Media Matters: The Glenn Beck Conundrum

Let's start with a multiple choice question.

When Glenn Beck opens the week by spending more than 15 minutes addressing his despicable attack on President Obama's 11-year-old daughter and says he has "never" dragged an opponent's family "into the debate," is he:

A Correct. This was an unprecedented departure from his usual behavior.

B Wrong, and well aware he is being dishonest.

C Wrong, and somehow either oblivious to his history or self-deluded enough to convince himself he is right.

Option A is categorically false. As we have detailed extensively, Beck's attack on Malia Obama was merely the latest in a long string of smears of the first family. For example, last April -- in a video that truly needs to be watched to appreciate how unnecessarily vicious it is -- Beck cracked himself up while brandishing a cane and repeatedly mocking Obama's aunt's "limp." It's unclear how this information was relevant to Obama's aunt's visa status, which is what he was purportedly discussing.

On multiple occasions, Beck has attacked President Obama's parents, blaming them for raising "the most radical president ever." His attack on Malia Obama wasn't even his only attack on the President's children last week. Beck speculated that Sasha and Malia may think "Jews are destroying the world" because of their exposure to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

So, Beck is absolutely wrong when he claims he has "never" dragged an opponent's family into the debate. There is no wiggle room here -- which leaves us with the final two options. He is either willfully lying to his viewers, or has become so untethered from reality that he actually believes his own falsehoods.

Therein lies the Glenn Beck Conundrum. (For additional illumination of this, watch this segment from last night's Daily Show in which Jon Stewart demolishes Beck's ridiculously false claim that only Beck and Fox News aired Israeli footage of the flotilla raid.)

Of course, it's not unusual for Beck to completely misrepresent his own behavior. In addition to his inaccurate explanation of his attack on Malia, on his radio show on Wednesday, Beck attempted to clear up what he perceived as possible confusion over his comparison of American progressives to Nazis in Germany, saying that "anyone who thinks that they are mimicking Nazi Germany or whatever -- or they think that that's what I'm saying -- that's not what I'm saying at all."

If that's not what he's been "saying," it's hard to decipher what his point was when he repeatedly compared various Obama administration officials and Al Gore to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Not to mention the countless other times he has portrayed Obama and perceived progressive policies as Nazi or Hitler-like.

Beck also said during his explanation of his smear of Malia that he hoped the attack is his "bottom," adding, "All Friday, I asked myself, how could it have happened?" The suggestion is clear: Beck had been driven to anger that was totally out of character. Contrary to Beck's suggestion, vicious personal assaults on his perceived enemies and their families are not at all out of character for him. Among other examples, Beck has:

• reportedly retaliated against a rival radio host by calling the rival's wife and mocking her for having a miscarriage. On the air.
• enumerated the various people, including Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), that he wanted to "beat to death with a shovel."
• reportedly attacked Terri Schiavo's husband, Michael  -- after he had previously run segments mocking Terri's condition -- as a "murderer" who sired two "bastard" children
• attacked Katrina victims as "scumbags," adding "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims."
• reportedly resorted to "vicious personal assaults on fellow radio hosts," including lobbing "exceedingly cruel, pointless" "fat jokes" aimed at an overweight rival host during his time as a DJ in Louisville, Kentucky.

This behavior led Beck biographer Alexander Zaitchik to remark in an interview with Media Matters' Joe Strupp this week that he "wasn't prepared for the depth of Beck's mean streak."

Proving Zaitchik's point, mere days after suggesting that attacks on opponents' families were out of character, Beck joined co-host Pat Gray in impersonating Al and Tipper Gore, laughing about the dissolution of their marriage.

While addressing his attack on Malia Obama, Beck also lamented that he doesn't "know why we're not having real conversations" in America. This was during the same show wherein he compared the current state of our country to the biblical story of Moses and the films Star Wars and Robin Hood, and cited a supposed epic national division between supporters of Woodstock and the Apollo Project.

This is also the guy who once illustrated President Obama's policies by mimicking pouring gasoline on a person, who frequently suggests progressives will resort to violence against conservatives -- including last week saying "eventually they just start shooting people" -- and who has spent much of the past year and a half scrawling absurd conspiracy theories on a chalkboard. But Glenn Beck "doesn't know why we're not having real conversations." OK, then.

Which brings us back to the Glenn Beck Conundrum.

Which is it, Glenn? You are either willfully lying to you viewers, or you are completely, provably wrong -- yet somehow convinced you aren't.

Regardless, one thing is certain: When you say that you've never dragged people's families "into the debate," you certainly aren't right.

And if you don't want to answer that, at least let us know why you spent several minutes on your radio show today promoting the book of a raging anti-Semite who praised Hitler and denounced the Allies.