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.
Lulu16 should watch this video of McCain telling ACORN and SEIU people that they "make America special."
I could go on about his involvement in arming Albanian terrorists allied with al-Qaeda, his pandering to the racist militant group La Raza, and his ethically questionable behavior with regards to the Keating Five incident. [She would have to ask D1 or exit82 about the POW/MIA Kerry incident, though.]
Oh, and I'm sure there's more dirt yet to be dug up, more skeletons to be set free from McCain's coat closets...
The fact that the ACORN videos with McCain didn’t come out during the campaign only prove Beck’s point. It was unacceptable to speak of them during the campaign and it would have been unacceptable to speak of them during a McCain presidency. Meanwhile the ties would have strengthened and deepened.
There was a McCain-Lieberman gun control bill? Holy sh*t!
Many of us cringed @ Bush’s internationalist / Wilsonian fpreign policy, too.
Good stuff.
No one is a REAL conservative
I'm going to be sick.
You’re a grab-bag of worthless trolling. PFFFFFT.
The point Beck makes and it’s consitent, is that Mcain,Bush type “conservatives” will bring us to the same end Barry is taking us.
It is far better to be thrown into a hot pot of water and jump out then to fall asleep in the lukewarm water of the current Republican leadership.
Barry is throwing us into hot water and even the ingnorant who voted for him are getting burned.
That’s why I’ve loved Beck for years. He was the only talkng head on the right side who saw the Republican party for the left wingers they had become.
You miss the point, or maybe you have it better than I.
I readily agree that there are many intellectuals that are conservative.
You probably are one, although modest about it.
When the generals meet to discuss war, they do not discuss it in the same way the troops do.
That is why we need Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Think of Rush as the strategist and Glenn as the field commander who leads the charge.
The need each other.
I don’t think so either.
But “Why Mark Levin Disagrees With Glenn Beck” is not as punchy a headline.
You said it better than I.
Thank you.
Hmm Hmmm Hmm...B,H,O...
he’s on my TV everyday ,I wish that he would go away...
Hmmm Hmmm Hmm B,H,O,
He lies and lies ,there is no end,and now he is pre-emting Glenn...
Hmm Hmm Hmmm B,H,O,...
He pals around with terrorists, I wish he would give it a rest..
Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm B,H,O,...
OK. You stated:
"Glenn IS promoting a third party.....and ultimate disaster."
That seems pretty clear. But then you stated:
"I never specified, a third party, a second party, a Whig party or a Wobbly party."
Now you are contradicting yourself. I asked about the factual basis of your assertion and you responded with insults.
Sorry I bothered you, it won't happen again.
I believe we are truly blessed as conservatives to have such a wide range of spokesmen on the radio, covering the range of intellect and emotion.
I agree with all of them about some things and I disagree with all of them about other things.
(I'm especailly glad Beck isn't the only one speaking for us. His ADHD drives me crazy. :)
Like that McCain would have been worse for America than Obama.
He didn't mean it, and he gave fuel to the left for years to come. BIG goof on Glenn's part.
Very astute observation, too bad Glen Beck didn't say it just like that!
I love Mark Levin. The only I don’t like about him is the fact that he doesn’t live next door to me.
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