On Glenn

In her letter to the editor (Sunstone 161, December 2011) about my article “Glenn Beck: Rough Stone Roaring” (Sunstone 159, June 2010), Kathryn Hemingway says that I ignore the fact that Beck apologized for calling President Obama a racist. In truth, confronted with his words the next day, Beck said, “Well, I stand by that. And I—I deem him a racist based on really his own standard of racism—the standard of the left.” When asked by Katie Couric of CBS if he regretted having called Obama a racist who had “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture,” he apologized not for the sentiment, but “for the way it was phrased.”

Just this week (20 January 2011) when asked once more if he regretted making such remarks (and similar ones), Beck tried to brush them all off as a joke. Comparing himself to Jon Stewart and The Simpsons, he responded, “Anything I said in jokes, no [I don’t regret]. . . . Comedy is comedy.” But reviewing the context of the original statement, shows that Beck’s intention was anything but comedic. Beck’s is the age-old rhetorical trick of accusing someone and then saying you were just joking, thus criticizing the victim anew for not having a sense of humor.

Hemingway defends Beck against charges of racism by saying, “Beck has gone out of his way to laud the civil rights movement.” However, Beck’s appropriation of the imagery and language of the Civil Rights Movement in general and Martin Luther King in particular seems particularly cynical and manipulative. A good example is Beck’s asking his viewers (10 December 2010) to sign a pledge to follow King’s Pledge of Non-violence while nearly every day he violates three key elements of that pledge: “Walk and talk in the manner of love; for God is love”; “observe with friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy”; and “refrain from violence of fist, tongue, and heart.”

A perusal of Beck’s books and an analysis of his radio and television programs reveals an undercurrent of racial attitudes, images, and rhetoric, not only about blacks but also Latinos, Asians, Jews, and Muslims. An example of Beck’s anti-black, anti-Muslim (and anti-Progressive) sentiment can be seen in his suggestion (on his 8 June 2010 radio program) that Obama’s use of his given name “Barack” was “To identify, not with America—you don’t take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify with . . . the heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical.”

Hemingway asserts that my calling Beck a “Latter-day Joe McCarthy” is not justified because “Rees should have cited an example of Beck’s attacking someone who did not identify as a Communist.” But Beck’s many attempts to link Obama with Communism, Marxism, fascism, radical Islam, Black Nationalism, and radical Christianity is exactly the kind of thing McCarthy honed to a dark art. Beck’s drumbeat of criticism of Obama seems directed at delegitimizing the President, calling into question his patriotism, his integrity, and even his Christianity.

In his own letter in the same issue, Michael Paulos states that “it appears that Beck is not steeped in Mormon culture,” nor, apparently, I add, in Mormon history, doctrine, or ethics. That is a point I was trying to make in my article: Beck does not seem to reflect basic Mormon principles of civility, honesty, and fair play. My article highlights his tendency not simply to disagree with, but to demonize, liberals and progressives. As my article suggests, that tendency would target many Latter-day Saints—even some general authorities.  The gospel of Christ asks us to resist the temptation to dehumanize others, even if we consider them evil.

Paulos states that Beck has been criticized “for his staunch opposition to President Obama’s agenda, not for his LDS membership.” But commentators and the general public are increasingly and unfavorably connecting Beck with the Mormon Church. A Google search of “Glenn Beck Mormon” and “Glenn Beck Latter-day Saint” brings up more than 554,000 hits—as compared, for example, with 107,000 for Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, 275,000 for President Monson, and 231,000 for Senator Reid. Beck is linked more and more with the LDS Church, much, I feel, to the detriment of the Church’s image—and its mission. Beck takes such extreme positions, uses such inflammatory rhetoric, and evokes so much controversy, it is difficult to understand how he can represent the message of the Restoration and the three-part message of faith, hope, and charity of the Christian gospel.

Robert A. Rees

Santa Cruz Mountains