Glenn Beck and Ron Paul
Debating David Horowitz about Glenn Beck, I made the point that it was very strange that David Horowitz can excoriate Ron Paul and then enthusiastically defend Beck, who is (I wrote) Paul's "chief TV enthusiast and publicist."
David Horowitz answered:
I have to confess that I am not familiar with Beck’s promotion of Paul. If David wants to engage this I would have to review Beck’s statements about Paul first.
You'd think that review would be a matter of some urgency for David Horowitz. After all, Horowitz himself described Paul as "a crackpot, a conspiracy nut and a public menace... an anti-Semite and an America-hater." To date, however, Horowitz has not found time to consider the record. Soon afterward, David Swindle appeared on David Horowitz's Newsreal blog to deny that much of a record even existed.
Swindle linked to a Glenn Beck segment from Nov. 2007 in which Beck worried that some of Paul's supporters might engage in domestic terrorism. On the basis of this link, Swindle concludes: "Beck, 'Paul’s chief TV enthusiast and publicist,' disagrees with Paul 'vehemently' on many issues. Who’s Frum kidding here?"
Swindle should have made time to view the new Beck show, the one on Fox, not CNN - the one on which David Horowitz is such a frequent guest. If Swindle had done this homework, here is some of what he would have found:
In December 2007, Beck offered a glowing one-hour interview with Ron Paul.
Beck is more admiring still in April 2008.
By July 2008, Beck is in almost total accord with Paul.
In January 2009, Beck is telling Paul that his words are “interchangeable” with those of the Founding Fathers, and by July 2009, Beck has utterly absorbed Paul’s crank monetary and banking theories as his own.
Then there are the too many segments to count in which Beck broadcasts Paulite ideas as his own, as for example here, here or here.
Horowitz and Swindle can say they were unaware of this material before. Well, they know it now. What's the conclusion? Or will it be more of this, from David Horowitz's most recent blogpost:
The eagerness of some conservatives like David Frum to throw Glenn Beck under the bus reminds me of Trotsky’s observation about pacificists as people who don’t want to get their moral principles wet.
I don't know that I'd take moral instruction from Leon Trotsky. And it seems to me that the challenge to conservatives these days is not to keep our principles dry, but not to discard them in pursuit of bookings, audience, and donations.