Tonight is Fox News host Glenn Beck’s last day on the air, but I know many of you will still be at work and have to miss his farewell. So here’s a compilation of Glenn Beck being his most Beckian, courtesy of Media Matters. Now, two things about this video before you watch it. First, it doesn’t include Beck saying anything particularly factually wrong or right, so don’t look forward to any kind of vindication of that sort. It’s really more of a montage of his conspiracy theories and his style — his hysterical, paranoid, sometimes funny, always overdramatized style.
And second, remember, Media Matters is an organization dedicated to shaming Fox News, or at the very least making a mockery of it, since the former is probably impossible. In short, obviously this is a series of clips of Beck at his most demented, compiled by people who hate him. Still, I don’t think his fans would necessarily be alienated by this — it’s this very style of presentation, and the arguments he makes with it, that earns him his devoted following.
I’m curious if any of the hard-core Beck followers who came to the site after we wrote about his scuffle with New Yorkers in Bryant Park earlier in the week would think this video is a fair representation. (By the way, you can read more perspectives on that incident from various outlets: Beck’s site the Blaze has Twitter evidence that the New Yorkers’ intentions may not have been so innocent, while The Village Voice spoke to the woman who actually spilled the wine near/on Beck’s wife. She says it was a pure accident, although she’s no Beck fan and had been previously joking about doing something on purpose.)
The third notable thing about this video is a series of short clips where Beck says: “Do you really believe that I could or anybody here at Fox News could just make things up and remain on the air?” and “If I get out of control and start leveling baseless charges that can’t be backed up, I’m fired. I lose my job.” What’s funny about that is, he did lose his job. Our Gabriel Sherman reported back in May that by March of this year, FNC boss Roger Ailes was tired of Beck’s antics and was ready to see him go. Not long after that, Ailes told the AP that he was perfectly fine with people saying Beck was fired from Fox.
Anyway, enough of that. On with the tears!
