Glenn Beck Interview…
The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto has an interview with Glenn Beck…
Mr. Beck identifies with the Howard Beale character from the 1976 film “Network.” Beale, played by Peter Finch, is a news anchor on a fictional broadcast network who has a nervous breakdown on air, becomes a raving populist, and is a big hit with viewers. Mr. Beck invokes the fictional anchorman’s most famous line: “I am mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore. The part of Howard Beale that I liken myself to is the moment when he was in the raincoat, where he figures everything out, and he’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! Why the hell aren’t you up at the window shouting outside?’”
Mr. Beck adds, “What the media wants to make me is the Howard Beale at the end, the crazy showman that’s doing anything for money. That I don’t liken myself to.”
Some of Mr. Beck’s detractors on the left, including MSNBC ranter Keith Olbermann, draw a more sinister cinematic analogy. Mr. Olbermann calls Mr. Beck “Lonesome Rhodes,” the cynical TV demagogue played by Andy Griffith in 1957′s “A Face in the Crowd.”
“I had never heard of Lonesome Rhodes,” Mr. Beck says. “I had never seen the movie. . . . As soon as I heard that, I watched it. . . . Lonesome Rhodes and I, I guess, had a few things in common. He was a drunk. I’m in AA; he wasn’t. He, at the very beginning, said things that he believed—I think. I’m not really even sure on that. I used to not say the things I believe. . . . Now I’ve made a vow to myself—it actually comes from Immanuel Kant, the philosopher: ‘There are many things that I believe that I shall never say. But I shall never say the things that I do not believe.’ . . . The minute I violate that, I’m back to the old drunk Glenn.”
Advertisement
January 16, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Ha! “Beale, played by Peter Finch, is a news anchor on a fictional broadcast network who has a nervous breakdown on air, becomes a raving populist, and is a big hit with viewers.”
Beale becomes a raving LUNATIC, and the network exploits his lunacy for ratings, eventually concocting and successfully executing a plan to KILL HIM ON THE AIR as a ratings ploy when people start getting bored with him.
You think Glenn identifies with THAT??
January 16, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Olbermann’s special-ed comments earned him the Beale distinction a long time ago.
January 17, 2010 at 10:49 am
So that’s who Lonesome Rhodes is. I didn’t have a clue.
“…The minute I violate that, I’m back to the old drunk Glenn.”
I intend to remain an avowed Beck critic, but that one got to me.
January 17, 2010 at 3:05 pm
I love when the Left finds some scary figure to draw a comparison with right-wing media-types. Invariably it’s someone like Father Coughlin or Lonesome Rhodes, of whom 90% of the population has never heard. That, no doubt, makes them feel so much smarter than the people who don’t bother watching them, or know who they are.
January 17, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Laural, very well stated!
January 17, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Actually, Johnny Dollar first applied – tongue-in-cheek – the “Lonesome Rhodes” analogy or reference to Olbermann about 3-4 years ago.
It’s a very strange movie for those who know Griffith only through the comedy shows. He plays a very dark, sinister character and it really throws you.
I’m sure J$ will see this and perhaps respond.
January 17, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Laura, maybe The Left just doesn’t like some of the crap Glenn Beck spews. Sounds smart to me.
January 17, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Missing my point, oddly enough. I’m just saying that comparing them to people that no one’s ever heard of would seem to be too smart by half, as the TV-people like to say.
January 17, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Missing my point, oddly enough.
Nice touch.
January 17, 2010 at 10:14 pm
-TV people-
I’m sure glad they’re all stuck inside that box.
January 17, 2010 at 10:16 pm
-smart by half, as the TV-people say-
Does anybody use that phrase in regular conversation? How about “At the end of the day”?
January 17, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Or ‘throwing under the bus’?
January 17, 2010 at 10:22 pm
‘Straw man’.
January 17, 2010 at 10:24 pm
”Well, at least we can agree on that..”
January 17, 2010 at 10:28 pm
”Well, at least we can agree on that..”
Um…I actually use that one. It comes in handy when some of your best friends don’t share your politics.
January 17, 2010 at 10:32 pm
^ Yeah, but at least normal people don’t say it and laugh afterwards as though they made a funny. ”Oh, yes. Conservatives and Liberals can actually agree on things. Aren’t we wonderful?”
January 17, 2010 at 10:36 pm
^Good point. They’re always so proud of themselves.
January 18, 2010 at 11:12 am
“At first blush” and “The better half of the argument”.
I use both all the time and I have no idea what they really mean.
What is “first blush”? And do arguments have “halves”?
They sound smart so what the heck.
January 18, 2010 at 12:12 pm
For “Car Talk” fans, there’s always the new “puzzler” which comes out during the third half of the show.
I believe “blush” in Old English once meant a “shine” or “glow”, and those waiting for their loved ones to return home would stare out to sea hoping to catch the first blush of the sailing ship nearing from the horizon.
January 18, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I believe “blush” in Old English once meant a “shine” or “glow”, and those waiting for their loved ones to return home would stare out to sea hoping to catch the first blush of the sailing ship nearing from the horizon.
Okay: did you know that or look it up?
If you knew it, add 25 points. If you looked it up, subtract 25.
January 18, 2010 at 12:21 pm
– did you know that or look it up? –
I think he saw it in a vision.
January 18, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Entomology is an interest of mine. It’s because I often inadvertently mix my Brit phrases with American ones and get the “WTF?” look from my kids and colleagues.
-vision-
I’m getting a vision right now, smarty butt.
January 18, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Guess it’s too early in the day for ‘visions’.
January 18, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Except I meant “Etymology”… guess something was bugging me.