THE ANATOMY OF A SMEAR: How the Left is fighting to silence GLENN BECK

media.glennbeck.com ^ | June 22, 2010, for TOWNHALL July 2010 | Meredith Jessup

[Yosemitest]

THE ANATOMY OF A SMEAR:
How the Left is fighting to silence Glenn Beck
by Meredith Jessup

“Rule #11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.”
—Saul Alinsky's “Rules for Radicals”

We should’ve seen it coming.
As his Fox News Channel television audience exploded in 2009, it was only a matter of time
before the liberal Left organized itself into a full-court press against Glenn Beck.

Since the conservative radio phenom made the jump from CNN’s Headline News to FNC,
Beck has set cable ratings records, adding more fans to his radio audience of millions.
His five o’clock timeslot on Fox has grown to rival the primetime titans of cable news, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.
Though O’Reilly and Hannity are no strangers to hatred from liberals,
Glenn Beck’s “fusion of entertainment and enlightenment” incites a particularly unique level of vitriol
unmatched by any other television commentator today.

The concentrated disdain for Beck has also united the Left behind one common goal:
getting him off the air.
Various levels of the Left—
from grassroots organizers to the Obama White House
— are working in an all-hands-on-deck concert to discredit Beck with a barrage of attacks in a relentless smear campaign.

LET THE BOYCOTTS BEGIN

To Beck’s regular audience, his disregard for political correctness and adherence to no-nonsense common sense are refreshing.
To his detractors, he is a fear-mongering extremist whose opinions represent reckless “vitriolic rhetoric.”

When third-year University of Wisconsin law student Angelo Carusone was annoyed by Beck’s “controversial” opinions, he launched StopBeck.com —
an online effort aimed at pressuring advertisers to withdraw their commercial support from Beck’s broadcast on Fox
and, in turn, force Beck off the air.
Working from an office in his two-bedroom apartment in Madison, Wis., Carusone sends sound bites of Beck’s show to corporate sponsors
and questions whether their products and services should support Beck’s programming.
In many cases, this slight nudge is enough to make the targeted advertisers pull their commercials.
If advertisers don’t pull their support, Carusone uses his website and social networking sites to organize other Beck opponents—
including his nearly 8,000 followers on Twitter
—to bombard the companies with messages in support of a Beck advertising boycott.
And if the snowballing effect of thousands of outspoken anti-Beck activists doesn’t stir enough commotion for a company to relent,
Carusone picks up the phone to personally confront them.
In what he calls his “least flattering method of persuasion,” Carusone argues with corporate media executives until they give in.

StopBeck.com also claims that Beck
“uses his media platform to disseminate vitriolic hateful rhetoric and stoke racial anxieties,”
and the group works in conjunction with ColorofChange.org —
a group founded by dismissed Obama green jobs czar Van Jones
— in boycotting Beck’s commercial sponsors.
Both organizations disparaged Beck
for questioning President Obama’s personal motives in condemning the Cambridge, Mass., Police
for arresting Harvard professor Henry Gates in 2009.
ColorofChange.org Executive Director James Rucker told Townhall that the group’s goal has been
“to bring Beck’s pattern of race-baiting to advertisers’ attention,
to let them know about our members’ concerns
and to ask whether those companies feel comfortable enabling Beck’s rhetoric.”
But when rapper Kanye West infamously stated that President George W. Bush “doesn’t care about black people” following Hurricane Katrina,
there was no boycott of West’s album sales.
And when pressed by Townhall about uber-Leftist comedian Bill Maher’s recent comments about
Barack Obama not being a “real black president”
because he didn’t carry a loaded pistol in his waistband,
Rucker and Color of Change did not respond.
By Color of Change’s own standards, these comments seem “repulsive and dismissive,”
yet Beck and Fox News remain the group’s only boycott targets.

Color of Change and StopBeck.com represent a small niche of the anti-Beck movement on the Left
that uses advertising dollars as leverage to silence what they refer to as Glenn Beck’s “brand of hate”—
a “brand” they've constructed by using selective interpretation of mere fragments of Beck’s contextual dialogue.

But the Left’s efforts in smearing and silencing Beck run well beyond the limits of these two online campaigns.
The complex structure of the Left’s Glenn Beck smear campaign also includes some familiar big players in liberal politics.

ENTER GEORGE SOROS’ MEDIA MATTERS

Beck is a daily fixture of self-described “progressive” media “monitor” Media Matters.
However, instead of pointing out factual errors in Beck’s programming,
Media Matters merely inserts its own political opinion.
Media Matters obsessively posts nearly a dozen anti-Beck stories on their website daily
and thrives on clipping apart Beck’s statements
to paint crude and incomplete pictures of Beck and his large devoted audience.

Media Matters also publishes media “research” on its site
that other liberal outlets pick up and disperse across the Internet and blogosphere.
Among these hard-hitting items:
• “Glenn Beck’s disturbing use of race and race-baiting”
• “Beck’s embrace of violent, anti-government rhetoric”
• “Beck’s slavery fetish”
• “Beck promotes book rife with anti-Semitism and racism”
• “Beck pushes bogus ‘evidence of socialism’ in Obama’s policies”

Media Matters joins StopBeck.com and Color of Change in supporting a widespread boycott of Beck’s programming and advertisers
and runs a daily list of companies who advertised during the Fox show.

Another group providing the Left with invaluable out-of-context quotes and blatantly slanted interpretations
to use in attacking Beck is John Podesta’s Center for American Progress (CAP), which talks about Beck “claiming [Van] Jones’ proverbial scalp”
and complains about Beck’s “vitriol” that is “increasingly allowed to infect our public discourse.”
Incidentally, Podesta’s CAP and Media Matters not only spread each other’s research, but also share staff.
In fact, Podesta was a pivotal figure in founding Media Matters.
And CAP’s Eric Alterman, who writes about Beck’s “hatred for sale,”
likes to remind readers that he’s a senior fellow at— surprise! —Media Matters.

Not surprisingly, Media Matters and the Center for American Progress share common donors
that keep operations running smoothly, including generous financial gifts from George Soros and his Open Society Institute.
Soros “affiliate” MoveOn.org has also joined in spreading the Left’s disdain for Beck,
including a joint venture with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
in constructing a fake broadcast video that pokes fun at Beck’s “conspiracy theories.”

THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA ASSAULT

Saul Alinsky’s fifth “rule for radicals” says,
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
Against irrational ridicule, there is no defense and an enemy is forced into concessions.
Taking a page right out of Alinsky’s playbook, the Left uses various media outlets to push
not only its policy agenda but also to advance its campaign against Glenn Beck.

By himself, Beck represents a formidable opponent in the media market.
He’s a media giant in every sense of the word —
commanding a broad audience in radio, television, books and public appearances
— and it drives the Left and their friends in the mainstream media crazy.
On average, Beck’s five o’clock timeslot ratings wallop cable competitors CNN and MSNBC’s combined primetime line-up ratings.
When Beck had his regular show on HLN, the media could largely ignore him.
But when he was added to the Fox roster with the policies of a new Democratic administration to comment on,
Beck became an unstoppable force and Fox’s cable competitors and other mainstream media outlets have had to put up a concerted effort to drown out his success.

“Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it,” Alinsky wrote.
“Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies.
Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.”
Time magazine recently ran a cover story on Beck titled, “Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?” Time’s own Joe Klein lobbed a heavier accusation while appearing on MSNBC’s “The Chris Matthews Show,”
claiming that “people like Glenn Beck … rub right up close to being seditious.”

Further, Time’s managing editor, Richard Stengel, appeared on Joe Scarborough’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC to plug the magazine and personally attack Beck.
Beck’s work, he claimed, “plays a part in the lack of civility in political discourse,” Stengel said.
He also claimed Beck was stoking the public’s angst about many things,
including the fact that President Obama is an African-American.

The New York Times dubbed Beck “mad” and “apocalyptic.”
Veteran liberal journalist Cokie Roberts dubbed Beck
“a traitor to the American values he professes so loudly to defend”
and claimed he is
“corrupting the very essence of democracy.”
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow cherry-picked statements from Glenn Beck’s radio show to accuse him of lying about global warming (see “Maddow’s Snow Job” sidebar ).



---

MADDOW’S SNOW JOB
To illustrate how the liberal attack machine works,
follow this sequence of exchanges between MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck:

Friday, Feb. 12: As the East Coast was pounded with record amounts of snow fall,
Beck joked on his morning radio program (in a stereotypical mobster voice, no less)
that God was sending people like Al Gore a message,
but noted that one large snowstorm does not prove or disprove anything.

Friday, Feb. 12: In a brief segment on her primetime MSNBC show, Maddow quotes Beck’s joke as if he were serious
in claiming the snowstorm disproves Al Gore’s global warming theory.
Maddow conveniently leaves out Beck’s comment that
“one storm does not prove anything.”

Monday, Feb. 15: Beck takes to the radio airwaves and responds to Maddow’s Friday segment,
calling her “dishonest” and reminding listeners
that his stereotypical fake mobster/God voice
was nothing more than a joke.
Beck implied that it was irresponsible for Maddow to present his joke as “evidence” in an attempt to discredit him.

Tuesday, Feb. 16: Maddow fires back at Beck:
“I think it’s between you and your God or you and your conscience
as to how much you’re willing to stir up Americans’ fear and prejudice for profit.
But it’s between you and me
when you accuse me of lying.
I didn’t lie. Back o! .”

Wednesday, Feb. 17: Beck plays the audio of his original comments,
proving that Maddow had indeed selectively edited the audio
in order to suggest Beck based his opinion of global warming on one large snowstorm:
“The very next line that I said was
‘you’re an idiot if you believe this one storm in Washington proves there’s no global warming.’
I mean, it’s the very next line.
They are so dishonest they have to go that far.”

In many cases like this, there is not one ounce of truth in the attacks on Beck.
The tactic is also known as propaganda
—and it’s just another tool in the Left’s smear arsenal.



---



Ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather considers Beck “controversial,” but says he “loves” Keith Olbermann of MSNBC.

Speaking of MSNBC —
not content on merely calling him a “racist,”
the network cut right to the chase and called on Fox News to fire Beck.
Following his comments that Obama has deep-seated problems with white people,
MSNBC’s “First Look” said
that it was “amazing” that what Beck said “isn’t a fireable or even a suspendable offense.”

Arianna Huffington, the namesake of President Obama’s suggested reading for the American people, the Huffington Post, says she
“resents spending even a second of my life thinking about him.
But part of me recognizes that [Beck]’s too dangerous to ignore.”
She goes on to accuse him of inciting violence and anger
and argued that while the government cannot hold him legally liable,
he should be held “morally liable” and subsequently fired from Fox News.

The New Yorker calls Beck “energetically hateful, truth-twisting,” and blasts the “negative, regressive take on politics” he expresses with “raw-throated outrage, smiley sarcasm and, occasionally, a display of hurt, even tears.”

Newsweek went so far as to prominently feature Beck in an article titled,
“HATE: Antigovernment Extremists Are on the Rise —and on the March.”
Pictures in the article link Beck and former Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin to 1930s socialists with a caption that reads:
“Huey Long castigated the rich
and Father Coughlin denounced Jews in the 1930s.
Today, the microphones belong to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.”




A week before Beck’s latest best-seller, a novel titled “The Overton Window,” was even released, the Left was already working to discredit the book and its author.
Media Matters derided the fictional work as sheer “lunacy” and once again labeled Beck a conspiracy theorist.
The Huffington Post critiqued a short video trailer promoting the book, which featured stanzas written by British poet Rudyard Kipling, stating,
“The trailer for Glenn Beck’s new book is just as nuts as you’d expect.”

Baseless charges like these are hurled at the conservative talker on a daily basis from the mainstream media —
a liberal salute to Alinsky’s Rule 8: Keeping the pressure on your opponents.
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

When the media’s feigned outrage over Beck’s opinion does not hinder the growth of his audience, they turn to the next slanderous charge.
When Fortune ran a cover feature on Beck’s unique ability to turn his political and comedic commentary into cold, hard cash,
the media accused him of being a money-grubbing showman.

When Beck warned viewers about Black Liberation Theology and the Left’s ideas of “social justice,” newspapers such as the Washington Post reserved copy space for a rebuttal.
The radical progressive Rev. Jim Wallis, Obama’s own “spiritual adviser,”
urged Christians to “stand up to Glenn Beck” and accused him of “picking a fight.”
Time echoed Wallis with an article asking, “Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Jesus?”

It’s not uncommon to go through a week with a different Glenn Beck hit piece splashed across the pages of all the country’s major newspapers, magazines and left-wing cable channels.
Simply put, the media are reacting to a threat to their agenda —
and their agenda is Barack Obama.

As a result, the mainstream media have joined the liberal blogosphere and organizations like Media Matters
and the Center for American Progress in an organized effort to attack Beck with amazing coordination from coast to coast.
With a close look at various media outlets’ coverage,
it seems clear they all use the same set of recycled Glenn Beck talking points
and all regurgitate the same distortions and outright lies.

MODERN-DAY GOVERNMENT BLACKLISTING

In addition to Wallis, others close to President Obama have played a role at various levels of the Left’s smear machine.
The White House began waging war with Fox News last spring,
accusing the cable network of spreading false information
about the president’s health care plan and pedaling propaganda from the Republican Party.
Ironically, then-communications director Anita Dunn said
the White House would not just sit back and defend itself
because the conservative media “will say anything.
They will take any small thing and distort it.”

Most recently, the Left’s attack machine has moved to a new level, incorporating the power of the federal government.
Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., is accusing Beck
of misleading his viewers in an attempt to profit off Americans’ economic jitters.
Weiner is accusing Beck of maintaining an “unholy alliance” with Goldline, one of Beck’s television and radio sponsors,
and suggests that Beck talks about America’s dangerous levels of debt only to try and scare people into purchasing gold.
Lost on Weiner, apparently, are the fact
that Beck himself is a customer of the gold dealer
and the fact that America’s debt is indeed at a dangerous level.


“Goldline rips off customers, uses misleading and possibly illegal sales tactics and deliberately manipulates public fears,”
Weiner claims, yet the company maintains an “A+” rating from the Better Business Bureau.
Typical of government bullies, Weiner promises a future congressional investigation into Beck’s business relationship with Goldline.

Finally, when all else fails, the Left brings in the big guns.
President Obama himself has singled out Beck’s programs,
calling Beck and Rush Limbaugh “troublesome” and telling Americans to get their news somewhere else.

During a recent commencement address at the University of Michigan, Obama told the audience,
“If you’re a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh,
try reading a few columns on the Huffington Post website.”
But even with the power and prowess of the president behind the Left’s smear of Glenn Beck,
it’s doubtful Beck fans will happily hop over to a website
that promotes a “Twitter protest” against Beck
or features headlines such as “Lewis Black: ‘Glenn Beck Has Nazi Tourette’s’”;
or stories about how Glenn Beck hates Mother’s Day;
or riveting video of HLN’s Joy Behar telling Beck, “I don’t give a flying f**k about you.”

SOLDIERING ON

To a regular viewer and listener of Beck’s programs,
the accusations thrown at him from the Left’s smear campaign machine are ludicrous, untrue and sometimes even comedic.
Suggesting Glenn Beck “hates Jesus” or leads an “axis of the obsessed and deranged”
serves only to unite Beck’s loyal bloc of viewers against the Left.

Though he does from time to time
use over-the-top imagery and sarcasm on his shows that may be lost on many people,
it’s not this behavior that causes the Left to froth at the mouth and howl with outrage.
Perhaps most offensive to the far-Left is
that Glenn Beck refuses to succumb to the rules of political correctness
and doesn’t try to soften the blow of the harsh realities the country faces today.
The American people appreciate honesty, and Beck dishes out his own daily dose.

Above it all, Beck has sparked a movement toward enlightenment in America —
both political and historical
—and this movement represents a significant threat to the Obama agenda and, subsequently, the media.
He has
reignited the public’s interest in our nation’s founding principles,
exposes left-wing policies and individuals that make up the Obama administration
and serves as the common man’s advocate against their disastrous economic policies.

For a self-educated, self-described “rodeo clown,” Glenn Beck must be doing something right.
For the time being, Beck is a pivotal public figure in the fight against the agenda of President Obama and his liberal progressive cohorts.
And as long as he’s able to withstand the onslaught of attacks from the Left,
Beck will remain a de facto leader of the movement
working to take our country back.

“Beck has sparked a movement toward enlightenment in America —
both political and historical
— and this movement represents a significant threat
to the Obama agenda and, subsequently, the media.”

Meredith Jessup is assistant editor for Townhall.com and a contributing editor for Townhall Magazine.

[Yosemitest]

"We don’t have cable and have to watch Beck online."

It might be "worth your money and time ... to get DIRECTV ." I did.

AND I LOVE IT!

[itsahoot]

He didn’t attack McCain on the same issue when he had ample opportunity to do so.

I will agree the JD Commercial dig was unnecessary, and better left unsaid. The fact is he speaks often about the Progressive McCain. When Sarah did his TV show one of the first things he said was, you have to get away from that Progressive McCain.

[JenB987]

Anyone who can possibly read Beck as a shill for McCain is paying no attention whatsoever.

"So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgement, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions..." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

Thought it was appropriate, considering the anti-Glenn stuff around here lately.

[itsahoot]

However, he doesn't give any specifics of what the Patriot Act did that curtails our liberties.

The maybe you should DVR his program, then you could keep up. Just because you haven't heard him on the issue, doesn't mean he hasn't pointed them out.

The court has already ruled, that the Administration has the authority to read all eMails, without any warrant, they have also ruled that you have no right to privacy of location, meaning they can track you car, phone, whatever you have. That would also include all the danged cameras they have taking pictures.

[Lucky9teen]

But...I thought Beck was just a right-wing conspiracy extremist (nutjob)....

Pffft. The truth hurts, doesn’t it, you lefty scumbag radicals???

“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.”

Winston Churchill

[Lucky9teen]

I disagree. I think he was on point regarding the McChrystal affair and Generals MUST respect the CIC, regardless of who it is. It’s it the position they respect, not the person holding it.

Also, two wrongs don’t make a right, so if he (McChrystal) acted like Obama (disrespect, etc), how would that make it right?

Beck tells it like it is and I don’t think for a minute, that he’s playing both sides. He’s libertarian, after all. And he also believes we can solve our gov’t problems without taking up arms. Sometimes he can be wrong.

[GBA]

I think Beck is hit or miss, but with a lot of hits lately. The programs documenting socialism in America and how the unions started have been scary, educational programming of the highest order.

He has been confirming for me that the stuff I've been afraid was happening, the stuff I've been accused of being paranoid about, is happening and it's worse than I dared think it could be.

[Yosemitest]

"I was really turned off by what he said regarding the McCrystal affair.
Generals MUST respect the . "

Please read the following.
As a retired military member myself, I can't stress too much to you

just how difficult that situation was.

It's 20 pages from the "Air War College Air University",
but for anyone who really wants to understand this delicate quandary,
Please read this excerpt from:

---

Divided Loyalties: Civil-Military Relations at Risk.

... Consider the following instance of “necessary” and officially sanctioned lying.
Military members involved in highly sensitive, classified activities may be given a cover story that conceals the true nature of their work and told to adhere to it. If it’s legal to direct a member to disseminate a cover story--lie--in the interests of national security, is it also legal to order an officer to lie in the scenario’s circumstances?

The military oath, Constitution, and commissioning letter combine to form the legal basis of commitment and loyalty for military members. From these it is clear the superior loyalty should be expressed in protecting the values reflected in the Constitution. Additionally, the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and Law of Armed Conflict contain legal considerations of which an officer should be cognizant. Sometimes, though, as in the scenario above, an officer is torn between two legitimate loyalties—the Army colonel legally owes loyalty to the Army Chief of Staff and President, but he also owes loyalty to the people (as represented by their elected members).

... The Air Force doesn’t mention the importance of loyalty at all in the publication that discusses its core values. It does, however, strongly advocate “faith in the system”:

To lose faith in the system is to adopt the view that you know better than those above you in the chain of command what should or should not be done. In other words, to lose faith in the system is to place self before service. Leaders can be very influential in this regard: if a leader resists the temptation to doubt “the system”, [sic] then subordinates may follow suit.

The implication is that an officer owes his or her ultimate loyalty to the system (the Service), rather than to the country or transcendent values. Officers are taught from the moment they first put on a uniform that loyalty to teammates is inviolable.

...COL (XXXXX) needs to tell the truth. Although he’s presented with two legitimate claims on his loyalty—loyalty to the Army and President versus loyalty to the Congress and the Constitution—expressing his loyalty to the former would require him to sacrifice his integrity and lie. Telling the truth is (XXXXX)’s best way of maintaining loyalty to himself, the Army, and the nation, even if it costs him his career. And as Colonel Charles Dunlap, Air Education and Training Command’s Judge Advocate General, points out,

“military people are expendable in a just cause. Disclosing information to legislators under the right circumstances, [as in the scenario], is simply part of the democratic process the U.S. military exists to defend.”

Sometimes an officer is called upon to sacrifice his comfort or career rather than his life. In our estimation, it’s an extremely rare instance in which an officer can sacrifice personal integrity and still make the right choice.



---

An excellent paper on Leadership is at "www.iscribe.org/lead/essay1b.html" and is 2 pages.
It's worth your time, for anyone that really interested.
Here's an excerpt...

Things that are NOT Leadership

We place first reliance on physical force. A system of revenue production and a system to implement physical force are the bases for every government, even the most democratic governments. We devote vast resources to military forces and police forces. We rely on physical force to implement our will, when necessary, both internationally and domestically. Even those among us who fervently believe in the value of leadership as a means to an end are not prepared to forego military and police forces. Leadership as a means to an end has not been perfected to a degree that would allow us to have sufficient confidence to rely on it for crucial matters of state.

Historically, physical force, including torture, has been a primary tool used by governments, criminals, and even business if we include the institution of slavery. And, sadly, physical force has too often been used in family and personal relations. The idea that government could regulate physical force and govern the application of physical force by law has been in the process of refinement for centuries. Leadership, as a means to achieve ends, is a relatively new intellectual concept, even though leadership may have been practiced, successfully, by thousands of leaders over the centuries.

Would a leader rely on physical force? Probably. But physical force is not leadership. It is merely one tool among many used to achieve an end.

Although we routinely rely on physical force, we are frequently distressed by the result of the application of physical force and generally believe it should be used, infrequently, for the defense of society. Hence, we perceive a need for other means to accomplish our objectives.

After force we place reliance on authority. Authority may be backed by force though not necessarily. We vest people who head organizations with the authority deemed necessary for successful operation of those organizations. We do not rely on leadership. Such vesting includes authority to hire and fire, promote or not, transfer, design or abolish jobs, and control funds. Business, governmental, and charitable organizations are routinely vested with various degrees of authority. We have, in Western societies, attempted to limit the use of physical force to specific institutions, individuals, and defined situations. The license to use physical force is carefully restricted. Authority, however, is available to a much wider range of people. Authority is a powerful tool to compel human behavior. But authority is not leadership. We might be content to be subjected to authority were authority perfectly executed. Unfortunately, authority, although necessary, is imperfectly executed by fallible human beings.

There are other "carrot and stick" techniques used to shape behavior which are neither force, authority, nor leadership. Coercion is one of those means. Coercion, as used here, is basically a request wherein the requester has a capability to punish non-compliance. The punishment is often indirect, but real. Coercion is fairly common. Coercion is a means to achieve an end. It is not leadership.

Intimidation is another tool used to exact desired human behavior. Intimidation is exploitation of fear. Leaders allay fear. They do not exploit fear. Fearless people cannot be intimidated. But fearlessness is not always wise. Many individuals have very limited capabilities, especially compared to wealthy and powerful organizations, and those people may be vulnerable to intimidation. Naive people may also be intimidated by awe. Intimidation is not an act of leadership. Exploitation of fear is not leadership.

Threat is a tool used to gain compliance. A threat may be direct or implied and may be backed by a real capability or it may be a bluff. Threat makes good Hollywood entertainment when the good guys tell the bad guys how it is going to be. But in real life, leaders do not threaten. There are confrontational situations in international affairs where future actions are announced to preclude misinterpretation and unintended military conflagration. These actions may exhibit characteristics of threat but have a broader purpose.

Blackmail is a means sometimes used to influence human behavior. It is a derivation of threat, usually a threat to reveal embarrassing information. It is definitely not a leadership tool.

Flattery is another means to shape attitude. Flattery is insincere or unwarranted praise. Leaders certainly extend justified praise but never flatter.

Deceit may be used to affect human behavior. When discovered it destroys trust. Deceit is not a leadership tool. Deceit is the practice of misleading people which, by definition, is not leading.

Bribery, the payment of something of value to effect a particular behavior, is not a leadership tool.

Humiliation of others is sometimes used to shape human behavior, but not by leaders.

Fear is a prime motivator of human behavior, but leaders do not exploit fear. Leaders allay fear.

Hatred is a prime motivator of human behavior. Leaders do not exploit hatred.

Acceptance and rejection, both formal and informal, are means to shape human behavior. Acceptance into a group or rejection from the group can be a powerful factor in shaping behavior. It is a leadership tool only if the acceptance or rejection is based on legitimate, accepted rules of the group governing acceptance or rejection.

Praise, promise, promotion, and reward are means that a leader uses if warranted, but only if warranted. Misuse of these means is not an act of leadership.

Persuasion is a legitimate means of influencing human behavior and is used by leaders, but a caveat is needed. A confidence man uses persuasion to "con" his victims. We shall return to the subject of persuasion.

Imagine that you awaken and discover that you are the only human being on the planet. Everyone else has disappeared. You own everything. You own all of the luxury homes, resorts, hotels, restaurants, businesses, entertainment industries, airlines, automobiles, cruise ships, all of the gold, diamonds, cash, stocks and bonds, manufacturing industries, minerals, productive farm land and forests. It's all yours. Are you wealthy? No, you are impoverished. Who will generate your electricity? Who will pilot your airliner? Who will grow your food? Who will prepare your gourmet meals? Who will provide your medical care? Who will produce your entertainment? Who will manufacture your clothing? Ownership of physical objects and financial instruments is not wealth per se. Wealth is the power to compel people to do what you want them to do. If each of us possessed equal wealth, no one would be wealthy. It would not be possible to compel other people to do the grunge work. Without substantial numbers of non-wealthy people, wealth does not exist. Use of wealth to get people to do what we want them to do may be benign or harmful, but in either case, it is not leadership. It is a different means to achieve an end.

We can list most of the means that are not force or authority and not leadership under the generic term, manipulation. Deception and manipulation are common practices. We find it very easy to convince ourselves that the end justifies the means. Civilization is, in part, recognition that only carefully defined and approved means of influencing or controlling behavior are acceptable.

Most writings about leadership fail to distinguish among the various means that may be used to gain compliance. Differentiation among those means is essential if we are to understand leadership. An analogy may explain the need for precise differentiation. At some point in human history our ancestors began to recognize that diseases might be caused by microorganisms they loosely called germs. It was a useful insight, but accurate knowledge of disease prevention and cure awaited differentiation between bacteria and viruses, and further differentiation among the many types of each as well as the environment required for each type of organism. And, of course, refinement of the differentiation goes much further. The capability to distinguish differences, great and subtle, is a necessary part of the advancement of science and civilization. Our concept of leadership is meaningless unless we distinguish the things that constitute leadership from other means used to cause people to act at our behest. We can effectively teach leadership only when we clearly understand what it is and, quite importantly, what it is not.

We have examined some of the things that do not constitute leadership. We will now look at what does constitute leadership.

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But all of this DISTRACTS from the POINT of

"just how VILE the LEFT has become",

Especially in their attacks against THE TRUTH and GLENN BECK

[Lucky9teen]

Yep! Beck talks all the time about what a PROGRESSIVE McCain is. He’s just as bad as Obama...just would have implemented things slower.

[Lucky9teen]

Me too. It’s an eye opening, blood shooting out of your eyes, head exploding, something, to behold, isn’t it?

[RushingWater]

OK, so what is your executive summary? What would you say to a radio audience?

[Yosemitest]

" And he also believes
we can solve our gov’t problems without taking up arms.
Sometimes he can be wrong."

I pray that Glenn Beck is right,

but I, too, worry
... that he MIGHT be wrong.

[Yosemitest]

If you've read any of the post I've made during the 2008 election, you know that

I CAN'T ABIDE John McCain,
because of ALL the BACKSTABBING he's done to us.

But let's get back to the Left ABSURD attacks on Glenn Beck.

[reaganaut]

How does helping John McCain square with Beck’s stated conservatism?

- - - - -
Wait until Beck starts shilling for Romney.

[freespirited]

my wife and i cancelled geico insurance after they left beck.

We have stopped shopping at CVS for the same reason.

[Lucky9teen]

I’m with you. ;)

[driftless2]

Nothing new here. Libs have always been afraid of contests against conseratives in the battlefield of ideas. Much easier to simply brand your opponent a “hater” or a “bigot”, and then saturate the media with likeminded opinions from fellow travelers. Saves them from the messy and intellectually frustrating chore of actually debating anyone on the issues. Mostly because leftist ideas debating conservative ideas is like a one hundred pound weakling challenging the Olympic heavyweight powerlifting champ to an armwrestling contest.

[Yosemitest]

I've said what I think

here, about the Oath of Military Officers ,
here, about Obama's Qualifications as ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT IN CHIEF,
and here about what God says..

But again,

what does that have to do with
the Lefts' ABSURD and VILE attacks on Glenn Beck?

[netmilsmom]

We actually had Directv. You will find that they are all about getting new customers. We were with them for 10 years (back in the day when you bought your own equipment). They wanted to raise our rates to 60.00 a month. That was basic with a few simple add ons (Military channel, boomerang, nothing premium). I tried to negotiate a better rate. When I couldn’t, we dropped pay tv all together.

All I miss is Beck. The kids shows we get over air from Canada and there is tons on Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and streaming sites. My hubby added a tower to our plasma and we are good to go.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Yes, Glen, Godspeed

Keep going after The Laughable Left: the worst of the hypocrites.