THE END OF GLENN BECK?

From Media Matters for America:

An October 3 New York magazine report on the cable news networks contains an interesting passage regarding internal divisions within Fox News network. New York magazine reports that, according to a Fox News source, "[p]eople are uncomfortable with Beck...He's not a popular guy within Fox." In particular, Sean "Hannity's not really happy with Beck. Beck is a hired gun who is benefiting from Fox News."

More here, including a link to the original article.

Heh. FOX insiders don't like Glenn Beck. That's really funny. Well, that's what they get.

Longtime Real Art readers know well how much I hate Beck's FOX colleague Bill O'Reilly. I have no idea how many times I've bashed the guy on this blog, but I get the feeling that a site specific search will come up with at least twenty posts focusing on the Big Butthole. Probably more. But I've only written about Beck a relative few times, even though I'm pretty sure he's currently got the biggest audience at FOX. It hasn't really been a conscious decision to go easy on the conservative network's crying lunatic dude; for some reason I just haven't been as emotionally compelled to go after Beck in the way I've gone after O'Reilly.

But the above excerpted little gem has got me thinking: I leave Beck alone, for the most part, because I don't take him seriously.

Sure sure. He's big with the Tea Party people. He's very clearly inspired some political violence. He's got a few million people listening to his wacked out bullshit every day. But he's just not the kind of threat O'Reilly is. I mean, I disagree with almost every word that comes out of Butthole Bill's mouth, but his rhetoric kind of makes sense in that, if you don't analyze it too much, it sounds like some reasonable argumentation. You know, personal responsibility, big government, taxes, yadda yadda. But Beck, on the other hand, with his Ross Perot charts, bizarre conspiracy theories, strange rewritings of German and Russian history, and countless other examples of loony tunes hallucinations-as-political-analysis, makes the late night UFO oriented radio talk show Coast to Coast look like a science textbook.

In other words, Beck's a nut who will never achieve a density of influence that stands any chance of altering the American political dynamic. His fans may as well be vampire aficionados or Cabbage Patch Kids collectors for all the impact they'll have on the country in the long run. So I just leave him alone mostly. Besides, where do you start arguing with a guy who doesn't seem to understand that the terms "Nazi" and "socialist" are mutually exclusive?

But this internal animosity toward him at FOX is just too enjoyable. It's almost as though they're starting to realize that there is an upward limit to the whole "fair and balanced" marketing gag: if Beck becomes synonymous with the network, the game is over; nobody with any sense at all will take FOX seriously.

Actually, that's already the case, but I'm sure you get my drift.

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