex.
Glenn should re-think his actions, as of late.
Why not say he disagrees with Alex and show some compassion.
I am bummed out at Glenn. Honestly, I was listening every day, and now I don’t listen to him anymore.
If Beck has recently declared himself a libertarian, does he still get to decide who’s conservative enough?
Alex Jones flipped the script on Piers Morgan, one way or the other. I don’t know much about Jones, but he successfully avoided being corralled into a ‘debate’ that he ably pointed out was no debate where one of those involved is also the moderator as well as controls the venue. I cringed when Jones put on a British accent, but he did use the time he had to get points across to people otherwise not exposed to them. Hopefully some of them can see past the distractions. And Morgan, for all his assertions of trying to keep Jones on issue (Piers’ issue, Piers’ way), was quick to bring up September 11th for what looked like no other reason than to try to discredit anything else he said, and he wouldn’t have done that unless he thought he had to.
My husband is Jewish and an attorney. He find Rush much more appealing that Beck. In fact I doubt he likes Beck at all. I guess it just depends on which Jewish attorney you’re talking too.
Beck can be an acquired taste. My friends liked the way that Beck was on TV during the evening and that their daughters first started watching and asking why they were not hearing what Beck and his guests were saying in school.
You were very specific, it was we National Review readers and Buckley fans who were disdainful of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and talk radio.
That wasn’t true about us. We enjoyed Rush Limbaugh immediately, and I don’t recall anybody being disdainful of Fox news, although I couldn’t see it myself, you make us sound like a bunch of white wine sipping dainties.
My larger point is that Beck has a following that adds to conservative strength. Taking a clue from Buckley, we ought not to be too critical of Beck on stylistic grounds.
I read your posts, you must be a kid or something if you think that the 1990s was long ago, many of us had been watching firing line and reading National Review for decades by then.
We Buckley fans and National Review readers and firing line watchers liked Rush Limbaugh and Fox news from the beginning, You sound out of touch with the majority of conservatives of the time.
Beck is an idiot and a hustler, and you are still out of touch.
Exactly...that is his job. The only thing missing is the clown nose.
Before Limbaugh, national commercial talk radio was the province of ostensibly nonpolitical professional talkers like Larry King. Local talk hosts were characteristically rude and obnoxious toward callers, with programs loaded up with stunts and guest appearances. Conservatives rarely found commercial talk radio worth listening to, and there was no national conservative talk radio program.
As Limbaugh describes the start of his run as a local political talker in Sacramento, he was a DJ and the only person who believed that he could make a political show work. Station management agreed to a brief trial run based on his promise to depart without a contract fight if the show failed. Management wanted rid of him and were delighted to have him offer such an easy way out.
Even after Limbaugh was a success in Sacramento, in California syndication, and then in New York on local ABC radio, his program was initially a tough sell to potential backers for national syndication, even with attractive audience numbers. After all, the media business is rife with personalities who have a brief run and then implode, become boring, or are overtaken by imitators.
Again, Limbaugh himself has described how important Bill Buckley's support was to his favorable reception by National Review and the conservative establishment and in building a national conservative audience. I recall approving comments about Limbaugh in National Review as leading me to listen when his program first came to local radio.
Similarly, Fox New took time to draw viewers away from the broadcast evening news and from CNN. Audience habits and expectations matter. Fox News was not just conservative, but it was different in other ways, Washington centric, with less in the way of coverage of stories from other parts of the country than its competitors offered.
As for Beck, he has an audience and is apparently successful in his Internet TV operation. Beck's personality and radio show (and no doubt his Internet show) have an element of volatility that mark him as a work in progress. I wish Beck success, and if his Internet TV operation makes good money, it will bring a wave of imitators and help to further undermine the broadcast and cable networks.
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