- "Glenn Beck’s two-part “exposé” on George Soros, whom Beck calls “The Puppet Master,” was so shocking, even by Beck’s degraded standards. The program, which aired Tuesday and Wednesday, was a symphony of anti-Semitic dog-whistles. Nothing like it has ever been on American television before."
- Michelle Goldberg on The Daily Beast
And later this reaction:
- "Fox News host Glenn Beck was criticized Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish advocacy organization, in response to a televised segment about the financier George Soros and the Holocaust."
- Brian Stelter, New York Times
My friend was naturally exorcised over all this, citing it as further proof of the criminal culpability of Glenn Beck.
Okay so I'm no Glenn Beck fan. He is the apotheosis of the problem I think is really threatening us as a whole: a self-interested 'conflictariat' with a financial and cultural interest in conflict rather than in governing, sociopathically radicalizing the country and making it impossible to solve real, important problems. Goldberg's article was an opinion piece, finding horrific anti-semitic messages in Beck's television program (kind of like college literature papers find hidden meanings in Shakespeare plays). Stelter's article was about the "furor" it caused.
What struck me at first was that some of the worst quotes in the Stelter article didn't seem to appear in the transcripts of Beck's actual show.
- Stelter: Citing Mr. Soros’s statements about the decline of the dollar, Mr. Beck said, “Not only does he want to bring America to her knees, financially, he wants to reap obscene profits off us as well.”
>> I can't find that quote in the transcript. I think that's the gist of what Beck was saying, but putting quotation marks around it implies that Beck said it verbatim.
- Stelter: Mr. Beck said that during the Holocaust, the 14-year-old Mr. Soros “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off.”
>> I can't find that quote in the transcript. Beck does say "when George Soros was 14, his father basically bribed a government official to take his son in and let him pretend to be a Christian. His father was just trying to keep him alive. He even had to go around confiscating property of Jewish people." That's not pleasant, but it's not a lie. Soros himself said that in a 1998 interview on 60 Minutes. Beck doesn't say anything about Soros helping Nazis "ship them off," in fact, he muses (albeit not kindly) on what being forced to live through such a horrific episode would do to a man.
So either Stelter is deliberately mis-quoting Beck's actual words to get more sensationalist effect, or Fox omitted the quotes from the transcript. My sense is that the latter is possible but unlikely, given Fox's understanding that once released all media is permanently in the public domain and such a step would be discovered.
But after mulling this for a bit, here's some backchannel I found. The ADL's Abe Foxman is actually a Beck supporter because Beck is a supporter of Israel. Why would Foxman send Beck a letter one week expressing support, and then attack him the next week as an anti-semite, then qualify his condemnation a day or so later? Maybe this relationship is not as simple as we're being led to believe? I don't think these nuances are going to find its way into the conversation, however, because they take time to explain and don't fit cleanly into the narrative of either side. What we're left with from the Goldberg/Stelter articles that Beck is an anti-semite and Foxman is nobly and righteously calling him out.
Here's what I think: Beck is a horrifically damaging demogogue. But as a result of the Stelter/Goldberg articles, my Progressive Jewish friend (their intended audience) will hate Glenn Beck a bit more, be a bit more tempted to view the ADL favorably, and be a bit more convinced that Republicans are evil/racist/anti-semitic. She'll probably view people with critiques outside her narrative (like me) as secret anti-semites or worse.
In other words, her personal anger, distrust and fear quotients just went up, as did the fortunes of the groups and individuals generating the stories.
In effect, my friend's (absolutely well-founded and legitimate) fear of anti-semitism was manipulated this morning by a (very sophisticated) group of professionals and organizations in order to generate money and political support to perpetuate their own existence. The next time she gets her call from the phone bank folks soliciting her money or votes for companies/products/candidates aligned with her narrative, she'll be more likely to say yes.
Fox News and Beck do the EXACT same thing on the other side of the spectrum: overstate or deliberately mis-characterize an event in order to grab a headline and persuade the masses to push the message viral. Which my friend did.
The really amazing thing is that Beck BENEFITS from the New York Times/ADL reaction. Their supporters will never be his, but HIS supporters view their reaction as proof he's on to something. Neither side cares what the facts are or who's right or whether it matters in any real way. THEY BOTH WIN. Goldberg, Stelter, Beck, and Foxman all got pats on the back today for doing their jobs and bringing recognition to their organizations.
This is the game. The news cycle will blow past and few will remember these specifics by next week. But underneath it all, everyone outside the conflictariat who paid attention just got a bit more frightened and distrustful and radicalized. They also got a bit less likely to support compromise with politicians (or citizens or friends, for that matter) seemingly aligned with the opposing narrative. And so it goes.
- "The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen - or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic."
- Jon Stewart
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