Because I’ve been traveling, I have not had the time to blog as much as I would like nor to follow the news. I was flying from LA to DC and my flight got diverted to Charlotte. Unfortunately, I was unable to connect with Bruce until it was too late to meet and ended up overnighting with a close friend from college before catching a later flight into Washington.
As you can probably guess, given my faith and my interest in civil discourse, I have attempted as best I can to follow the story about the 400 rabbis who
. . . purchased a full page in the Wall Street Journal demanding an apology from Glenn Beck for the repeated use of Nazi and holocaust imagery he used on his Fox News TV show; and for the attacks he made on George Soros – a Jew, who was an adolescent during the Nazi occupation of his native Hungary.
Roger Simon reminds that the left-wing financier doesn’t have any sense of guilt for living with a Nazi collaborator who took the then-teenager with him when he confiscated property from Hungarian Jews.
As is often the case, the blogress I have dubbed the Jewish Athena offers a viewpoint nearly identical to my own:
I have no sympathy for Beck and have in the past expressed my view that he harms the causes he claims to champion. His is not the image or tone that conservatives should seek to emulate. I don’t think the rabbis’ letter is out of bounds in the least. Beck in this instance has plainly gone over the line.
However, what I DO object to is the selective outrage. They were mute when Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) compared Republicans to Goebbels. Where were they when Holocaust language was used to score points against their political adversaries?
And then there were the series of Time magazine “reports” using Holocaust imagery and anti-Semitic tropes (e.g. Jews care only about money) to smear the Jewish state. Where were the rabbis then?
It’s Jennifer Rubin, just read the whole thing.
I agree with her that Beck sometimes crosses a line, but he’s no worse than some on the left, like the aforementioned Tennessee Democrat, who regularly use Nazi imagery in describing Republicans.
Fine, criticize Glenn Beck, but then also criticize Steve Cohen. Why did these rabbis fail organize when Democrats and mainstream media outlets crossed this rhetorical line?
Agreed. It isn’t creepy that Soros, as a young teen, followed the (collaborationist) plan that his father had laid out to ensure his survival. But it is creepy that Soros, the adult, has proclaimed his own total lack of any feelings of remorse. Soros the sociopath, or Soros the repressed? You decide.
I liked Glenn Beck better when he was on–gasp!–CNN. But that’s because he acted more like a professional commentator there and less like a drama queen, as he does on FOX News. His conservative message, though, hasn’t really changed much since he left CNN for FOX. So I don’t understand why “the Jewish Athena” dislikes him.
Hey JA, lay off Beck and aim your guns entirely at the leftist thugs who threaten the very survival of the Republic.
I guess we’re supposed to ignore that this group is funded by George Soros? No conflict of interest there.
I knew Soros was mega rich and spent mega bucks to make ¨W¨ a one term president. To this day I wonder why his tax returns have never been made public and if he has off shore accounts. I thank Glenn Beck for showing all the organization that fronts for his personal agenda, and exposing him for being nazi sypathizer. In the early eighties when I was distributing slate sheets for Log Cabin in a small bar on Santa Monica Blvd. a patron told me ¨I´d rather admit to being a Jewish Nazi than a Gay Republican. What I deduce from the rabbis complaint is that we must have moved up a couple of rungs on the ladder.
I like Glenn Beck very much and I do not find him to be promoting his image or tone as the way conservatives should go forth. However, I am comfortable that others do not like his “voice” and want to hold him at arms length in order to avoid having to defend him.
As to the 400 rabbis, I strongly urge those interested to make their way through this long and very detailed posting.
http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2011/01/jewish-funds-for-justice-goes-after.html
Perhaps off topic, but I want to make a point about Glenn Beck and using television as a teaching tool.
When Walter Cronkite left CBS, he tried to start a television news/history/perspective television service for public schools. It was a flop. Then Bill Cosby got a Ed.D. in education and turned his talents to ….. well, it never materialized.
Glenn Beck is a college dropout, alcoholic, former disk jockey, rodeo clown. (His description.) He performs classroom genius nearly every day in subjects that are arcane and complicated. He does this while selling soap and meeting and keeping a barrage of scheduled breaks in the lecture.
I have marveled over and again at his depth and his ability to bring his continually more educated audience along with him. I am ever ready to sniff out demagoguery on his part or catch him using misplaced context for advantageous purposes.
Additionally, I have access to people who could “debunk” Beck in a heartbeat. While many loathe the man, none has yet to disprove him. While I have not run his every word through a truth-o-meter, I have yet to find him misinformed, ill prepared or even remotely off key.
Beck has done the impossible job in television of gathering a huge audience at the 5pm hour and laying out information that would get him and Ailes and Murdoch sued into oblivion if he were wrong. He uses much of his own money to finance the research. He does not drag in other names at FOX to bolster his credibility and he does not intermingle with the other FOX people, save Bill O’Reilly. (It is my opinion that O’Reilly uses Beck, not the other way around.)
Back in October of 2009, Peggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ:
It is as if Noonan had no idea what was eating away at the TEA Party.
“Conservative” stylists still don’t get the TEA Party or Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck. Beck, Palin, Bachman, and so many other people like them are too rough around the edges, too course for the salon, too unwise in their concordance with the establishment. There is a distinct disdain for their common appeal.
Faith should never be used as a weapon. God’s mercy is our great equalizer. LBGT=Loved By God Truly. Share your faith.
Where’s the usual lemmings on this one?
Noonan would have done better if she had left out the first paragraph, trust her to get her dig into Beck before acknowledging that these Rabbis are simply using the holocaust as a victimology tool.
Which is why the only time I read anything of her is it you happen to link to it.
Ditto on the hypocrisy from the lib rabbis. But I don’t see Beck as doing our side more harm than good. That I reserve for Ann Coulter and Michelle Bachmann