Oh Glenn, it's like we just met and now you're leaving me. What am I going to do now? I mean, we've learned so much together!How else would I have known that Nazism and communism were basically the same thing? The war between that killed upwards of 75 million people always led me to believe otherwise. And no one other than you would have been able to figure out that jihadis, Marxists and organized labor were working in concert to establish an classless, atheist caliphate ... with dental! Anyone with even a high school level understanding of history and a minimum of common sense would have written that off as ridiculous before even finishing the sentence.
Who knew, for example, that some 90 years after his death, Woodrow Wilson was still destroying America? I knew that liberals were a pain in the ass, but I never suspected that they were that tenacious!
But you, much like the late Micheal Jackson before you, aren't "like other guys." No, you dug through each layer of almost impenetrable nonsense until you found at its molten core the most entertaining television that I've ever seen. Before Glenn Beck began airing on Fox News two years ago, I never knew that I could laugh my guts out and be profoundly confused at the same time. I thought that learning things from sources other than talk radio would have left me crippled inside forever, but there really is another way. And now it's slipping through my fingers like so much sand.
My studies of contemporary U.S history taught me more about the John Birch Society than any Canadian should know, but I'm too young to have witnessed them firsthand. But you actually brought them back to life and made them a political force in the Republican Party, proving yet again that there's no reason that half-bright paranoids should be marginalized in America when they can actually control much of its agenda for months at a time.
On second thought, that's not fair ... to the Birchers. They never would have held up signs saying "Government hands off of Medicare." At least not in public.
Prior to your rise to the top of Fox Nation, however, I was grievously unfamiliar with your hero, Cleon Skousen. And it was through Skousen that I came to understand your intellectual underpinnings, such as they are. Too demented for anyone who ever met him, including even the Mormon Church, to deal with, Mr. Skousen went on to author your political bible, The Five Thousand Year Leap.
The Five Thousand Year Leap is a gigantically tedious and an intellectually painful exercise in religious fantacism. Despite 50 years of research and writing, it displays an almost towering ignorance of - and outright hostility to - both American history and civics, and for that alone, it should be cherished as a precious heirloom by the deliriously stupid everywhere. The central premise of The Five Thousand Year Leap appears to be that the Founders were devout Christians and the Constitution is a divinely inspired work, which explains why those very same Founders began amending it almost immediately. Ten times even!
But from it came most of your own books, your television show, and the 9/12 and 8/28 projects, even though I still can't figure out the point of the last two. However, that doesn't mean that I don't love them any less. How could I do anything other than admire such grandiose exercises in self-aggrandizement? I do, after all, have a blog!
That's why I was saddened to see this press release this afternoon;
FOX NEWS AND MERCURY RADIO ARTS ANNOUNCE NEW AGREEMENTI noticed that while the phrase "the third highest rated program on cable news" (or some variation thereof) was used three times in just four paragraphs, the word "profitable" was strikingly absent.
(New York, NY) Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Glenn Beck’s production company, are proud to announce that they will work together to develop and produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News’ digital properties. Glenn intends to transition off of his daily program, the third highest rated in all of cable news, later this year.
Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of Fox News said, “Glenn Beck is a powerful communicator, a creative entrepreneur and a true success by anybody’s standards. I look forward to continuing to work with him. ” Glenn Beck said: “I truly believe that America owes a lot to Roger Ailes and Fox News. I cannot repay Roger for the lessons I’ve learned and will continue to learn from him and I look forward to starting this new phase of our partnership.”
Joel Cheatwood, SVP/Development at Fox News, will be joining Mercury Radio Arts effective April 24, 2011. Part of his role as EVP will be to manage the partnership and serve as a liaison with the Fox News Channel. Roger Ailes said: “Joel is a good friend and one of the most talented and creative executives in the business. Over the past four years I have consistently valued his input and advice and that will not stop as we work with him in his new role.” “Glenn Beck” is consistently the third highest rated program on cable news.
For the 27 months that “Glenn Beck” has aired on Fox News, the program has averaged more than 2.2 million total viewers and 563,000 viewers 25-54 years old, numbers normally associated with shows airing in primetime, not at 5pm. “Glenn Beck” has dominated all of its cable news competitors since launch.
Profitability in television is determined almost entirely on advertisers, and national, name-brand advertisers never stopped persecuting you from the minute you called the president of the United States a racist, did they, Glenn? They left you only with the gold mongers that you usually see only in the middle of the night. Judging only by your commercials, one could easily make the mistake that your key demographic is geriatric survivalists and people that really like other Fox News shows.
Of course, national corporations aren't usually given to involving themselves in massive conspiracies, and there was almost certainly a conspiracy involved in bringing about the end of Glenn Beck. I agree that it can only be the Democratic party, Van Jones, the Mulslim Brotherhood, Francis Fox Piven, SEIU, George Soros, CAIR, Media Matters for America, the rest of the "Lamestream Media," the Federal Reserve and the ghost of Leon Trotsky. There can be no other explanation. I, for one, would never suggest that Roger Ailes wants to bring up someone less alienating from the minors that will work for a third of the money, or that maybe Geraldo wants a full-time job again.
But you've got a safety net, you clever bastard. If I understand television contracts as well as I think I do, this production deal will pay you for whatever you develop, whether it ever airs or not, and has a strict non-compete clause. That means you get off of television, which you never liked and publicly complained about on television, while guaranteeing that you still get paid by television. And all Fox News gets out of it is the assurance that you won't pursue some far-fetched fantasy of starting your own television or Internet network. It's genius!
Sadly, your radio program doesn't air in Canada unless I specifically pay to listen to it on my computer, which isn't going to happen. So I guess that our relationship is going to end later this year, and I can't tell you how much this pains me.
I'm gonna miss you, big guy. I thought I'd miss the constant crying the most, but now I've got John Boehner for that.
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