Yes it does and it never fails to happen. I just can't figure out why.
Posted on 09/25/2009 7:33:20 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
When FOX News host Glenn Beck said during an interview with Katie Couric this week, “John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama,” his comments made headlines. Beck explained that “McCain is this weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was.” Beck laid out this view in better detail on his television program earlier this month:
I am becoming more and more libertarian every day, I guess the scales are falling off of my eyes, as I’m doing more and more research into history and learning real history. Back at the turn of the century in 1900, with Teddy Roosevelt—a Republican—we started this, “we’re going to tell the rest of the world,” “we’re going to spread democracy,” and we really became, down in Latin America, we really became thuggish and brutish. It only got worse with the next progressive that came into office—Teddy Roosevelt, Republican progressive—the next one was a Democratic progressive, Woodrow Wilson, and we did … we empire built. The Democrats felt we needed to empire build with one giant global government ... The Republicans took it as, we’re going to lead the world and we’ll be the leader of it … I don’t think we should be either of those. I think we need to mind our own business and protect our own people. When somebody hits us, hit back hard, then come home.
Beck is trying to explain how Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican precursor to what historians call “liberal internationalism,” a foreign policy view that contends the role of the U.S. is to intervene around the globe to advance liberal objectives. This progressive doctrine, later called “Wilsonian” after Woodrow Wilson, was intended to “make the world safe for democracy,” to quote our 28th president. Wilsonian globalism was embraced fully by George W. Bush, and as Beck notes, was also a guiding philosophy for his could-have-been successor, John McCain. In their application, there is very little difference between “neoconservative” foreign policy and “liberal internationalism,” and both views are progressive in origin.
Preferring to keep his audience in the dark on such distinctions, neoconservative talk host Mark Levin was angry that Beck would dare shine a light on them. Said Levin this week:
McCain is no conservative… but to say that he would be worse than a president who’s a Marxist, who’s running around the world apologizing for our nation, who’s slashing our defense budget… to say he would be worse is mindless… incoherent, as a matter of fact. There’s our 5 PMer on FOX.
It should be noted that Beck’s FOX News program airs at 5 PM EST.
Who else does Levin consider mindless? He continues:
I don’t know who people are playing to; I don’t know why they’re playing to certain people. Ron Paul’s another one ... this fascination with Ron Paul. Ron Paul, who blames America! American “imperialism,” quote, unquote, for the attacks on 9/11. How can any conservative embrace that? And yet the 5 PMer does.
For eight years, hosts like Levin and even Glenn Beck promoted full-blown neoconservatism without ever calling it by that name. For these mainstream pundits, conservatism simply equaled neoconservatism, and during the Bush years there was no talk of limited government, no concern about “socialism” and no real worries about anything else, other than the War on Terror. The Republican Party was a single issue party; Ron Paul was considered crazy, Joe Lieberman was considered cool—and government exploded.
But much to Levin’s chagrin, that impenetrable neoconservative unity no longer exists. Unlike Levin, Beck now claims “the scales are falling off of my eyes,” and he now questions old assumptions about foreign policy, the value of the GOP, the worth of the two-party system, or even if McCain would have been any better than Obama. Conservative columnist George Will once cheered Bush’s foreign policy, but now thinks it’s time to bring the troops home from both Iraq and Afghanistan. When Sarah Palin spoke in Hong Kong this week, a Wall Street Journal headline read, “Palin, Sounding Like Ron Paul, Takes on the Fed.” Few conservatives get excited by Joe Lieberman anymore. But many are starting to talk like Ron Paul.
The attacks on Beck by Levin are a reflection of what’s happening on the American Right as a whole, where the old fools’ game of merely corralling grassroots conservatives into the Republican Party is suffering from a severe shortage of fools. I’m not saying that Beck is an all-around, reliable conservative figure, nor do I believe the Republican Party is going to start seriously listening to Paul in the future, but there are at least now, finally, tiny slivers of truth making their way into the mainstream, thanks in no small part to a handful of celebrity truth-seekers, no matter how eccentric or inconsistent they may be.
And if there’s one thing we can be sure of—there would be no tea parties, no town hall protests, no marches on Washington, no questioning foreign policy, no attacking the Federal Reserve, no new-and-improved Glenn Beck and no new respect for Ron Paul—if John McCain had won the election. The neoconservative agenda would have continued, undisturbed, and according to plan. And something tells me Mark Levin would have preferred to keep it that way.
There is nobody that is closer to the Founders than Levin, nobody, period. There is nobody that understands true conservatism better than Levin, nobody. Levin does not have a checkered political past like these other commentators do, he has always benn what he is today. Second, if Beck is so great, you must ask why the media is attempting some regards to promote him over Rush, Hannity, and Levin? So to all you Levin bashers out there, GET OFF THIS THREAD YOU BIG DOPE!!!!
If you’re “off”, then so am I, because that’s the same understanding I got out of what he has explained.
Leni
That seems to be a natural response to an ever growing, ever more stifling, ever more oppressive government that seeks to control every minute aspect of our lives.
He is not saying that all Republicans are corrupted and bought off by socialists. But enough of them have turned into big government pushers to kill the Republic. They want to turn us into Europe and make themselves part of the permanent fake "conservative" elite.
Good plan. I hope everyone listens.
===================================================== An odd warp of logic.
I have never said here that you should not murder your mother so by your logic, I have a subliminal message that I encourage you to murder your mother.
If I have to state that you must not murder your mother in order to demonstrate that I believe you should not, look where that takes us.
I must now say: Don't steal from your mother, don't fight your brother, don't have sex with your daughter.....
Otherwise, by omission I am giving a subliminal message?
I think you are lost.
what I thinkwe are seeing is the competition for the New Media voices, I think the rules of engagment are still being determined and fluid...abit like the Law of the Old West...situational rules have to be somewhat fractitious.
I see it with Schlussel, Savage, Levin, Hannity, Beck, O’Reilly...all all competitors to a certain extent and that’s not necessarily bad. May the best do well!
Seems to me that the GOP is trying to blame its failures on some phantom third party.
Voting GOP didn't keep out the Dems last election, so how is voting another party going to do worse than what the GOP did?
You hit that one on the head. I started to question my beliefs as far back as the time I first started driving (31 years ago), in response to the retarded 55 MPH national speed limit. Gun control has, over the past 20 years, cemented my hostility to overbearing, over-reaching government, and issues like taxes and healthcare are simply cream on the cake.
WTF ever happened to government setting a few simple and broad rules that everyone knows about and understands (because they are, on their face, reasonable), and letting us lead our lives in peace? THAT is what most people want, except those corrupted by either the power or the money that government gives them.
OK, good to know. I take it back. Still...
If you're going to engage in personal attacks, why not try for something original?
It only took Russia 70 years to replace the Communist dictators. Rebuilding is a “iffy” thing once you lose all control of the political levers.
Yes it does and it never fails to happen. I just can't figure out why.
I listened to him yesterday and he said outright that the republicans were as corrupt as the democrats. That is what he said in response to a caller who tried to argue reform the GOP from within because you don’t have a chance to regain power with a “party”.
Our job is to CLEAN UP the Republican party, rid it of its bad ministers and priests and restore it to its basic tenents.
Funny you should say that, because that's exactly what Beck is calling for. And he's calling on Democrats to do exactly the same thing for their party.
What I objected to was your assertion that Beck is calling for a third party. I don't believe he is, but then I haven't heard/watched every minute of every show that he's done lately. If you can direct me to an audio or video clip, or a written statement to that effect, I will gladly reconsider.
Divide and conquer of course. The oldest strategy in the book. The art of successful politics is the art of successful coalition building. Ronald Reagan did this so well. He united economic and social conservatives, libertarians and traditional conservatives, neo-conservatives, religious conservatives, military leaders, law enforcement, farmers, ranchers, small businessmen, corporate executives. He knew exactly how to do it. He also wasn’t afraid to campaign in blue states like NY, PA, MA, NJ, MI, CT, WI, IL,WA, OR. And guess what? He carried them too, not once but twice.
We don’t have the luxury of being divided, fighting among ourselves over petty difference. We don’t have the time our resources to launch a third party and even if we did as Rush so clearly stated it would only serve to divide us and thus guarantee BHO’s re-election and Democrat control of Congress. Rush has been around the block a few times. He is wise and knows what he’s talking about. I suggest we heed his advise.
Not so, actually. He calls out McLame and Graham all the time.
Yes...with more than half the Republicans pushing big government either willingly or through scare tactics, they are as corrupt as the Democrats. Republicans have not reversed this long march to socialism whenever they had power. With this situation, we do not have two parties. We have european wannabe, elitist Republicrats. He is calling for both parties to clean up their own corruption. It takes at least two parties to destroy a free nation.
Please remove your lips from Mr Levins anal cavity long enough to take a deeeeeeeeeeep breath....you sound positively oxygen deprived.
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