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.
Levin isn’t a standard neocon but he is slavishly loyal to the GOP.
...a very disturbing trend. I doubt Buckley, Goldwater, or Reagan would be very comfortable with some of these “conservatives.”
The Conservative movement has had a mite of success in the ACORN investigations, Van Jones, 100k people on the mall. All of sudden, we are all at each others throats. No wonder things never change.
Thanks Rabs. This sounds like many of my comments.
Not only was Levin completely wrong about the Bush economy, he tried to whitewash it and re-write history last Fall. What really gets me about this jerk is how arrogant he is on the air like this when he is wrong so often.
He was also wrong on election strategy too, if you listen to him ,republicans would still be in power if they spent all that money re-building Iraq but told the voters no pork for them. This is idiotic logic but his fans repeat it. GWB did prescription drugs and Education to win over specific voters to get past 2004 when GWB/Iraq popularity was fading. In the long term it didnt keep those voters, but it was an effective Rove short term strategy, and Levin is a “Elect Republicans or Die” man and showed himself last fall with McCain.
My other complaints is that Levin acts like Bush tax cuts would pay for all military and defense spending, then why not give everyone everything if the cure is always tax cuts? That was the result with GWB and now with Obama. “Government does NOT have to be paid for” is the message.
BTW : I was a Levin fan for years , read ‘Men in Black’ in those days. But now I see he spits out non-sense.
Now that is true.
I know, but Levin does seem to spend a fair amount of time attacking Savage (and the idiots who call Levin and get through his lame screening).
I think that your interpretation is correct, goodwithagun.
But this whole thing is ridicules: this type of infighting in out camp helps no one. There were many threads on FR on Levin/Beck with both of them thrown under the bus by Freepers. Hello? Levin is a RINO? Give me a break!
Reagan was correct on his 11th commandment
To the point of Obama’s presidency being a blessing in disguise: it remains to be seen, and we won’t know for another 3 years.
IF Obama and his chumps succeed in their agenda, we are going to have FUNDAMENTAL changes to American SYSTEM. As we know from history of such changes, like FDR’s - they are practically irreversible. For all McCain’s propensity of playing with by-partisan appeasement, he would still stink, but within parameters of the system. And our system is very robust and can withstand quite a bit of abuse. he would not done any structural changes.
IF Obama’s agenda is stopped because the Left got greedy and overreached and woke up a sleeping giant, than OK, it may be called a beneficial shake up.
I remain optimistic that the second is the case, but to say that McCain would be more dangerous - no way.
If McLame won, it would have meant the political demographic of the turn out would have been much different. We may not have seen a Dem majority in the Senate and closer numbers in the house. Big picture, it is silly for Beck to say Obama would have been better than McLame. The political demographic difference would have been such that many of the things like amnesty and healthcare may never even make it to the president.
Add to that, Beck also stated that he would have likely voted for Hillary! Well, considering all his research, did the fact that Hillary was also a SAUL ALINSKY diciple escape his thought process during the interview?
Please direct me to any recording, or anything in print, where he promotes a third party and I’ll concede.
He does state that HIS beliefs are more and more Libertarian every day, but he has often stated that he does not support the Libertarian party. He’s a conservative independent, with Libertarian values (and not the wacky ones, like legalizing drugs). If you’re for smaller government and freedom to live your life as you please, then you also have Libertarian values.
You know, when I heard Tim going off earlier this week, I thought, "He's going to be interviewed by the press very soon if he hasn't already. They've got a bead on Beck and this is the kind of stuff they love to blow out of proportion to try and bring him down." Looks like that was already in the works, which doesn't surprise me one bit.
My first reaction after it was known that Obama and McCain would be the nominees was: McCain with a Dim Congress would do more harm than Obama with a Dim Congress.
I’ve come close to changing my mind more than once, but still believe that. Always the thinking was that Obama would prove so radical that he would ignite a resurgence in conservative and non-Dim sentiment and produce huge Republican gains in 2010, as happened in 1994.
We are in the months where that will either prove true, or prove false. If most of Obama’s main initiatives can be defeated, and Republicans make a strong comeback in 2010, then it will have been proven true that McCain would have caused more damage than Obama.
McCain agreed with Obama on many polices such as amnesy, cap and trade, and green revolution nonsense. More harmful legislation could have passed under McCain than might under Obama. The next year is critical.
“I used to like Beck, but he turned me off with his constant broad brush of lumping Repubs in with the corrupt/commie Dems. Not even close.”
Yep, he’s turned me off. It’s getting tiresome.
"Are we to remain a Republic, or should we turn the Republic into an Empire?" The question operates on many levels from the political to the religious. The original argument was won by those who had an uniquely American agenda, i.e., the spreading of Truth, Justice, and the American way, which included Christianity (Protestant), Democratic Government (eventually), Sanitation, and Education.
Of course, our export version of civilization and the righteous way of life didn't automatically appeal to every one, and we had to do quite a bit of "Civilizing'em with a Krag." Our showcase project: The Philippines. Did it work? There's a book right there!
The Libertarians (and Beck) are beginning to question the sanity of this, not to mention its constitutionality, as did many sincere patriots when this school of thought predominated.
if we do not start hanging together we will most assuredly hang separately...
Lol. Sorry about the Salon link, I thought it was pron when it popped up. -Geeze-
You're exactly right. There's nothing to be gained attacking or spending any time on Beck.
savage and levin always have to criticize their fellow conservatives.
I like both of these guys but my guess is that Levin may be more upset by the attention that Beck is getting more than by his ideas. I do feel like the Republican party sold me out with McCain as their candidate. Even though I voted for him I hated pulling that lever. If Palin hadn’t been on the ticket with him I’m not sure I could have voted for him. Despite all that, the Republican party represents my views better than any other party. Sticking with it and improving it by making it return to true conservative principles is still our best bet for saving our Country.
Right. How many times did you cringe when McCain’s face came on TV to support liberal Democrat legislation? For me, every time McCain spoke I felt heart sick. He sounds strong on national defense but on every other issue, he is like a puppy waiting for a democrat or media type to rub his belly and he’ll do anything to get the reward.
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