This from j. goodrich at Tapped regarding the remarkable Glenn Beck. Why Time Warner, the owners of Time Magazine and this blog, would sully its credibility by employing this toxic dufus is beyond me.
The notion that it’s the personal morality of individual Americans–not the unwarranted invasion of Iraq, not Abu Ghraib, not the abandonment of our former position as honest broker between the Israelis and Palestinians, not our refusal to speak to sovereign states in the region, nor our general, overall, blundering lethal arrogance–that is responsible for the metastisizing jihadi movement is so flagrantly irresponsible as to boggle the mind. Sure, it’s fine to have know-nothing extremists like Glenn Beck as guests on CNN programs. I believe in the First Amendment. But give him a podium? It is profoundly destructive to the public discourse at a pretty serious moment in our nation’s history.
I should add: The post above is inaccurate in one profound way, a consequence of my visceral reaction to Beck’s know-nothing stupidity. The main reason why the jihadis behave the way they do has absolutely nothing to do with America. It has everything to do with the tendency of religious extremism, especially Islamic extremism (given some of the more provocative verses in the Qu’ran) to curl in upon itself and become lethally demented. The Salafist tendency in Islam is a form of extremist sickness that, had not America existed, would have had to found another Satanic “Other.” That’s the main problem here.
Oh, and to those commentators who would equate Bill Kristal with Glenn Beck, here are two distinctions: 1) Bill has spent years studying this stuff and has come to a conclusion that I disagree with, but he states it in a civilized, dignified, well-thought and usually friendly way. 2) He isn’t the editor of Time Magazine, just a columnist (non-staff, unlike me) just as Michael Kinsley is. Glenn Beck controls the content of his program.
My dream is a public square where neither America-haters like Chomsky or world-haters like Beck have positions of authority, but both can spew their nonsense as guests.