THAT is the point!
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.
While I appreciate his recent work on Acorn and 9/12 project, I think Beck is becoming full of himself.
He has not only been bashing Republicans but also Fox News and I have seen him do this on his own show. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
He needs to pound that what we need is a reform of the Republican party, since he now has such a big following and might lead others to a third party effort.
A third party will be a DISASTER, and we will be stuck w Obama for four more tragic years. There won't be any America left for us to save.
Seems right on to me.
***Sorry to disagree with you. Glenn IS promoting a third party.....and ultimate disaster.***
That was what you said -- "Glenn IS promoting a third party... " -- and I can only reply to what you said.
What he does is to subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly promote ANY amorphous third, fourth or twentieth party as long as it isn't Republican or Democrat.
That's not true at all. Again, show me where he has promoted ANY third, fourth, or twentieth party -- I'm never ashamed to admit when I'm wrong. In fact, he quite often sings the praises of Sarah Palin -- he loves Palin -- and just yesterday spoke highly of Michelle Bachmann. And recently interviewed, and really liked, Rand Paul for Senate. All of them are Republicans. And, quite honestly, I would wholeheartedly support a Palin/Bachmann ticket.
Our job is to CLEAN UP the Republican party, rid it of its bad ministers and priests and restore it to its basic tenents.
And I don't disagree with you one bit, but I also believe that both parties in Washington need a good scrubbing. What good does it do (any of us) if we simply clean up one side of the aisle? Just because Glenn is trying to sweep both sides of the aisle doesn't mean he's against the Republicans, or is promoting a third party.
Glenn wants the same things you want -- a strong, conservative candidate that lives and breathes conservative values. The Founding Fathers never wanted, and warned of, a two party system. If Glenn promotes anything it's a ONE party system -- an American party.
Now, I've listed some of the politicians that Glenn has already said he could support -- all Republicans -- so it's your turn to give me those third, fourth, and twentieth party members that he "not-so-subtly" promotes...
bttt
So..are you ok with big government pushers as long as they have Republican as their name? Sure sounds like it.
STAY ON TASK PEOPLE. WE ARE FIGHTING AN ENEMY THAT WANTS OUR COUNTRY TO DISAPPEAR! DON'T EAT YOUR OWN!
tag material bump for a great post...
Neo Cons are Jews who left the Democratic Party when Reagan came to power. The term was coined as a slur against these former democratic Jews by the Democratic Party.
What Beck does is draw on his chalk board the ties between Soros, Van Jones Obummer, the Marxist now posing as a Fascist, Mark Lloyd, Cass Sunstein, Axelrod, etc., so you can see that none of this is some accident that just happened.
He has pointed out Where Valerie Jarrett fits into the picture.
Who else has done so in a way that even the most obtuse can follow?
Not Levin, although he is an intellectual. Not even Rush, although in his own way he is positively brilliant.
What everyone here is missing is that it is not enough to be an intellectual. It is the intellectuals from Harvard, Yale and Columbia that have brought us to this crisis.
What the conservatives need a a person who can articulate the problem in a language every conservative, whether an intellectual or a person with only a grade school education can understand and be enthused.
Beck has that ability, as does Sarah Palin. Where either of them go from here is unknown, but it should be obvious that we should be cheering both of them on.
Beck has done more to get the public off their ass than any single person.
Those who do not get that are not helping conservatism.
Lofty words alone will not get the job done. In fact, they put most people to sleep.
tag test bump
THAT is the point!
Well said!!
To four more years of Obama.
Levin, Rush and Hannity are right. We need to move the Republican party back to its roots, reform it and elect a whole lotta people with conservative principles and SPINES. A third party will divide us and destroy us.
Beck needs to be careful. Sometimes his emotions get the best of him. He's doing yeoman's work right now. He just needs to know that he could cut his own work off at the knees with careless words.
They know "the point" - that we're trying to get rid of the Marxists and save the country we love - and they'll do anything they can to accomplish that.
Too bad so many freepers can't see through it.
The Republican Party has lost it's way.Progressives
like Juan Mcshame,
Lindsey Gramnastry
or Michael Steele
lead to socialism.
Except that McLame favors amnesty, he just calls it immigration reform.
Well Glenn is jealous of the SUCESS of Mark’s newest book, “Liberty And Tyranny”. It has gone past 1 million sold.
Yup. We should start talking about them, along with Lindsey Graham and Kay Bailey Hutchison, who all voted "present" when the Senate voted down ACORN funding.
Why? I'd like to know. Maybe Mr. Levin can tell us.
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