From Beck’s radio show. Note, he has apologized and said he broke his own rule about attacking people’s children. Too little too late. Totally nasty, in my opinion. This almost makes me sick to listen.
Beck and his sidekick make fun of President Obama’s daughter for asking about plugging the oil spill. They leave no stone unturned in the nasty and degrading department. There are some things you just can’t apologize for. the hateful laughing in the background pushed his behavior into the no redemption department.
Is this even funny to anyone? Is there any nadir to which Fox News will not sink?
This is in the vicinity of fair game. The comment supposedly made by the daughter – I don’t belive it’s real, never did – is really stupid. If my 9-year old grandson asked such a question, indicating such an infantile view of how the world works, I would certainly correct him. In fact, had he been 5 years old and said something like that, I would have indicated to him that things aren’t quite that centralized and that the President is not a superhero.
The fact that Obama chose such a stupid remark to circulate as evidence that he’s on the ball is pretty weird.
That said, Beck’s “meaner version of Rush Limbaugh” act (or “political hack version of Howard Stern”) is unlikeable to most of us, just as Limbaugh’s was in his heyday, and he is over the line of decency with the very odd “Why do you hate black people” question.
As with Limbaugh, Beck can always rationalize and explain what he did, and can speak very well, but something at his core is just nasty and he increasingly seeks to irritate and offend and cross lines of personal decency. We’ve all seen this show before. Beck has his core audience apparently, I can’t relate to it. He’s an effeminate whiny clown IMO, as Limbaugh was a blustering buffoon pathologically trying to compensate for his lack of military service. Hey, what can you do. It apparently fills a need in some people’s lives.
Nowadays Bill O’Reilly, once the angriest man on television, has become the “good cop” of Fox News shows.
I’m sorry…I just cannot even stand this man. I do not understand why anyone finds him intelligent, funny, or the least bit entertaining. That was like an off-year SNL sketch without substance or punchline, and that went on for way too long.
As far as judging the nature of the question from the President’s daughter…whether or not you believe it is real or not, the child’s level of education was attacked, her voice was repeatedly mocked, etc. So what if the kid did really ask this question? It doesn’t mean that she is stupid, has an infantile thought process, or deserves any of this. You should hear the not-so-realistic ideas that some very smart and well educated adults have come up with on the matter…
that was beyond stupid, and is totally not in fair game (in the way he mocked her). If Beck wanted to discuss the comment, maybe, just maybe, I could understand why he would think it was fair game, but to do so (and pull in such bs) in a mocked little girl voice – totally unacceptable.
I wish there were a way to have this radio comment up without looking at Beck’s picture. Shudder.
Regardless of what else has been said regarding the oil leak, ( My initial thoughts run along the lines of not screwing with Mother Nature which is also pretty childish) Beck’s behavior here is just inexcusable and dead wrong. I don’t even care if he apologized. That he thought even for 2 seconds that doing that skit was appropriate just speaks volumes.
I guess I just don’t like mocking others as a form of entertainment. Yes, I have mocked people (stop laughing, Elena) but it isn’t a behavior I am particularly proud of and I don’t make money off of it. It is a fairly private act.
I don’t take it as mocking the girl, but mocking the pretence that she actually asked that question. Who here thinks the girl actually asked him that question?
I agree that they shouldn’t go near piling on the children, so I’m glad he apologized or whatever, but I don’t think he was really savaging the child, more the pretence.
Perception is reality. He actually sounded like a pervert in this audio. I don’t like mocking and mimicking people for money. There is just something nasty about it.
I never heard the actual statement. What’s wrong with ‘plug the hole?’ Basically, that’s what needs to happen.
I suppose teens and adult children of presidents should expect bad and good media. What about Chelsea?
If the kids were younger, I can see being outraged. But this thing with Beck is just more of his BS and easily ignored, IMO.
Besides, I bet Obama’s kid has thicker skin than we imagine.
I believe unless the kid is political, they are hands off. No exceptions.
You can’t help who your parents are.
Playing devil’s advocate here, the politician should also take some care to keep his kids out of political matters. When Carter did this (“I asked Amy what she thought the biggest problem facing the world was, and she said the bomb”) there was much sarcasm about it.
Rick, then you are asking a president not to acknowledge that he has kids or a wife.
Let’s face it. Beck was just being Limbaugh nasty. The kid didn’t make her father mention her name.
I stopped watching SNL for over a year because they made fun of Chelsey Clinton’s appearance.
did she make comments about his blackberry? No. Did she make comments about politico, the teleprompter, getting messages on the black berry, their heritage (Obama being half white).
The answer is no, she did not. Yet, in Beck’s program he insinuates she did. If he wanted to have commentary on what was spoken – that is one thing. But to mock her using that voice is an insult. I bet if someone made a similar recording imitating (if you could call it that) Beck’s daughter, he would be outraged.
Yeah apparently Beck has several daughters.
Obama’s youngest daughter is a few days away from 9. If she actually said something that simplistic, it was probably as a joke or humorously. He did use it (explout it?) to try to make himself look more engaged. It was clumsy, arguably stupid.
What exactly did she say? If she really said plug the hole, so what! That pretty much covers it. If someone could plug the hole we would not have more than 5,000 gallons of oil spilling into the ocean each day.
If Obama had an iota of warmth to him, using his daughter in this way might actually be charming. This came off as a pretentious reach. And if the president is going to parade his kids as a way of making a point, he should be prepared for the same sort of sniping other public figures get when they exploit their children.
Actually, decent people would avoid the ‘well he did it first’ mentality.
Beck addressed the issue on his show today. He almost apologied enough. His wife chewed him out. He ought to listen to his wife more often.
He then lost it trying to compare the moon landing to Woodstock….more on that. Fake tivo time.
It is one thing to acknowledge a wife or kids, it is quite another to describe how his decision making was affected by a discussion with a juvenile. If Obama wants his family to be considered off limits, then he should refrain from discussing them during his crisis of leadership.
I cannot believe that people are trying to defend what Beck did.
Beck did not take the one single quote “daddy, plug the hole”. Beck made stuff up – listen to the tape, and show me where Obama made mention of his daughter talking about his blackberry?? She did not, Obama never made that statement – but it is included in Beck’s mocking of her. Does Beck need to stoop to that level of poking fun at a little girl to get an audience riled up??
Obama mentioning what his daughter said – might open up the quote to be discussed – but it does not give one the right to make stuff up, in a mocking voice. Ya know, she has feelings too, and is a child – children are not fair game.
But some creepy old man moving next door to the Palins in order to write attack book, we see no problem with that, right? Attacking Palin’s daughter, special-needs baby, all that is fine and dandy, am I right? The left can dish it out, but they sure can’t take it. Oh, and it was Obama that dragged his kids into this for cover, not Beck.
It is hard to defend Beck who is an almost totally unlikeable person. But Obama’s partially responsible himself as kelly3406 said well. Beck makes a living riding Obama’s jock so it’s not surprising that he would riff on something very stupid that Obama said.
Obama should have stuck to the teleprompter and none of this would have happened. See what happens when he goes ‘off script’, he says something stupid…. again. If you look closely at the video when Obama said this you can see the teleprompter shaking his head. 🙂
Palin kids get bashed because she put them out there, no issues with that at all. It’s even been defended many times here. Beck does a 30 second skit (in poor taste in my mind), apologized on multiple occasions about it, and he is labeled the “Totally Nasty Beck”. No double standard there.
Associating the obvious desire of everyone to get the hole plugged to his daughter is one thing. Presenting it as “Daddy plug the hole” is a little different in the context of an Administration and speech that was asserting that the Administration is in control – and is ‘on it.” It was a deliberate metaphor for “I have the power.” Well ok, your doing a great job Brownie.
So while the Administration ties to blame Bush, BP and just about everbody else – BP is still in charge. I find it interesting that the Administration is setting out a criminal case for this accident – perhaps a technical failure – perhaps not. It does seem a little like bringing charges against the fire department while the house is burning.
I was never a fan but Glenn Beck lost me completely a few weeks ago with his diatribe against Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite Presidents. Beck was attacking Teddy as a “progressive.” T. Roosevelt was part of the “Progressive” movement of his day, which is not the same thing as today’s “progressives” that include a lot of really fringe nut cases. My cat has more knowledge of history than does Beck.
Teddy understood the problem of corporate corruption and lack of competition better than any other president ever has. He knew that free enterprise and competition constituted the most efficient, productive economic framework ever devised. He understood also that allowing large corporations to run roughshod over our nation and economy was in no one’s interest except their own.
One of the best books about the recent financial and economic collapse is “13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.” Its co-author, Simon Johnson, who is the former Chief Economist at the IMF, said that the solution we need now is a “Teddy Roosevelt moment.” By the way, if you have time to read only one book on the crisis, it should be Johnson’s.
NTK, I agree about TR. However, I don’t believe that there is a darn thing wrong with people who today consider themselves ‘progressives.’
Beck has attempted to hi-jack that name. I know lots of people who consider themselves progressives. They aren’t socialists as Beck would paint them. They are people who lean left but aren’t quite liberal.
Beck pulls out something that is 10% true and forms and entire hypothesis around it. There is something wrong with him. Too much kool aid I guess.
His apology yesterday sort of linked his behavior to alcoholism…he didn’t say that but he implied it. He has definitely created a kool aid punch of Mormonism, conservativism and AA. All are fine by themselves but when mixed togethehr…if Beck is the end result…not so good.
NTK, how about a little synopsis of that book…?
Hello, actually I have defended the Palin kids many times and all those who can read know this. Now, the kids who have gone political, fair game. McCain’s daughter who has gone political is fair game.
An d Beck was totally nasty. Don’t like my titles? Go elsewhere. Don’t be a hypocrite by coming here would be my suggestion. You never say anything positive or offer solutions. You just whine and do the punch and run thing.
“Beck pulls out something that is 10% true and forms and entire hypothesis around it. There is something wrong with him. Too much kool aid I guess. ”
As Beck always says, prove him wrong… Everyone always complains about him and what he says but you hardly ever see anyone ‘prove him wrong’. I’ve seen article after article about how wrong he is and how much hate speech he spews but they all have one thing in common, no specifics. They seem to never be able to nail down any particulars.
Moon – I’ll do even better – the link below is to the presentation and Q&A Johnson did that CSPAN’s BookTV recorded. Watch this and decide if you want to read the book (it is certainly worth your time).
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/11440/13+Bankers+The+Wall+Street+Takeover+and+the+Next+Financial+Meltdown.aspx
BookTV’s synopsis:
“Simon Johnson talks about the power of Wall Street banks since the 2008 financial collapse. In March 2009, the heads of the 13 largest banks in the U.S. visited President Obama in the White House to ask for help. That help, which came in the form of bailouts, loans, and credits from the federal government, resulted in a further concentration of power within the banking sector, leading to what we have today – six megabanks that control a vast portion of our economy. Mr. Johnson argues that these banks, which are still too big to fail, continue to take excessive risks and could lead us to another collapse.”
Regarding progressives, I agree that many who take that title today are perfectly reasonable people. I said modern-day progressives “include” fringe or nut cases, not meaning that all fit that description. Beck focuses on some who are, and extrapolates that anyone who has ever considered themself a progressive, including Teddy Roosevelt, is a nut case.
@hello
That is like delving into the question of ‘when did you stop beating your wife.’ Most of the time his serious suggestions are too preposterous to prove ‘false.’ How would you disprove Obama is the next Hitler? Seriously.
Beck is entertainment for the kool aid drinkers.
Thanks NTK.
NTK, I give. How to I make it play?
Moon – I checked and that one won’t play on my computer anymore either. Other videos on the BookTV site will play. It’s apparently their webmaster’s problem. Check out the reviews on Amazon for more summaries.
I’m sorry that won’t play because that’s the video where Johnson says that the solution we need is a “Teddy Roosevelt moment.”