Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The New York Times magazine...

...had a cover story this past weekend, "Being Glenn Beck," in which the author, Mark Leibovich, characterized the Fox News personality as:

...someone who was suddenly ubiquitous and who talked a lot and said some really astonishing things, to a point where it made you wonder — constantly — whether he was being serious.

And that's the only question I have about Glenn Beck -- Is he really serious? Nothing else about him is the least bit interesting to me.

Leibovich raised this question in the second paragraph of his piece and spent the rest of the article avoiding its answer. The result, for me, was a complete waste of time.

So I would really like to know, how much of what Glenn Beck says does he really believe?

When Beck talks about FEMA  concentration camps, for example, as part of a secret plot to establish totalitarian rule, does he really believe that? Really?  Because if he does, then Beck really is a "paranoid lunatic," as Joe Klein called him. If, on the other hand, Beck doesn't believe that, and is just saying so for ratings, then he should be called out as a charlatan.

So which is it? I'd really like to know.

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