IMHO, the Beck/Levin comes down to this.
Levin wrote a defining book, one which will be remembered.
Levin is not an off-the-cuff guy, he’s a plodder, he works very hard for what he produces.
Levin is also a lawyer, so, as a professional, he can’t imagine not sighting source material.
Levin’s work has purposely been blacked out by the media, because they are justifiably threatened by it.
Beck is a showman.
While I agree with a lot of what Beck says he often says it in a manner so overdramatized that I find myself tuning out.
Beck also does subtly co-opt other people’s work.
This is just his manner and the way he conducts himself as a showman, right or wrong.
However, when Beck, the showman, subtly co-opts the work of Levin, the professional plodder, I can understand Levin becoming justifiably upset.
Levin’s work is pivotal and it is ignored.
Having someone with a microphone as big as Beck’s use that work and use it uncredited IS a big slap in the face.
If everyone is supposed to be on the same side then I would submit that it is upon Beck to invite Levin on his show and interview him about his book and how important it is.
If Beck does not do this then the people who consider him a loose canon in the movement are more correct than not.
Just my opinion.
Levin should take Beck to court if his work was stolen. Levin is a decent lawyer, right?
Otherwise, he should quit whining about it and spreading nebulous rumors about alleged, but never specified, plagiarism.
Endless rumor mongering, without closure in a court of law, is not fair to Beck or Levin.
In the name of Justice, bring the charges or stop repeating them!
Funny I think Mark “The Whiner” Levin co-opts the works of others. I don’t hear Levin giving any credit to Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (Collectively Publius) for the things Levin writes or says, or any of the Founding Fathers for that matter. I don’t hear him giving props to Locke, Burke, Buckley, or Paine. In fact, I really haven’t heard The Whiner say anything that hasn’t been said before.
Who’s co-opting whom?
Levin is just Hannity with a brain.