Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:07 pm
On his radio show today Glenn Beck claimed Barack Obama is on a mission to take out Fox News or any media that challenges him. Beck called Obama a dictator, and compared Fox News to the Jews during the Holocaust, while warning that when Obama is done with FNC, he is going to come after other news organizations.
Here is the audio courtesy of Media Matters:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Beck said, “When they’re done with Fox, and you decide to speak out on something. The old, “first they came for the Jews, and I wasn’t Jewish.” When you have a question, and you believe that something should be asked, they’re a — totally fine with you right now; they have no problem with you.”
He continued, “When they’re done with Fox and talk radio, do you really think they’re going to leave you alone if you want to ask a tough question? Do you really think that a man who has never had to stand against tough questions and has as much power as he does — do you really believe after he takes out the number one news network, do you really think that this man is then not going to turn on you? That you and your little organization is going to cause him any hesitation at all not to take you out?”
He concluded by leading his listeners to believe that this is the beginning of the Obama dictatorship, “If you believe that, you should open up a history book, because you’ve missed the point of many brutal dictators. You missed the point on how they always start.”
Beck’s obsession with the Nazis has returned, but his comparison of Fox News to the Jews is an insult to every Jewish person out there. Why does the right wing feel the need to trivialize the Holocaust? What exactly has Barack Obama done to right wing media that would confirm any dictatorial tendencies? The Obama/Nazis comparison doesn’t hold up.
If Obama actually was a dictator, he would not allow talk radio and Fox News to exist. He and his administration would not be taking digs at them occasionally. He would have sent the military in and shut them down. He would have rounded up and arrested all dissent. That is what a dictator does. Barack Obama is not a dictator.
Beck’s whole anti-Obama rant is hypocritical because Barack Obama’s election has been the best thing to happen to right wing media since Bill Clinton was in the White House. Do you think that Glenn Beck would have experienced such a meteoric rise, if John McCain had won the election last year? The fear and paranoia of the right since Obama’s election has made Glenn Beck.
Beck needs Obama. No one should believe that his audience would be just as large if he was weaving his paranoid conspiracy theories about John McCain every day. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the rest, need Barack Obama. The one thing that Beck will never tell his listeners is that he is secretly happy that Obama is in office, because without Obama, Beck would still be struggling like he was at Headline News.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
