I don't get your conclusion, why does this mean he can't be trusted?
 

Come on, man!

It's Glen Beck!

Did you expect reality?
 

I will admit to finding Glenn Beck interesting and less annoying than most other CNN/FOX/MSNBC hosts because he's somewhat anti-government and anti-progressive, but in the final evaluation, I make of his brand of anti-intellectual populism the same that Mencken did the demagogues of his own age.
 

"I don't get your conclusion, why does this mean he can't be trusted?"

Because of just admitting, "I goofed," he somehow tried to make it seem like.... well, it's not clear exactly what, except that it showed how "liberal bloggers" are stupid!
 

Anon,

He is clearly lying. To steal a line from Keith Olbermann (who also can't be trusted), Beck basically did a Pee Wee Herman "I meant to do that."

He had the audacity to try to turn it around and make the progressive bloggers look dumb, when all they did was point out his staff had forgotten to put a word on the board.

Yes, I'm sure in their staff meeting they had agreed to put "CZAR" on the board too, but shucks they just forgot when they did the show.

So for him to say, "Ahhh, the progressives realized that we're leaving out the czars! Thanks guys! And people thought you wouldn't get it!"

That's about the most dishonest handling of a legitimate criticism I've ever seen. And then he even patted himself on the back in the beginning for dealing head-on with the tough questions. Come on.

(And during the "flashback" to a chalkboard from a previous shows that has "czar" on it, that wasn't the chalkboard where he misspelled oligarchy.)
 

It's not so much the clownishness and wacky alarmism but this I'm concerned about. I don't trust him but he usually has an amazing array of guests (though he's been slipping a bit of late) and he has been pretty good on the issues... so far.
 

(Apologies if this is a repeated comment, I'm not sure if I botched up my first attempt.)

Bob Murphy,

Full disclaimer, I'm the same commenter that posted a link to the second video in the previous post. Consequently, anything I say should be accepted only with great hesitance, if not just outright mocked.

The previous shows that week had prompted a White House response that Beck shouldn't call Van Jones (and other unconfirmed advisers) a Czar because the position had not been titled as such. The entire week had been planned to build up to spelling Oligarchy. In the flashbacks, he was demonstrating the previous existance of the C. I'm personally not sure if the omission of the C(zars) was intentional (either in response to criticism, or to set up Friday's opening) or an honest gaffe.

Personally, I thought the response/recovery was entertaining if not a bit patronizing.

(Also, Beck, ultimately pointed me down a path that led me to begin attempting to understand Austrian economics among other things.)
 

Anon,

No mocking, and as I alluded to, I want so much to be able to proudly like Glenn Beck, because when I agree with him he's really on. But I think it's mostly an act. I think he realized, "Oh, the ratings go up if I get real passionate about our liberties" and so he ran with it.

Even if your sympathetic interpretation is correct, then he still was a complete jerk. E.g. let's say I cracked a sarcastic joke that only a longtime reader of Free Advice would get. Then if someone took me at face value in the comments, I wouldn't bite the person's head off and say what a moron s/he was. I would just say, "Oh, it was an inside joke, you'll get my humor if you give it a month."

And also, if they were consciously omitting the czar because of the White House, then I think they would have left a big blank both in the column of words and on the chalkboard, and then when he said "one letter is missing" he would have added "besides the one that stands for you-know-what, because according to the White House, we were being mean-spirited" or something. I.e. Beck is not so subtle as to completely skip the C-word entirely, knowing his audience would all note the omission and think, "Ha ha, it's because the White House doesn't like him using czar. Wow Beck's funny."

No way is that what happened.
 

Last thing and I'll drop this: That flashback they did to the chalkboard with the word "czar" on it was completely irrelevant to the story Glenn was telling. Nobody was denying that they meant to put a c-word (czar, say) up on the board. The point was, they forgot to actually do it during the broadcast.

So cutting to that other chalkboard was just misdirection, because if Beck had merely said, "Yeah it was czar" I think even his audience would have said, "Huh? The objection was, you didn't write czar on the board when you spelled out OLIGARH."
 

Point freely accepted.

Amazingly the only rational discourse I've yet seen concerning Beck.

Personally I'm young and dumb, and only recently exposed to his antics, so I'll still hold out hope. I pray that I'm not misled but know with a head clear of emotion, I'll probably be disappointed.
 

I commend you, Bob, even though I`m puzzled that this stupid little thing is what did it for you.

But are you going to keep listening to him and the other slick blowhards who play divisive games for fun and profit, and giving them play here?

TokyoTom
 

Glenn Beck is not at all as he wants you to believe he is. Glenn Beck is a tool of this administration and a deceiver. Glenn Beck is not conservative, but is rather a closet liberal.