Glenn Beck by Robert Ringer

Glenn Beck's Departure from Fox News (?)



By Robert Ringer

On rare occasions, a unique figure bursts onto the national stage and has a dramatic impact on politics, culture, or both. Glenn Beck is one of those figures. He is surely the biggest, fastest, most controversial star in the political commentary business in my lifetime.

Beck is a real-life version of Howard Beale, the fictional television commentator in the 1976 film classic Network. Beale whipped his cultish TV audience into a frenzy, exhorting them to stick their heads out the window and chant, ''I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!''

Much to the chagrin of the oligarchy in Washington, however, Glenn Beck is not a fictional character. He's real, and he has succeeded in enlightening his audience far beyond Beale's simple rants about the unfairness of life. Beck is much more knowledgeable, much more factual, much more rational, and much more focused on the key issue: America's loss of liberty.

I find it more than just a bit ironic that ultra-liberal CNN Headline News gave Beck his first forum on television. There, he created a huge stir with his ''rodeo-clown'' antics and his willingness to talk openly about his drug- and alcohol-addicted past. But as he increasingly added his political views to the mix, people started asking, ''Why isn't this guy on Fox News?''

Of course, Roger Ailes was closely observing Beck all along, and, in January 2009, he brought him to Fox and fit him into the 5:00 p.m. time slot. While Beck had been moving more and more toward political commentary at CNN Headline News, from the moment he came to Fox his transition to near-total politics was swift.

Combining his incredible talents with the work of his equally incredible research staff, Beck became a household name seemingly overnight. In truth, of course, he had been in media for thirty years, but he had never before had a forum like Fox News.

Beck's show is so good I'm convinced that if a person doesn't watch it on a regular basis, it's almost impossible for him to understand the true causes of the moral and economic collapse of the United States - or even that it is collapsing - because no one else on TV covers most of the stories he dissects in impeccable detail. His modus operandi has been to expose the bad guys through their own words by playing audios and videos of them shooting off their mouths and by quoting their writings.

For quite some time now, I have believed that Beck has become so good at exposing the truth, so well respected, and so powerful that the Forces of Darkness in the White House and Congress view him as a major threat to their aspirations to eliminate the Constitution, the rule of law, and individual sovereignty in the United States. (In fact, they now refer to him as ''the Beck problem.'')

But, as I have written in the past, the Obamafia is in a no-win situation with Beck. If its leaders ignore him, he will continue to disrobe Chairman Obama and his malevolent progressive pals through their own spoken and written words.

On the other hand, as they have already discovered, the more they try to discredit Beck, the more attention they draw to him - and the more people will learn about the details of how they plan to fundamentally transform America. Worse, their childish mudslinging is no match for Beck's sixty minutes of hard-core truth five days a week (not to mention his three-hour daily radio show).

So Beck keeps raising the ante, and there is no question in my mind that the oligarchy in Washington sees him as a major obstacle between where they are today and their ultimate goal: a firmly entrenched, all-powerful federal government that controls every aspect of people's lives.

Listening to Beck this past year has convinced me that he senses he has been chosen by a Higher Power to lead the charge against the evildoers in government. If so, it's not the first time God has surprised the world with his choice of a messenger.

In laying down the gauntlet, Beck has pointed out that as a recovering alcoholic, he's already been at the bottom, so nothing scares him. ''The worst thing that can happen in my life,'' Beck has said, ''is to lose my honor and to return to my Heavenly Father without honor - without doing what I was supposed to do.'' When people talk like this, it represents a very big problem for those in power.

Beck has made it clear that he is not afraid of losing everything if that's what it takes to convey the truth to as many people as possible. And, as the far left knows all too well, a man who is willing to lose everything can be a huge obstacle to its achieving its socialist objectives.

The willingness to lose everything is, in fact, a key to being a successful revolutionary, or, in Beck's case, a counter-revolutionary. How many people do you know who are prepared to lose everything to fight for what they believe in?

Not long ago, Beck came right out and said, ''I'm going out swinging.'' That statement carried with it some very strong implications. Clearly, something has to give.

My best guess? I hope I'm wrong, but I have long had the feeling that Glenn Beck will be leaving Fox News other than through old-age retirement.

How might his departure come about? The way I see it, there are four possible avenues of exit.

As I watch him strip BHO and other members of Crime Inc. down to their dirty underwear every day at 5:00 pm, I ponder what the Obamaviks will do to try to stop him from destroying their full-speed-ahead efforts to transform the U.S. into a collectivist paradise.

I see four possibilities for Beck's exit from Fox News:

Assassination. On more than one occasion, Beck has alluded to cement boots and his ending up at the bottom of the East River. He has also assured his audience that he has no inclination to jump off a tall building, and if something like that were to ever happen to him, it would not be accidental.

Even more ominous is that Beck continually tells his audience that this isn't about him, that each and every one of them must stand up and carry on the fight. When he says this, it sparks memories of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous words at a rally in Memphis the night before he was murdered:

''We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop ... and I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.''

Anyone who has read even a nominal amount of political history knows that those on the far left unabashedly believe that their morally superior objectives justify the use of violence. The problem they have with Beck is that using violence to eliminate him is dangerous, given that he has already warned the public to be on the lookout for his sudden demise. Plus, a martyred Glenn Beck could be as powerful for the liberty movement as a martyred Barack Obama would be for the movement to turn America into a socialist police state.

So, let's assume - and hope - that no harm befalls Glenn Beck. What else, then, might cause him to leave Fox News?

Roger Ailes retires or passes on. Roger Ailes has almost single-handedly propped up the free press in this country, being so good at his job that Fox News has been able to render its left-wing media competition almost irrelevant. When Ailes, who recently turned seventy, leaves Fox, there is no assurance that Rupert Murdoch will pick a replacement with equally strong conservative beliefs.

If Roger Ailes is replaced by a ''moderate,'' the new president of Fox News would undoubtedly either terminate Beck or place restrictions on what he could and could not say. And if the latter occurred, you can be sure Beck would depart Fox - with his honor intact, as promised.

Rupert Murdoch passes on. Rupert Murdoch is still going strong, but the reality is that he's seventy-nine years old. And, as I've written about in the past (Fox News's Liberal Future), Murdoch's children and son-in-law are liberals who have long complained that Fox News is too conservative. With Murdoch gone, there would surely be a major shakeup, and both Roger Ailes and Glenn Beck - perhaps along with a few others - would quickly be out the door. It would be the end of Fox News as we have come to know it.

The Godfather option. Barack Obama knows that time is against him. With liberal Democrats dropping like flies in primaries and special elections, he can't afford to wait too long for Roger Ailes to retire or Rupert Murdoch to pass on.

Solution? Just send ''the boys'' over to have a little chat with Rupert Murdoch and make him ''an offer he can't refuse.'' In keeping with Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd's clearly stated objective to force ''some people to step down to make room for others,'' the offer might be as straightforward as: (1) If you get rid of Glenn Beck, Fox News can stay on the air; (2) if you choose to keep him, Fox News will be shut down.

Kind of the Obamafia's version of putting a bloody horse's head in someone's bed to improve his perception of reality.

And let us not forget that Cass Sunstein - whom Beck refers to as ''the most dangerous man in America'' - says he wants to use government power to stop ''conspiracy theories.'' (Translation: Repress the truth by using whatever means necessary to silence the opposition.)

So where does Beck go if he departs Fox News? On at last one occasion, he said that even if the bad guys succeed in forcing him off radio and television, he will come back with a louder voice and larger platform than ever. I found that to be a tantalizing statement, one that caused me to speculate on what such a platform might be.

Of course, the biggest platform of all would be president of the United States. Beck says he would never run for president, because he wouldn't want to risk losing his soul. The implication is that a person can't run for president, and certainly can't hold the office of the presidency, and keep his honor intact.

I thought about this recently when Beck did an in-depth show on one of his heroes, George Washington. He emphasized a number times that what made Washington unique was that he did not want to be president. He accepted the office only out of a sense of duty, and refused to stay in office longer than two terms.

I believe - and it is strictly a personal belief based only on watching and listening to him - that Beck sees himself in much the same way. I think he feels a sense of duty to do whatever he can to help save America. He knows that George Washington did not want to be president, yet he served out of a sense of duty. Even more interesting, Beck has said that ''Americans are looking for someone like George Washington.''

Clearly, he has a vivid sense that he has been put in his current high-profile station in life for a purpose. Which means he may not have a choice but to throw his hat into the political ring - if not in 2012, perhaps in 2016.

Much like the Founding Fathers, I believe Beck has committed himself to using his fame, his fortune, and his enormous talents to help defeat the poisonous progressive movement that is fundamentally transforming the United States into a destitute socialist nation.

So, the $64 question is: Will Glenn Beck ultimately conclude that he has no choice but to run for president?

And the $128 question is: Would enough Americans be willing to open their minds to the truths he would expose to elect him president?

If Beck did become president, I believe he would go down as one of the greatest - and most unpopular - patriots in American history. Unpopular because, like George Washington, he would not be willing to trade his honor for popularity.

In any event, if the presidency is not in Beck's future, it will be interesting to see what his platform will be three to five years down the road. Right now, at Fox News, he's a ticking time bomb for the progressive movement in this country.