Both Beck and Kristol's public venues are wholly-owned NewsCorp subsidiaries. Beck makes millions for Murdoch. Kristol's little magazine is a money-loser for NewsCorp. Who will win Rupert's heart ?

the longer beck goes, the more he reminds me of the russell crowe character in "a beautiful mind."
without the nobel prize, of course.

Correctin: Apparently Weekly Standard was sold to Anschutz (Examiner) recently, so Kristol is even more irrelevant to Murdoch than when he owned the money-losing Standard.

The glue that holds the motley right-wing crew together is paranoia. Without heavy breathing, hysteria, and Manichean dualism, there is no functional right. Kristol must, on some level, understand this. You don't spend all your side's intellectual capital debasing the discourse to random skimishes about the Kultur and race-baiting dog whistles UNLESS it's the only way to keep it functional. Beck may be marginally nuttier than Rush Limbaugh but his rants also describe the bargain people like Kristol must make. No craziness, no majority.

Oh please Billy, do follow up! I hope they literally eat each other.

Cal-i-phate! Cal-i-phate! Cal-i-phate!
/snark

Kristol fighting Beck.

Who's running FOX News?
Is it still Murdoch?
Or did Michael Vick buy him out? *

*Please note, I am in no way advocating what Vick did.

Glenn Beck has been an important piece of Rightwing political strategy, but he's quickly becoming too much like the Willie Horton usefulness - time limited shock and awe imagery!

Beck's Chicken Little schtick has begun to wear thin even in the quarters that use to enjoy his hammer of idiocy! -Kevo

This is predictable. Expect Ailes to act soon. The right wing establishment is getting nervous that some of its more colorful elements could begin to act as roadblocks in the quest for more wars, and more squeezing money out of the pockets of workers. The crazier the right looks, the more reasonable Obama and the Democrats look. And we CAN'T have that now, can we?

Part of me wonders whether or not this is the beginning of a purge of the true wackos from the conservative movement, along the lines of the William F. Buckley-led purge of the Birchers in the 1950s. I think that Kristol's specific reference to the Welch + the Birchers is a hint that it may be.

-Z

Kristol is just a more polite(acceptable?) version of Beck.

What if he's right? Please try and come up with some good arguments as to why we shouldn't be prepared if he is.

I would note that in the quoted paragraph ("I don't even know if you understand . . ."), Beck, uncharacteristically, is completely right. His characterization of Kristol is spot-on.

So apparently even an insane rodeo clown is right every so often . . .

"the longer beck goes, the more he reminds me of the russell crowe character in "a beautiful mind."

Oh, I think it's already gone one better. Beck's conspiracy/delusion of the day is starting to remind me of the Pedro Camacho character in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, who is writing 5 or 6 wildly popular radio soap operas concurrently and which all start to overlap and intrude upon one another when the writer goes through a breakdown.

Think about it: how many of Beck's plotlines DON'T involve George Soros? Before long he'll be mixing up some of the elements of the Islamofascist Takeover with those of the Global Warming Hoax and the Growing Threat of the OligarHy, and we'll be off to the races.

"the longer beck goes, the more he reminds me of the russell crowe character in "a beautiful mind."

Oh, I think it's already gone one better. Beck's conspiracy/delusion of the day is starting to remind me of the Pedro Camacho character in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, who is writing 5 or 6 wildly popular radio soap operas concurrently and which all start to overlap and intrude upon one another when the writer goes through a breakdown.

Think about it: how many of Beck's plotlines DON'T involve George Soros? Before long he'll be mixing up some of the elements of the Islamofascist Takeover with those of the Global Warming Hoax and the Growing Threat of the OligarHy, and we'll be off to the races.

At most, I expect Ailes to tell Beck to avoid lay off topics that rouse the most jittery Neocon sensibilities (Israel and anything connected to it). Beck has said things that are just as crazy before, Kristol only jumped because he considers Egypt to be his swimming pool and he doesn't want to share.

@Ian A

I was about to write the same thing about Beck getting Kristol dead on. Pity that Beck also happens to be a deranged con artist.

There is also another category -- those who are concerned what the result will be of the US backing a military takeover of Egypt in the guise of Omar Suleiman.

Who wants to place a bet that Suleiman is not still running Egypt in 10 years?

"the longer beck goes, the more he reminds me of the russell crowe character in "a beautiful mind."
without the nobel prize, of course."

But if you remember, early in the movie he couldn't control his imaginary posse, but at the end he acknowledged they are there, but he had better control of them.

Clearly, Beck's case is the reverse of this. His imagination has overpowered the reality.

Beck is beyond crazy, but let's not forget how Kristol used the Weekly Standard to beat the drums for the Iraq invasion (starting back when Clinton was still president) and how he brought Palin into the national spotlight. Thanks a lot, Bill.

Mr. Benen, you need to do some research!

Caliphates run by zombie islamists, the Illuminati and the Loch Ness Monster are coming to steal your gold coins and seed collections, not your car!

A lot of Beck's rants have a vaguely anti-semitic tone. Almost all his villains are Jews and his talk of a world-wide conspiracy is reminiscent of the Elders of Zion stuff. Maybe Billy Kristol is getting nervous about where the nuts are headed.

Shorter Glenn Beck: The Jew Kristol will never take the WWF champion belt from me!

"What if he's right? Please try and come up with some good arguments as to why we shouldn't be prepared if he is."--912er

Surely you don't think we have to be prepared for all manner of unproven theories to come true. The burden is on Beck.

Beck doesn't have any coherent ideas re: Egypt and related matters, let alone a "theory" (his words). One cannot prepare for anything on the basis of his blather.

Pardon me for stating the obvious.

My greatest fear is that in almost all things Kristol is usually completely wrong. What if he is here, too!?

For instance, when Beck says:"I don't think they stand for anything anymore. All they stand for is power." He is actually pretty accurate, although it seriously pains me to say so. I guess blind pigs and all.

What if he's right? Please try and come up with some good arguments as to why we shouldn't be prepared if he is.

Posted by: 912er on February 7, 2011 at 2:36 PM

What if Glenn Beck is correct? Are you kidding?

Okay, son, I'll bite. How exactly do you propose we 'prepare' for the kind of world Beck envisions? Who do we side with to save our skins? The more populous Sunni or the economically-adept Shia? The regular Rus or the vigorous and irrepressable Tartar? The urbane Mandarin or the rustic and durable Cantonese?

Or are you proposing we just make use of our nuclear stockpiles and turn the world into one huge funeral pire?

Dear gods, could someone buy this kid a clue?

To try to "understand" beck, one needs to look at the demented rantings of Cleon Skousen. It is a really monumental task, given the huge volume of crazed writings. Here is but one such gem, from "the Naked Capitalist" by Skousen:

"There is a growing volume of evidence that the highest centers of political and economic power have been forcing the entire human race toward a global, socialist, dictatorial-oriented society. And what has been most baffling about it has been the fact that this drift toward dictatorship with its inevitable obliteration of a thousand years of struggle toward human freedom, is being plotted, promoted and implemented by the leaders of free nations and the super-rich of those nations whose positions of affluence would seem to make them the foremost beneficiaries of the free-enterprise, property-oriented, open society in which so much progress has been made."

Sound familar??

It's finally dawned on the somewhat dim Mr. Kristol that the Republican party has been riding a tiger. They love that the tiger scares their enemies and makes them look like big bad boys up there in the saddle. But now they're beginning to see they can't control the tiger and he isn't about to let them get off without being devoured. It's an Asian parable, so Mr. Kristol and his fellow exceptionalists probably weren't aware of it.

"They'll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they'll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched"

In this sentence, Beck accidentally stumbles upon the reason why he is still on the air.

In 2012 the official Republican Party - wants - to field a whitebread, Mid-Western 'moderate' for President, but they can't be sure they'll get that candidate through the Primaries unless they get a grip on the crazies who compromise their Base. Firing them up while they're in opposition is one thing, but when you have to appeal to the entire electorate in November 2012 you need those people muzzled and obedient.

The last thing the GOP needs in 2011/12 is their Tea Party Base thinking they can decide who is actually running. In 2010 it cost them control of the Senate by making a few seats unwinnable. If that happens in 2012 and the Republican Primaries throw up an unelectable lunatic who the Tea Partiers see as 'their' candidate, Obama not only cruises to re-election, the whole GOP goes into civil-war mode.

I don't believe for a moment that there's actually a genuine break between the GOP factions represented by Beck and Kristol in elctoral terms - but I'm pretty sure that the faction Kristol represents thinks Beck would be a useful point guy in 'redirecting' Tea Party votes to an otherwise RINO candidate in 2012. Letting him build a reputation on the far-Right for being "The guy who stood up to the Neo-Cons" now will give his eventual calls for Teabaggers to vote for the most electable candidate in the Primaries more credibility with the people who think he's the only person 'telling it like it is'.

Someone has to stop them from putting a joke like Palin on the ticket, and they might listen to Beck. They sure as hell won't listen to the 'official' Republican Party.

It goes without saying that the MSM will cover this as "Tea Party rallies to moderate Republican candidate. How can Obama win now?" for the entire election season.

Kristol sealed his pact with the devil when he decided to put The Weekly Standard on the side of anti-"Ground Zero Mosque" conspiracism last year. Apparently character assassination, scare-mongering, emotionalism, and outright bigotry are all peachy-keen when there's a wave to the mid-terms to ride. The Tea Party populists and the auto-lobotomized "intellectual" right fully deserve each other, and their alliance is one of the best things progressives have going for them.

Fox "News" is a circus. How could it be embarrassed by one clown?

How exactly do you propose we 'prepare' for the kind of world Beck envisions?

Buy gold and seeds from Mr. Beck's advertisers!

“It's amusing to think Beck believes additional scholarly work...”

This presupposes that Beck DID some scholarly work to begin with.

Research ? RightWingers don’t need no stinkin’ research !

To 912er post at 2;36
What if he's right. What if the world were flat? What if Hitler was right? What if monkeys could fly? What if Yoko never broke up the Beatles. For fucks sakes what if Cleveland won the super bowl? Blah blah blahtindy da.

Tony J is close to target on this.

Now that the midterms are over, and now that the 2012 election is ramping up, the powers-that-be do not need a lunatic associated with them, and one that may not toe the line that they need.

Expect Beck to be fired by summer.

"People like Bill Kristol, I don't think they stand for anything anymore. All they stand for is power. They'll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they'll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched."

I never ever thought I would agree with Beck about anything, but he's absolutely right about Kristol.

Besides cheerleading for the Iraq war, Kristol wrote the memo on stopping Clinton's version of healthcare reform. Since then, tens of thousands of Americans have died because they didn't have health insurance.

That's a pretty high price to pay for the entertainment value of having Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House.

Oooooh, pass the popcorn please!

Interesting that Beck, like Palin, Levin, Limbaugh and the rest, respond to criticism with ad hominem attacks, rather than attempting to defend the merits of what they've been saying.

In any event, don't expect Kristol to respond further. He's not interested in Beck particularly; he merely used Beck for two purposes: (1) to shore up his reputation and bona fides with his real audience, which is the foreign policy and political intellectual elite; and (2) to link the disreputable Beck to foreign policy "realists" who have expressed concern with the consequences of a democratic revolution in Egypt. This is part of Kristol's neocon continuing struggle with the realists,and that's what he is really focused on here. The disparaging reference to Beck was a tool for him, and not the point of his column.

Kristol's disparagement of Beck is not going to play a significant role in bringing Beck down. What it is, though, is an indication that the conservantive "establishment" (whatever that might be) is not afraid of Beck (as they clearly are of Limbaugh and, to a lesser extent, Palin) and is losing patience with his antics.

I agree that Fox News will ultimately remove him from prime time television and perhaps from TV altogether. Aside from the embarassment (which is probably not that much of a motivating factor for Fox), his biggest sin is that he's unpredictable and uncontrollable, nearly as likely to attack a Republican sacred cow or policy point as to attack a Democratic one. And removing him gives Fox the appearance of acting in a responsible manner, thus giving cover to their less clownish, and therefore potentially more dangerous, other commentators and television personalities.

"People like Bill Kristol, I don't think they stand for anything anymore. All they stand for is power. They'll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they'll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched."

As far as Beck is concerned, that he says this without any sense of irony or self-realization, is a prime example of "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones....," "pot calling the kettle black," etc.

Beck is part-and-parcel of the "they" that will do anything to keep "Republican power entrenched." He receives his very paycheck from a high-up grand-poobah of the "they" that want to keep Republican power entrenched. Do his minions ever stop to think about that?

caliphates run by zombie Islamists, the Illuminati, and the Loch Ness Monster are coming to steal your car.

It's a well-known fact that the Detroit bailouts and the new gas mileage requirements are merely the preliminary steps, whose ultimate goal is to requite all US-made cars to be plesiosaur-friendly. Nessie wants a new Hummer! (I'll bet you didn't know that most Mesolithic aquatic reptiles were fundamentalist Sunnis.)

Beck is right about Kristol.
Beck is not right about Beck.
Kristol is right about Beck.
Kristol is not right about Beck.

Neither one can see the crazy forest, not because of the crazy trees but because they're too fascinated by their bee-yoo-tee-full reflection in yonder pond. They have each other pegged, just not themselves.

Hold on a minute.

If Bill Kristol had been asked about Beck's latest "theorizing" - and failed to forcefully debunk it - you, Steve Benen, would write a blog post starting with the line, "Wow, the entire conservative movement really has descended into a crazyland of fear and paranoia." But Kristol did debunk Beck, so now the Line o' the Day is: Fissures on the right. (Heads I win; Tails you lose.)

But if established commentators on the right such as Kristol and Krauthammer are not buying Beck's excited utterances - if Beck seems kind of isolated - isn't that a sign of (dare I say on this blog) health on the right?

Beck get excited sometimes. But it's a symptom of progressives' generalized contempt for those with whom they disagree that you assume conservatives are herd animals, who will follow Beck into whatever precinct of Disturbia that he's traveling to.

Bloody Bill thinks some right wingnut has crossed the line? Will wonders never cease. They all should be in padded rooms or behind bars.

The neo-con wing of the Right (Weekly Standard, AEI, Commentary, etc.) exemplified here by Kristol, wants Mubarak to stay. They like him to look illegitimate, but they want him to stay.

As does Israel, and everyone who matters. Netanyahu sez: "I’m not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process."

Obama's Second sez, "Mubarak has been very responsible on geopolitical interests in the region: Middle East peace efforts, normalizing the relationship with Israel. And I think that I would not refer to him as a dictator."

Neo-cons hitched a ride with the belligerent-ignorant Right because that was their best chance of getting a few million Muslims killed. They're not true right wingers, hence the "Neo" in the "Con".

To think Limbaugh and Beck are of the same stripes as the neo-cons is ignorant.

"It's finally dawned on the somewhat dim Mr. Kristol that the Republican party has been riding a tiger. They love that the tiger scares their enemies and makes them look like big bad boys up there in the saddle. But now they're beginning to see they can't control the tiger and he isn't about to let them get off without being devoured. It's an Asian parable, so Mr. Kristol and his fellow exceptionalists probably weren't aware of it." - dalloway

In modern times this cautionary tale is called, "Frankenstein's Monster"

Man, oh man !! Watta predictament!!

Since Kristol is literally wrong about everything, could it be Beck might be right?

And yet, another sign of the impending apocalypse.

Typical liberal echo chamber, mocking the leaders on the right but unable to come up with any rational arguments about why they're wrong.

Kristol is right to fear Beck. The spontaneously generated grassroots Tea Party is not going away. We have something to say and we're going to say it.

Spontaneously generated by lots and lots of money and oversight by Dick Armey

"We have something to say and we're going to say it."

That's the message I get from our Quaker parakeet every day.

Typical liberal echo chamber, mocking the leaders on the right but unable to come up with any rational arguments about why they're wrong.

Kristol is right to fear Beck. The spontaneously generated grassroots Tea Party is not going away. We have something to say and we're going to say it.

Posted by: Mlke K on February 7, 2011 at 5:25 PM

Exactly how is Steve's post about Kristol and Beck 'wrong'?

And you're damned right Kristol is right to fear that 'rodeo clown'. He's already gotten people killed, as has Kristol; except Beck isn't quite as discriminating in his targeting or messaging. He's a bomb-throwing moron who's riling up the fearful, the unstable, and the foolish. The end result may well be still more shootings in public places against imagined enemies.

Say whatever you want, Mike K. That's your right, but its also your responsbility. And make no mistake: you will be held to account for the consequences of your words and your actions.

"People like Bill Kristol, I don't think they stand for anything anymore. All they stand for is power. They'll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they'll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched."

Why do I see someone who looks like Ned Beatty bringing Beck to a boardroom, and saying, oh...
"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beck...and YOU... WILL... ATONE!
"Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beck? You get up at your little blackboard and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today."

Beck's ratings are slipping, is he long for this world?

Before you becomes Kristol's butt boy on the Left (and certify your true sympathy for the neocons) read this statement through carefully...

"I don't think they stand for anything anymore. All they stand for is power. They'll do anything to keep their little fiefdom together, and they'll do anything to keep the Republican power entrenched."

...and ask yourselves, is this not true?

Beck may be crazy but there's no doubt Kristol fears for his "fiefdom." Why help preserve it?

No one here is helping preserve it, Sean Scallon.
We're merely determining who of two insane people are the most deranged.

Bill Kristol and Glenn Beck are both dicks.

The "do your research" trope is a particularly dangerous one, and I'm not inclined to find it very funny, no matter how preposterous the context in which it is invoked. Beck knows his audience are not top 10% students, however old they are. They don't read books with footnotes, they don't spend time editing entries at Wikipedia.

So when he says "do your research" he is signaling to his audience that he himself has done "the research" and they may rest assured that some book somewhere backs up his claims, no matter how outlandish. He's also using the trope as a protective armor against critics who can easily demonstrate with documentary evidence that he is a liar. By adopting the persona of "schoolmaster" he is able to invert a phrase that was surely used to humiliate him during his own years as a pupil. This humiliation at the hand of teachers I believe is something that bonds Beck and his audience. Whenever he says "do your research" rest assured the kids who sit in the back of the bus are sniggering long and hard and having a good old time. And there isn't much funny about that.

Reminds me of Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success.....

How about Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn?

I guess this proves that there is indeed a corollary to Niel Bohrs' old saw, "the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth".

To borrow a phrase, seems like the 'chickens are coming home to roost'. You can't go and embrace the lunatic fringe in order to retain/regain power and then act indignant when said lunatic fringe demands power sharing or some sort of equivalency. The tale of the tar baby comes to mind. Palin, Beck, the Tea Party, that's your GOP/Conservatism now and no amount of tut tutting or wriggling is going to set you free, not for some time anyway.

It doesn't matter if Fox cans Beck or not. He'll simply wind up on another venue and retain his loyal audience. Kristol and other "thinking conservatives" will continue to have to live in the bed they helped create. That's justice for them but bad for the truth.

Other commenters here are spot on that thinking conservatives helped create a monster by encouraging not just suspicion of evidence based reasoning, but proud defiance of the scientific method. Compare this to W. Buckley who often did deal in facts and was superbly disdainful of those who didn't. His reasoning process could bring him to the conclusion that Carter was right on the Panama Canal, drugs should be legalized and that we should not have invaded Iraq. The modern right is not just anti-intellectual, it is anti-evidentiary, and that is frightening because it makes reasoned discourse impossible.

French Canadian Bean Soup!

Kristol now says Beck "brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society."

Kristol is disavowing the Birchers? That actually is news. Bill, what happened?

Hey the Loch Ness Monster did steal my car so there you Glen Beck deniers.

'there's a global conspiracy to "divvy up" the world between communists and "radical Islamists."'

Ooh, I hope we wind up on the communist side. At least commies can drink.

I, for one, welcome our new caliphate overlord. I hear they wear the most absolutely fabulous robes. And as a liberal, I look forward to the all night mandatory abortion parties we will soon be throwing across the globe.

Let us not forget that Kristol is responsible in a large way for bring us Palin. It's a little rich for him to be complaining about the crazies on the right that are hurting the brand now, isn't it? Keep riding that tiger Bill...what could possibly go wrong?

Let us not forget that Kristol is responsible in a large way for bring us Palin. It's a little rich for him to be complaining about the crazies on the right that are hurting the brand now, isn't it? Keep riding that tiger Bill...what could possibly go wrong?

There is a question here that resides at a higher level than the specifics of this situation: Is there any criteria whatsoever that in which they or their defenders will allow ANY criticism of our new conservative media darlings?

No one's perfect, and we all have our favorite teams. I have media personalities and politicians that I like, but I try my best to freely admit when they are wrong, and not just when they deviate from my own brand of orthodoxy.

Has there been a case yet where any one of these cable or talk radio conservatives, or prominent tea party politicians, has gracefully accepted any criticism at all?

Bill helped advance the hyperbole that helped start the T-baggers. The T-portion of the Republican party was started by pundits to protest tax day (april 15)by mailing in tea-bags and grew far larger then any of them thought. remember back that Fox employees even hosted several T-bag parties BUT to address the Beck and Kristol duel, I hate to tell you Bill but it's too late,beck wrestled the tag of leader of the Conservative world for mainstream America some time back and Limbaugh doesn't want the title back (for now).
There has been an internal battle about how Beck cheapens all the other opinion programming on Fox with complaints about the type of advertising Beck brings to the table. many mainstream advertisers refuse to buy time on Beck's time slot and Beck does not even work in the same building as the rest of the pundits.
Bill wins this one because of the timing of kristols attack, when Beck has lost half his viewership in so many months.