As we have covered before in this space, the far left does anything possible to avoid having a straight-up, honest debate over ideas. Much like the old Communists and Fascists on the streets of Weimar-era Berlin, they’d rather use muscle than ideas to get a victory.

As we’re all aware, one of the current targets is Glenn Beck. In particular, Free Press wants to make him out as a paranoid McCarthyite.

Supposedly he’s seeing socialists, Marxists, and communists everywhere. Even though Senator McCarthy was right, and Communists had infiltrated our government all the way up to Alger Hiss, we’re supposed to think badly of Red hunting. But let’s look at the people themselves at Free Press, leading special interest promoter of the Fairness Doctrine, ownership diversity rules, and of course Net Neturality. Are they as socialist as Beck thinks?

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I noticed Stu Burguiere of the Glenn Beck show point out something fascinating on Facebook:

Olbermann 8pm + Maddow 9pm + Olbermann 10pm + Maddow 11pm + 109,000 other people = Beck at 5pm.

So . . . um . . . how’s that boycott against Beck going? The one designed to get him off the air? Sure there have been some advertisers who fled. There have been many more who were never there, but claimed to be part of the boycott.

But does it really matter? Other advertisers are filling the void and Roger Ailes is, so far, perfectly willing to take care of the show.

Again:

Olbermann 8pm + Maddow 9pm + Olbermann 10pm + Maddow 11pm + 109,000 other people = Beck at 5pm.

So how’s that boycott working out? Heh.

Supposedly enough of one to steal his schtick, according to Jake Tapper (who is merely passing along what he has been told, mind you).  So why is the interim White House Communications Director suggesting that she’s ripping off a man who is one of the most legendary devil figures in liberal mythology?  The man who the Left has built its two favorite stories - the ‘Southern Strategy’ and Willie Horton - around?  The man who was so hated that Larry Beinhart wrote a best-selling novel that had him reach beyond the grave to start the first Gulf War?

Because it’s still better than Anita Dunn admitting that Mao Tse Tung really is one of her two favorite political philosophers.

Via Ace of Spades. 

I’d like to make it clear: Dunn really was using Mao as an example of how you have to do what you’re going to do, and make sure that you don’t let other people run your life for you. Or, as my (much more apolitical) wife just put it: “Anita Dunn made Mao sound like a cheap inspirational figure, when the guy was a menace.” Seventy. MILLION. Murdered.

I guess that I’m just missing the joke.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Tune in if you like. We’re talking ACORN.

Otherwise, make this an open thread.

Josh Silver, the Executive Director of Free Press a media reform group, wrote a piece at the Huffington Post a few days ago urging Glenn Beck to “Stop the Insanity”, tying beck to “Charles Coughlin’s hate speeches”

Looking back, it’s hard to believe that Father Charles Coughlin’s hate speeches were broadcast into millions of homes during the 1930s. Coughlin’s anti-Semitic rants incited prejudice and violence. Now, in the Internet age, it seems positively antiquated that one person could have such a powerful soapbox to engage in fear-mongering and hate speech.

In Silver’s Huffington Post article, he argues that Beck launched a smear campaign against Van Jones, and calls Van Jones “one of the great, principled leaders of our time”:

In the last month, Beck launched a smear campaign against one of Obama’s top environmental advisers and forced his resignation. Van Jones is one of the great, principled leaders of our time, and he was unceremoniously hung out to dry while the White House quietly acquiesced to the agents of fear.

Silver also offers a video of Van Jones speaking to Free Press’s 2008 media reform conference that ends with “join the fight for real journalism”.

Van Jones also spoke the year before here. At 5:30 Van Jones calls 2007 the tipping point of the “media justice movement”.

Jones is also on the board of Free Press, and Free Press defended him and attacked Beck in a statement saying that “our leaders have a responsibility to condemn fear-mongering … and support a more diverse media system that provides alternative voices to the likes of Glenn Beck” and “calls on [the] Obama administration to resist extremism in the media”:

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More or less. Sergant, for those who were wondering, was the NEA communications director who had been involved in a conference call last month that - depending on who you asked - was either a perfectly innocent conversation with various artists, or a recruitment drive for commissioned artwork in the Obamaist Realist style.  This is being scored as another win for Glenn Beck, although I’m not sure but that Big Hollywood should get the goal, and Beck the assist: at any rate, Sergant has since been reassigned.
(H/T: Amanda Carpenter)

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Here’s the (very entertaining) timeline:

• Thursday, September 3rd, 11:18 PM: Glenn Beck calls for his Twitter followers to send him information on “CASS SUNSTEIN, MARK LLOYD AND CAROL BROWNER” (all caps in the original, which is honestly a bit much).
• Friday, September 4th, 3:36 PM: Dave Weigel reports on all of this.
• Sunday, September 6th, 12:05 AM: It becoming clear that Van Jones is a crazy 9/11 Troofer and a generally not-particularly-mainstream fellow, he resigns as Green Jobs Czar (via AoSHQ).
• Sunday, September 6th, 10:14 AM: Keith Olbermann declares a Crusade against Glenn Beck (via Verum Serum).  This is to be an epic war of battle between Olbermann and Beck, yadda yadda.
• Tuesday, September 8th, 8:21 AM: Media Decoder hesitantly points out that media-on-media wars may not be the smartest things in the world; and is treated to a righteous, stylized response from Olbermann himself.
• Tuesday, September 8th, 8:22 AM to 9:46 AM (time indeterminate): Somebody in either MSNBC or GE notices that Olbermann is calling for a Crusade.
• Tuesday, September 8th, 9:47 AM: Olbermann calls off the Crusade (via Newsbusters & Instapundit).

There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever that GE sent Olbermann was off to bed without his binky.  Personally, I’d have enforced a timeout and Olbermann being made to write out ten things that he liked about Glenn Beck, but that’s just because I’m a dad now.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Here is your laugh for the day.

Because of Glenn Beck’s success in forcing out Van Jones, Keith Olbermann has run crying to Daily Kos. He has decided he wants all the dirt he can get on not just Glenn Beck, but also Roger Ailes and Stu, Glenn’s producer. Keith is obsessed with Glenn. Why? Because he is jealous.

Keith, we can venture to say, also has some serious mom issues compounded by Glenn’s success. Why do you think he’s going after Stu? Clearly, Keith saw Stu dressed up as Linda Douglass. Like Norman keeping his skeletal mom in her rocking chair, seeing Stu in drag has done something to Keith’s already frail mental state.

So he’ll target Stu.

And Roger.

And Glenn.

There’s just one problem for Keith — no one watches his show. The ratings suck. It wouldn’t surprise me if more people hear about RedState and me each day than Olbermann. And he thinks he can take on Beck?

The fact is Glenn Beck has a large television and radio audience — vastly larger than Olbermann’s. And Beck has done something with his audience. He’s turned them into engaged activists, while Olbermann is dumbing down his audience and treating the rest of America like Janet Leigh in the shower.

Suck it up Keith.

Glenn Beck = Winner.

For weeks Beck has been highlighting the antics of Van Jones, noted self-avowed Communist, race baiter, and nut.

At the same time, Van Jones’s group “Color of Change” has been leading a boycott of Beck trying to shut him down. The boycotters have gotten so desperate they are making stuff up — claiming companies are boycotting Beck who are not.

Well, today Van Jones, as predicted, throws in the towel after the Sunday shows with a holiday before us tomorrow so it gets as little attention as possible.

The left has been online demanding solidarity for Jones in the face of the right’s fight against Jones. Instead, Jones met the wheels of the bus.

Glenn Beck is still on the air, more popular than ever. Van Jones is toast.

Say it with me now: Glenn Beck. Winner.

On Wednesday Glenn Beck had his best day ever. And it wasn’t just Glenn Beck’s best day, he crushed everyone else on cable.

The kicker? Rush Limbaugh was his guest.

Solidarity baby! We’ll crush the left even as they cry boycott. By the way, did you know that a number of the advertisers they claim are boycotting Beck have never even advertised on his show — that’s like saying I’m boycotting Timbuktu because I’ve never had an occasion to go there.

The left is rather pathetic.

They accuse the right of lying about healthcare reform issues.

The media trots out polling showing people believe the “myths” relating to healthcare.

It’s all nonsense of course. Many of the myths, though not all, are actually true.

And then comes Glenn Beck.

The left is trying to off Beck’s career. They’ve started harassing any company that advertises during his time slot on Fox. And now they are downright giddy that Beck has been taken off the air this week.

Except he hasn’t been taken off the air.

Beck is on vacation. The vacation, according to multiple people directly affiliated with Beck’s program, has been scheduled.

In fact, they even produced an email from July listing this week as Beck’s vacation.

“You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”

— Obi Wan Kenobi

It appears that the left’s urgent boycott of Glenn Beck’s advertisers in an effort to destroy Beck is like Darth Vader strking down Kenobi. It’s making Beck more powerful. He is Kenobi.

According to Media Bistro,

“The Glenn Beck Program”, which airs out of primetime at 5pmET, had its highest rated week ever among Households (1,907,000) and Total Viewers (2,409,000), and second best week in the A25-54 demo (682,000).

Beck was #2 in his time period in both Total Viewers and the demo in all of cable last week, behind NICK, and beating his cable news competition combined in Total Viewers and the demo.

That’s right. Beck was number 2 on all of cable television behind Nickelodeon.

Now, about those sponsors. I probably should not have used the word “sponsors.” They are advertisers. At Fox, they buy ads that are put into rotation during certain segments of the day. SC Johnson Wax, Progressive, GEICO, etc. have demanded they not have their ads run during Beck’s program.

They are cowards.

But the attention is helping Beck.

And you should call these advertisers and tell them they are ridiculous chickens who should be advertising on the number 2 most watched television program in all of cable television during the 5 to 6 p.m. ET slot.

SC Johnson:
Fisk Johnson Chairman & CEO
Phone: (262)260-2000

Petrell Ozbay
Senior Global Public Affairs Manager
Phone: (262) 260-2114

Progressive Insurance:
Glenn Renwick, President & CEO- (440)461-5000

Linda Harris, Advertising & Sponsorships
Linda_J._Harris@progressive.com

Geico:
Tony Nicely
Chairman, President & CEO, Insurance Operations
E-mail: tnicely@geico.com
(301) 986-2462

Chris Tasher, GEICO Media Relations
301-986-3271
ctasher@geico.com

The New York Times is now covering the boycott against Glenn Beck.

ABOUT a dozen companies have withdrawn their commercials from “Glenn Beck,” the Fox News Channel program, after Glenn Beck, the person, said late last month that President Obama was a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

This left wing campaign is being orchestrated by a group started by Obama’s Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones.

If they are successful, they will move beyond Beck to others.

Two of the companies, GEICO and Progressive, are run by liberals. But that’s not the case with all the others.

The best response is to remind all of these companies that there will be repercussions from our side if they are so willing to become pawns of the left.

SC Johnson:
Fisk Johnson Chairman & CEO
Phone: (262)260-2000

Petrell Ozbay
Senior Global Public Affairs Manager
Phone: (262) 260-2114

Progressive Insurance:
Glenn Renwick, President & CEO- (440)461-5000

Linda Harris, Advertising & Sponsorships
Linda_J._Harris@progressive.com

Geico:
Tony Nicely
Chairman, President & CEO, Insurance Operations
E-mail: tnicely@geico.com
(301) 986-2462

Chris Tasher, GEICO Media Relations
301-986-3271
ctasher@geico.com

Barack Obama’s brownshirts are after Glenn Beck.

We can’t let them win. If they win with Beck, they’ll be emboldened to go after even more people.

A while back, Glenn Beck called Barack Obama a “racist.” Given all the terrorists, thugs, and racists Barack Obama has chosen as close personal friends (see e.g. Rev. Wright), it’s not a stretch to say it.

In fact, Obama’s Green Jobs Czar, the convicted felon and [Editor's Note: I actually find this on blogs, but haven't found it on a real news site, so I'm striking] self-declared communist Van Jones, has direct ties to the organization that’s trying to shut down Glenn Beck. Jones’s group has hired a big Hollywood PR firm and they are pressuring Glenn’s advertisers to stop advertising. If not, they’ll lead a boycott.

We need to strike back and boycott these groups for ditching Beck. If they are going to fold so easily in the face of Obama brownshirts, we must push back. If not, who’ll be next?

Here’s the list of the groups that have boycotted Glenn Beck. Let them know you disagree. Let them know you will boycott them for kowtowing to Barack Obama’s worshippers, brownshirts, goons, and thugs.

SC Johnson:
Fisk Johnson Chairman & CEO
Phone: (262)260-2000

Petrell Ozbay
Senior Global Public Affairs Manager
Phone: (262) 260-2114
pmozbay@scj.com

Progressive Insurance:
Glenn Renwick, President & CEO- (440)461-5000

Linda Harris, Advertising & Sponsorships
Linda_J._Harris@progressive.com

Geico:
Tony Nicely
Chairman, President & CEO, Insurance Operations
E-mail: tnicely@geico.com
(301) 986-2462

Chris Tasher, GEICO Media Relations
301-986-3271
ctasher@geico.com

UPDATE: Matthew Vadum commented and also emailed to note he had written about this yesterday. You can read what he wrote here.

Beck, as usual, is awesome:

The evidence is mounting day by day that the left is getting ready to use the new power they have in the Obama Administration and Congress to reinstate something similar to The Fairness Doctrine.  Two Senators recently expressed an interest in providing government mandated “balance” to talk radio.  Liberal Democrats are preparing to use the full force of the federal government to attack conservative talk radio, especially leaders like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Matt Drudge, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and other conservative/libertarian leaders.  

Liberal Senators will use the roadmap written by the left wing Center for American Progress I refer to as the Fairness Doctrine on Steroids that would implement a comprehensive stifling of conservative talk radio. The lefty’s idea is different from the fairness doctrine, yet it would be a more effective tool to stifle conservatives on the radio. So much for the First Amendment.

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