Beck and his guests are engaging in what might be called “PC Judo” — a move in which conservatives don’t simply affirm politically correct values and taboos but actually turn them against their left-wing critics.
Over the past year and half, I’ve always had at least one colleague who has liked Glenn Beck. First there was Jack Hunter and Dylan Hales (though the later had reservations). More recently Richard Hoste has taken up the charge.
Beck is certainly more unsettled in his opinions than Hannity, Limbaugh & Co, which means that he’s more willing to put on his show people with an “alternative” right-wing perspective, whether it be strict Constitutionalists or Austrian-inflected economists.
In my sporadic viewings of The Glenn Beck Program, I often get the impression that the host is, in a sense, going to school with each new show, likely in an attempt to make up for decades spent boozing. The Founding Fathers, Woodrow Wilson, Fascism, Objectivism and Ayn Rand — all subjects Beck approaches with a bright-eyed innocence and ignorance. I find programs on, say, American imperialism more interesting than updates on the run-away bride, to be sure, but I’d prefer hearing this subject discussed by someone who hadn’t just discovered it existed shortly before going on air at 5 PM.
Beck’s “curiosity” aside, whenever he has been faced with a serious moment of decision, he has invariably come down on the side of the conservative-GOP establishment, and the Washington Power Elite more generally.