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.
Apparently so.
MORE GUN CONTROL: McCAIN-LIEBERMAN FR April '01
Let me note here that when you click on a link to older FR threads and you get a page with this "No such file (give_legacy_article)" that does not mean the thread is no longer there. If you click refresh repeatedly you will eventually get the thread to load. Don't give up, it has taken me as many as 20 refreshes to get some of these old threads to load.
That said; here is an excerpt from that article...
...like so many other "crime control" bills, the McCain- Lieberman bill is gun control, pure and simple. Here are just some of the bill's provisions which are designed to:
*Slam the door on sales at private gun shows unless the buyer submits to a registration background check.
*Force gun-owners to purchase trigger locks making their firearms useless for self-defense; and, even more troubling,
*Would encourage federal agents to arrest and convict honest gun-owners who may inadvertantly violate one of the many federal gun laws, many of which are mere technicalities but which carry severe penalties.
For example, a law-abiding citizen who innocently drives by a school with a gun in his car could find himself being sent to prison for violating the gun free school zone's provision of McCain''s bill.
Beck’s nothing special about this: Levin hates everybody. He’s a jerk.
Me too. They cut 30 doggone minutes of his show for that commie. My DVR is set to record GB when his show replays tonight. I am hoping that it will not be interrupted.
Can't hurt. Thanks! Good idea.
I generally steer clear of McCain’s POW issue. Not everyone does, and some people aren’t too happy with John concerning some aspects of his POW days, or his military service in general.
What I do object to is folks who act as if his military service is pristine, and question how anyone could raise an issue concerning it. I think his military service is a question mark.
I don’t think we’ll ever know the complete truth regarding his military service. There are some things that do trouble me considerably about it.
Perhaps the biggest question mark related to it is how John lived his life before and after active military service. He was dishonorable before it. He was dishonorable after it. How in the sam hell can I think that John was honorable during one period in his life, when all the indicators are that he was a jackass all the other times?
John is a political pig. He wallows in the leftist ideological mud and seems to like it. He always goes back for more.
He is a person I cannot respect. I think his values are incredibly askew. I believe he has done damage to this nation, and I think he would love to do a lot more.
Getting him out of office at the earliest (legal) opportunity is in the nation’s best interest.
I like Levin. I like Beck.
Give it rest Mark. Our side has been too nice. We need a fire brand who will tell it like it is. Glen is filling that role, and you need to recognize the value of it.
McCain has not been, is not now, and never will be middle of the road.
John is a leftist. He doesn’t get Conservatism and never will.
John is about twenty seven or so years overdue to be put out to pasture.
McTraitor is a FLAMING DEMOCRAT.
Fingers crossed. ;-)
Bump for later...
Where did you get Beck’s wanting a third party?
I have heard him discussing the risks of such voting idiocy. He even said that no, repeat, NO third party had won.
Just wondering if I had missed something.
Sure, he’ll grouse a little bit but he will take his marching orders in November no matter who the GOP runs. I’ll wager that he supported Graham against the Ron Paul Democrat who ran against him.
Well....Reagan called himself a liberatarian too. He didn’t even use the word “becoming.” Words are fine but don’t mean much until Beck sticks his neck out and supports libertarian positions on specific hot button issues such as drugs, police abuse of power, and the Patriot Act.
Maybe we can encourage them to run for office? If not nationally then locally. It’s a good start.
LOL Wanna bet?
Reagan called himself a conservative Republican. That obscure 1975 Reason Magazine Interview was a one time deal. Reagan used it as an opportunity to fish for a few votes. Nothing more, nothing less. Didn't help Reagan in the 1976 GOP primaries or the 1980 election either.
I'll take Beck at his word.
Reagan was never a small “l” libertarian or a member of the Libertarian Party.
Reagan started life as a liberal Democrat, found conservatism in the 1950`s, became a Republican in 1962 and died a conservative Republican in 2004!
My impression of KBH is that she’s passive, lacking energy, that she feels entitled to the statehouse but really doesn’t have the first idea what to do with it. She’s just a soft-voiced attractive blonde who is more DC than Dallas. And Sarah’s going to stump for Perry.
That’s a new one on me. I always thought the distinction went this way: a large L Libertarian is a supporter of the Libertarian Party. Neither Reagan nor Beck ever supported that group. A small l libertarian is someone who does not support the party.
You just contradicted yourself. You say you are willing to wager that Reagan did not apply the term to himself (my only claim) then you cited the Reason Magazine article in which he did. I never said that Reagan consistently used the term. Actually, I don’t think it was purely fishing for votes when he did. I suspect Reagan stopped using the term when he found out to his horror that libertarians supported legalization of drugs and prostitution.
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