AltWeeklies Wire
Sarah Palin Wilts as Glenn Beck Self-Destructsnew

Common sense has bloomed among right wingers — not once, but twice. And while these episodes are unlikely to become regular events, we should enjoy them while we can.
Boston Phoenix |
Editorial |
02-17-2011 |
Commentary
There Be Dragonsnew

The allure and danger of the Tea Party movement.
San Antonio Current |
Michael Wurth |
01-20-2011 |
Commentary
21st Century Situationists

Framed inaccurately by the press, The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear is best understood as a contemporary extension of the French Situationist movement of the ’60s, a mass inversion of rhetorical logic, meant to break the spectator’s passivity toward the spectacle and turn the obscuring force of mass media back on itself. Using pop cultural references and superficial Internet memes like the double-rainbow guy and “Hide ya kids, hide ya wife...” in the context of a once-powerful political forum was a Dadaist attempt to wipe the slate clean, to rise above the fruitless tit-for-tat schoolyard shouting match to which our political discourse has been reduced by the 24-hour news cycle and corporate spin-doctoring.
White America Has Lost Its Mindnew

The white brain, beset with worries, finally goes haywire in spectacular fashion.
The Village Voice |
Steven Thrasher |
09-29-2010 |
Commentary
Beck's Rally Was a Dangerous Distraction for Grassroots Conservativesnew
Glenn Beck is better than most syndicated talk show hosts. While right-wing radio mainstays Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity offer little more than Republican talking points, Beck regularly eschews such hackery, instead warning of the "progressivism" that exists in both parties or the perils of blind partisanship.
Charleston City Paper |
Jack Hunter |
09-13-2010 |
Commentary
Tags: Glenn Beck
Tea Time? Who are These People and What Do They Want?new

The Tea Partiers say that they are a bipartisan group with conservative and Libertarian ideals. They want to get back to God and the Constitution. They say they are Republicans and Democrats alike, but we were not able to find any Democrats associated with the Tea Party.
Eugene Weekly |
Camilla Mortensen |
02-18-2010 |
Politics
Ideologues Take Full Advantage of America's Amnesia About Tom Painenew
"The idea that Glenn Beck and others whose ideas are opposite to Paine's have adopted him to distort his ideas is extremely disturbing, but not surprising," writes Alaine Lowell, executive director of the Thomas Paine Society.
Pasadena Weekly |
Kevin Uhrich |
11-16-2009 |
Commentary
Tears of a Clown: On the Glenn Beck Phenomenonnew

The ex-Top 40 disc jockey, recovering drug addict and alcoholic, convert to Mormonism and the National Rifle Association, is American popular culture at its most incomprehensibly weird and offensive. He's also a huge success, a hit, a phenomenon -- a star.
Birth of a Blowhard: Glenn Beck in Connecticutnew

When Beck arrived at KC 101 in early 1992, he was a semi-failed, drug-and-alcohol addicted, Top-40s radio jock desperately looking for a route to stardom. By the time he left seven years later, he had figured out that talk radio was the future and conservative shtick could be revamped to serve as his escalator to fame and fortune.
Hartford Advocate |
Gregory B. Hladky |
10-21-2009 |
Media
How Glenn Beck is Driven by Mormonismnew

A case can be made that Beck is to Mormonism what Father Charles Coughlin was to Catholicism in the 1930s, when the "radio priest" peddled nasty, faith-based opposition to another ambitious Democratic president.
Boston Phoenix |
Adam Reilly |
10-07-2009 |
Media
Michelle Malkin, Our Very Own National Right-Wing Celebritynew

Malkin swept into Barnes & Noble in Colorado Springs last week to sign copies of her latest book: I'd Like to Poke Obama in the Eye with a Barbecue Fork and Then Maybe Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld Will Return and Lead Us Out of This Hell Hole.
Colorado Springs Independent |
Rich Tosches |
09-17-2009 |
Commentary
Forget Reform: '9-12' Protesters Want a Revolution Against Gov'tnew
Don Rodgers is the driving force behind a local group that came together in March under the auspices of the so-called 9-12 Project, the brainchild of Glenn Beck, whose rants put Obama at the center of a vast conspiracy to steal freedom from hard-working Americans.
Colorado Springs Independent |
Anthony Lane |
09-10-2009 |
Media
Van Jones and the Right-Wing Attack Machinenew
The Oakland activist and Obama adviser resigned after critics tied him to an impolitic 9/11 petition. The affair again exposed the weakness of Democrats.
East Bay Express |
Robert Gammon |
09-09-2009 |
Commentary
New Hampshire Transplants Live Free -- or Die Tryingnew
They're digging up public squares. They're smoking pot and baring breasts. And they openly carry guns. New Hampshire residents are divided as to whether the Free State Project is a godsend or a nuisance.
Boston Phoenix |
Chris Faraone |
08-27-2009 |
Civil Liberties
Try As He Might, Glenn Beck Can't Turn a Paperback Book into a Flat-Screen TVnew

Glenn Beck is great on TV; he shouts, he scoffs, and he cries. But when he writes, one thing becomes clear: The man has absolutely nothing of consequence to say. In Common Sense, Beck uses every trick in the book to cover this up.
Las Vegas Weekly |
Rick Lax |
08-14-2009 |
Nonfiction