This is very interesting. I was driving to work today and heard the opening of Glenn Beck's interview with Texas gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina. Right off the bat something seemed a little odd to me. I'm paraphrasing, but he introduced her along these lines:

GLENN BECK paraphrase: "Now just a few weeks ago this person had a scant 4% of the vote. Kay Bailey Hutchison now has y%, and folks you know I'm no friend of Kay Bailey Hutichson--she's a fine enough woman in her personal life I'm sure--but she's not what Texas needs to bring America back to the principles of the Founders. So now we have on the line Debra Medina. Debra, thanks for being with us. I wanted you to have the opportunity to introduce yourself to America, since many of us don't know who the heck you are."

To repeat, those weren't the exact words, but I think I captured the spirit of how he introduced her. In particular, I am almost positive that he mentioned her single digit polling from the past, and did not mention what her polling is right now (24% the last I checked, compared to 39% for the front runner). And I know he said she had to be on his show because a lot of people didn't know the first thing about her.

So he asks her right out of the chute, "Who are you?" Medina gives her stock answer, ripping Perry and Hutchison etc. etc. Then Beck says, "OK, but the question I asked was, who are you?"

So right out of the gate, Beck is getting all hardcore interrogator on Medina. That would be fine, except that Beck wouldn't have done anything like that with Sarah Palin or somebody else that he liked.

At this point I turned off the radio, because I don't like conflict and it was making me uncomfortable. Even by Beck's second question, it was clear to me it was going to be a hostile interview, and Beck was subtly letting his listeners know that this woman was not the Real Deal.

Apparently things just went downhill from there. Beck ambushed Medina with 9/11 Truth questioning. Here's Lew Rockwell's take: "Rick “Gardasil” Perry is scared. Ninety minutes after Glenn Beck lied Debra Medina onto his show, through a neocon producer, Perry robocalls went out using the Beck clip. Surely the whole business was coordinated by the Rovians running the Perry campaign."

To be clear, I don't know the first thing about Medina, except that Tom Woods wrote a characteristically pugnacious plug for her. I'm not saying she's awesome or even that I hope she wins. All I'm saying is that when you wonder, "Gee, how come all the politicians--from both parties--seem to be the same?" this is part of the answer.

The thing that disappoints me even more than Glenn Beck (almost certainly) going along with a hit job is that his sidekicks play such a "aww shucks, I'm just here readin' my Constitution tryin' to figure all this stuff out" act, when they have to know full well how this all works.

P.S. If anyone from the Glenn Beck show is reading and wants to have me on the show to talk about my books, my email is open. You can even ask me about the time I got cut from the freshman basketball team, I don't care. Call me!