Despite being back in America since 2008, I guess I'm not current when it comes to politics: I still have trouble believing that conservative writer and commentator Glenn Beck is truly this popular. That's just nuts. The man isn't what I'd call a paragon of classical conservative values, and he certainly doesn't have the intellectual firepower of a William F. Buckley.
Conservatives: do you really want people like Beck representing you?
"The most used phrase in my administration, if I were to be President, would be, 'What the hell you mean, we're out of missiles?'"
--Glenn Beck
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Sunday, August 29, 2010
I'm obviously out of touch
3 comments:
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Obviously out of touch--not so much, but I think you've lost some of your basic math skills. In country of 320+ million, a following of 2+ million isn't much.
ReplyDeleteIn comparison, those morons from "Jersey Shore" pull in double Beck's amount of viewers.
It goes to show you just how fragmented (and special-interest oriented) the audience is in the United States when even the most popular TV show, "American Idol," pulls in less than 30 million viewers and the cult favorite, "Lost," couldn't even find 15 million viewers for its finale.
It seems that it's been a slow news week (I know I'm tired of being asked to donate for the world's latest environmental calamity--more people than ever being born/living in danger zones) and the media always needing to blow something out of proportion to keep people watching.
Anyway, we're getting close to end of the world time, so the focus should soon change to stocking up on generators, food, and weapons just like back in the days of Y2K, SARS, Global Cooling, fear of a Soviet nuclear strike, etc.
Yeah. Scary, isn't it? To me, anyway. But then, I'm one a them ( shudder, turn away) liberals.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteI suspect you're right, if we're talking proportions. But since statistics are worse than lies and damned lies, it might be good to remember that, for each person who attended, there was probably a cluster of like-minded people who didn't attend. Sure, even 500,000 attendees multiplied by "a cluster" is small beans, but it's also big news, and I'm sure that's what Beck was aiming for. Question: do you think he's angling for political office?
If your larger point is that, in the grand scheme, Beck's event is no big deal, then I can at least partially concede that. The "big news" idea cuts both ways, after all. "Big" doesn't mean "long-lasting." A mega-event like the Million Man March, huge news when it happened, no longer resonates in the public consciousness, except perhaps in the minds of its target demographic(s). So it's probable that Beck's rally will prove to be a flash in the pan, too. As one of my profs told me when he saw me agonizing over my comprehensive exams: "Don't worry. In ten years, none of this will matter."
But Beck may not be worried about life ten years from now; the timing of the rally seems to indicate that he's doing his part to swing national attention rightward for November. Getting media coverage is a big help with that, even if the media are critical.
Agreed: the media have a constant need to blow something out of proportion. (Actually, we can drop the "out of proportion" for a truer statement of the media's needs.)
Addofio,
Yes, those greasy, grimy, gopher-gutsy liberals. I kinda' wish they'd get their message straight. Back in the 60s, government was The Man, and the slogan was "Trust no one over 30." Since the 60s, however, government has become The Answer, and it's all about trusting the folks over 30. Diehard Sixties liberals are still around, but how they and their idealism commingle with the younger lefties and their statism is unclear to me.