Mark Levin's problem with Glenn Beck
The intramural feud brewing among conservative broadcasters
Even conservatives think Glenn Beck "is nuts," said Steve Benen in Washington Monthly. Right-wing radio host Mark Levin called Fox News star Beck "'pathetic.' Rush Limbaugh called Beck's role in promoting conservative protests "cheap and disingenuous." Peter Wehner said Beck's daily attacks are bad for the nation. "It seems as if Beck may be marginalizing himself in a way that will, if we're all really lucky, make him permanently toxic to those who take politics seriously."
"The attacks on Beck by Levin are a reflection of what’s happening on the American Right as a whole," said Jack Hunter in the Charleston City Paper, "where the old fools’ game of merely corralling grassroots conservatives into the Republican Party is suffering from a severe shortage of fools." By saying that Republican John McCain would have been a worse president than Barack Obama, for example, Beck was merely showing that he is no longer a knee-jerk neoconservative and GOP man like Levin.
Glenn Beck is nothing but "an act, a showman," said David Frum in New Majority. He's a "very good showman, a natural TV talent," to be sure. But he's absolutely "indifferent to the future of conservative politics," and Republicans reveling in his moment in the spotlight are in for some "nasty surprises" if they place their hopes in him.
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