Editor’s Note: Yesterday a frequent conspirator of mine hosted the following exchange on his Facebook page. He had posted on the controversy that seems limited to the blogosphere over footage capturing a producer from Fox News leading the crowd at the 9/12 Project’s march on Washington in cheering to capture a live shot for the cameras. The footage is below:

The link to the video drew the attention of a teabagger and, of course, your editor couldn’t resist.  The exchange is reposted as a case study of how quickly and easily a neo-conservative’s hypocrisy can be exposed.

Peter
Free speech is a tough concept for some people to understand.
Yesterday at 7:24am

Rob Spectre
There is a difference between covering the news and being the news. A producer taking the mike on stage and a commentator organizing the rally are not documenting a event, they are manufacturing it.
Yesterday at 10:58am

Peter
If FNC was the only outlet I might be more concerned. Freedom of speech means something.
Yesterday at 11:08am

Rob Spectre
Indeed, but so does journalism, and in a healthy democracy the two should bear some truth in advertising.
Yesterday at 11:30am

Peter
Let the market and the people decide. That which is true eventually prevails. Further despite all the journalism going on we have a blissfully uniformed electorate.
Yesterday at 12:38pm

Rob Spectre
I think it was pretty obvious from the last election that they did, however dishonesty should be identified whether it comes from a public or private source.
Engaging in free speech in a free market comes pre-bundled with responsibility, and those who are cavalier with both should rightly expect to be exposed.
Yesterday at 12:43pm

Peter
Really?! The American press is seldom responsible or demonstrates restraint nor should it. It is called freedom…funny how when the left attacks the right it is about freedom and when the right attacks the left it is about responsibility. You need some intellectual honesty about when talking about freedom of the press.
Yesterday at 12:51pm

Rob Spectre
I’m not sure I follow. My argument is that the Fox News producer that was MCing a rally she was assigned to cover was dishonest journalism, not that she should not be free to do so. I don’t think I said anything about her or her employer’s civil liberties which certainly include manufacturing a rally for the sake of spectacle, just as my civil liberties include identifying it for what it is.
Yesterday at 12:58pm

Peter
Dishonest journalism? What was dishonest about it? The fact they didn’t disclose they didn’t support Obama? Well the failure to disclose is rampant in the industry. Frankly I am not sure why anyone is surprised or outraged by this. Journalism is a profession that is not populated with particularly intelligent, honest or competent men and women. The practice of journalism is full of those who ‘want to make a difference’ or ‘want to change the world’ but lack the intellectual resources or entrepreneurial spirit to actually do anything other the comment on the proceeding of greater men.
Yesterday at 2:09pm

Rob Spectre
Again, a bit fuzzy on your position. Are you suggesting that since everybody in journalism is stupid, it is okay for Fox News to be dishonest?
Yesterday at 2:19pm

Peter
Yep. It is equally ok for CBS to make up evidence, MSNBC to cheerlead for the left and CNN to be pretty much irrelevant. That is the marketplace of ideas and there are no rules on playing fair nor should there be. Since the Revolution the press has been as corrupted by political favoritism and the ideology of the one running the printer. The notion of Fair and Balanced is not dead because it never existed in the first place.
Yesterday at 2:49pm

Rob Spectre
I guess I have a little trouble reconciling “What was dishonest about it?” with “Yes, it is okay for Fox News to be dishonest, just like everyone else.”

I’ve been engaging in some destructive behaviors lately. I’ve been drinking too much, sleeping in, eating rich food, and basically sitting around on my ass watching TV.

I’m visiting my parents. And while most of the trip back to the center of the country has been lovely, there has been one truly disturbing happening. I’ve spent more than the recommended-by-doctors amount of time watching Fox News. What a trainwreck. You want to look away. You know you should look away. You know watching it may lead to the necessity of years of powerful therapy due to all variety of sexual and psychotic disorders. And yet, you must watch.

Just this week, I managed to fit in 15 straight minutes without losing my chowder. I tuned in for Glenn Beck, erstwhile gay wet-dream of our very own Rob Spectre. This particular quarter-hour was something Leni Riefenstahl would have come up with if she had had access to PowerPoint. Over the thundering sturm und drang orchestral montage, I learned that Obama wants to come to your house, take your DNA, test it for impurities, then, after punching your Grandma squarely in the head, piss on your children.  Because making sure poor kids have access to medical care is as evil as the Holocaust.

This kind of crazy takes a certain measure of commitment, and if I may be so bold, a certain degree of genius. This kind of crazy is not the run of the mill brand, is not the ordinary flavor of guano. This is Dr. Strangelove crazy. This is a heady brew of arrogance, dishonesty, and self-righteous indignation. I simply had no idea this kind of crazy was available. Rob tried to tell me, but like an ostrich, I kept my pretty head in the sand, unwilling to have my hopes raised that this kind of crazy, this elusive, delicious, Sarah-Palin-esque insanity, was still there for the watching.

But Beck may have stayed too long at the party. He may just have crossed a bridge to far into the brilliant twilight of conservative bat-shittery. For the very beating heart of middle America, the sacred essence of the Kingdom of Red, has dropped this once shining star of the Neo-Con movement like the pudgy, weepy, douche-haired turd he is. Wal-mart has pulled their sponsorship of his program due to the sharing-circle moment on Fox and Friends in which he called the President a racist who hates white people.  Wal-mart, a store so conservative they won’t sell you the morning-after pill or AC/DC albums. Wal-mart, the store that places large black modesty panels over copies of Cosmo. Wal-mart, where the clothes are so cheap you can use American flag t-shirts made by Taiwanese children as napkins for the jumbo chili dog you can eat while shopping for even more XXXL sweatpants. Wal-mart, the one place where the coastal elitist opinion of fly-over country is actually accurate.

Ladies and Gentlemen, when Wal-mart doesn’t want a piece of your right-wing bullshit, it is time to rethink your message. But when Wal-mart thinks you’re in bad taste, it might be time to retire from the speaking English altogether.

A four foot wide swastika spray-painted on a Congressman’s office.  A fax featuring the president’s picture with a slogan saying “Death to All Marxists.”  A man protesting at Obama’s town hall arriving armed with a gun on his leg.    Another woman making headlines with a sign equating Obama to the unelected president of Iran.  Every scuffle ends up on YouTube.  Every protester holds a reference sheet of talking points.  Every new lie gets repeated until its gospel.

The disruptions at the town halls held during the Congressional recess to get feedbacks have become chaotic spectacles, flooded with ill-informed but amply loud right-wing activists claiming the new healthcare initiative is going do everything from turning the country red and unplugging grandma’s ventilator.  On the surface, the rage seems real and gives the impression of a swell of dissent for the healthcare proposals currently coming out of Congress.

The only problem is the whole thing appears a little too telegenic.

The graffiti, the signs, the slogans, the “death panels” – all of it pains a story that sells itself.  Swastikas and conspicuous are the kind of front-page, half-hour lead sexy that would make any editor wet. They’re all cable-ready, straight-to-market type stories that have legs for weeks – even if they are predicated on misinformation.

Informed opponents of the healthcare initiative are as confused as the Congresspeople getting berated in these town halls.  Death panels? Fascism?  Eugenics?  These myths are pervasive among right-leaning Americans, but they are not coming from Republicans.  The GOP leadership, if anything, has tried to combat the rowdy trend at the town halls, even with some going so far as to endure the booing of their own supporters to correct popular untruths.

They do so out of self-interest; they know that these town hall riots are good for short-term sensations but bad for the endgame.  This brandof rage is unsustainable for any real length and, given the recent events in the abortion debate, can lead to dangerous consequences damaging to the cause.  No, the Republican caucus is not fueling the town hall circus.

This is not a grassroots movement; this is a viral newscycle.  The ready-to-link rumors, the “push” news reports, the abundance of citizens ready with a two-second soundbite – real revolutions just aren’t this carefully coordinated.

And when one examines the constituent components of where all the fuel for this fire originated – the death panel rumor, the allusions of socialism, the fascist photos – they all began in one place.

The power for this manufactured movement is provided by the only interest it benefits: Fox News.

Before it manifests itself in the crowds, it always begins on the right-wing network.  No one was calling Obama a fascist before Glenn Beck.  No one was talking about a government official coming to kill grandma until Bill O’Reilly.  And certainly no one was showing up at town halls until Oliver North started telling them to.

Fox News is inciting these riots for ratings, a ploy despicable not in that it furthers a particular political end, but that it furthers a particular profit.  These disruptions in town halls will have little effect on the policy that ultimately gets shaped, as the poll numbers indicate they’ve been having little real effect on the public opinion of the policy.

There’s only one winner through the continued frenzy, but we all stand to lose.  Chuck Todd said it best in today’s First Read when he tried to find who was benefitting from the spectacle that has become our healthcare debate:

Ah, the classic political story … nobody wins, we’re all losers in these eyes of the true silent majority: the radical middle.

I, like many of you, had no idea who the fuck Glenn Beck was before today.  Another in the Fox News regiment of batshit “news” commentators, Beck is evidently a strong third to Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.  He has been called by former Meet the Press moderator Chris Wallace as a “meteor” at the unapologeticly ultraconservative cable network, with Wallace hopefully confusing the word with something that doesn’t come crashing into the Earth in a spectacular ball of fire.

Before just another nameless white face in the vast sea of sensationalist, psychotic chatter on that station, Beck came to my attention through a national media event held in his honor today.  He and his loyal audience held a special event extending the courtesy of letting me and the other 53% of America that voted for Barack Obama know that he has us surrounded.  “We Surround Them” was a national rally of viewing parties that rallied around his news program, sending in their portraits and affirmation of allegiance to Beck’s “Nine Principles” and supplementary “Twelve Values.”

1. America is good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

His anthem ignores the obvious election result from just four months ago.  His movement is launching on Friday the 13th.  His logo looks exactly like the inverted international hazard symbol for radioactive waste.

The Glenn Beck Special is so thick with irony, even other commentators on the Fox News Network are having difficulty believing it is real:

Preaching from Atlas Shrugged as though it were the Bible and reading from the Bible as though it were the Periodic Table of Elements, Beck would have us believe that there are more of him than there are of us.  That those who want more for themselves than for others are the real majority of America.  That greed is virtue and self-interest is king.  That the liberals and progressives who would seek equality, charity and mercy do not represent the true patriotism in these United States  That he and his crew, powered by their self-righteous principles and selfish values, have all us left-wing hippie scum surrounded.

In this, Glenn Beck is correct.

For the batshit crazy cro-mag circus he’s ringleading with this completely contrived, entirely manufactured and transparently inauthentic moment in his own mind, his fundamental thesis is accurate.  There are more of them then there are of us.  They -- the apoplectic egocentrist jackholes shitfaced six ways on their own self-satisfaction -- still have us outnumbered and will continue to fight us tooth and nail, even as the temple to which they set fire falls down around our heads.

But Beck is acting like it hasn’t always been this way.  They have always surrounded us.  The America you and I were born into was and is positively flush with these fucks.  From the second we kicked into this world, they were choosing our hospitals and our classrooms to wage their ideological wars. They were filling our city councils and Chambers of Commerce, giving kickbacks to their own kind while draining municipal governments across America of the resources to support her cities. They recycled the same swindles and Ponzi schemes over and over, with each iteration changing the names of the instruments of their robber baroning.  Each time acting like doe-eyed innocents when they finally fucked us all sideways.

We have lived our lives surrounded by these people, beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.  Scouring the Earth for the persecution the New Testament says makes a good Christian, the Glenn Becks of America have reliably vigilant for anything, anything they can sensationalize and exploit.  Anything that will continue to delude them.  Anything that will hide or justify their works, lest by which we would surely know them.

Yes, Glenn Beck, you do have us surrounded.  But this has always been so.  We didn’t win a war last November -- we won an election.  It didn’t change the fundamental composition of this nation’s virtue.  It didn’t remove the millions of malignant tumors, sucking us bone dry with their shitty haircuts and glazed stoner eyes.  The Glenn Becks are the majority of the United States.  But, fortunately for the future of us all, the Glenn Becks aren’t in charge.

He didn’t have to hold a barbecue to let us know he’s still out there.  We know you are, Glenn.  We know you’re not alone.  But you should know something too.

We are not finished.

I guess it was in reference to Halloween that Fox News began running pictures of Edward Said. They showed a picture of Mr. Said, looking every bit like someone’s grandpa wearing a track suit to play canasta, throwing what was supposedly a rock. There was no context for the photo (which, by the way, they got off of wiki), other than that a man who likes to throw rocks, presumably at Israeli soldiers, was once at a function with Obama. No mention of how Said was the father of post-colonial thought, of how he was often a voice of rationality and calm in the ever-increasing insanity of the Palestine/ Israel conflict.  No mention that the language he used to describe Israeli Zionists might come from first hand knowledge. No mention that he had been educated and lived in the United States for much of his life, and was an academic at Columbia and several other institutions for a number of years. But more importantly, absolutely no mention of the fact that Edward Said has been DEAD FOR OVER 5 YEARS. 

There are several things wrong with this, but lets start with the easy ones. When you are telling your watchers that Obama is hob-knobbing with terrorists, might we at least limit those terrorists to ones that are still alive? It must be that Obama is now a ghost-terrorist sympathizer as well. Any day now, we’ll see him in pictures with Zombie Saddam Hussein. Further, since when did writing books about cultural identity, orientalism, post-colonial theory, and just general memoirs make one into a terrorist? Perhaps it is the same as “driving while black”. Edward Said was WWP: writing while Palestinian. Or perhaps all intellectuals are terrorists to the folks over at Fox News. When a man who can write articulately, convincingly, intelligently, and thoughtfully about this conflict is vilified as a terrorist for even suggesting that Palestinians have a right to their own land, we have officially reached the end of reason. 

That my friends, should give you a chill on this All Hallow’s Eve.