The Mahatma of mayhem, the Burgermeister of baloney, Glenn Beck has finally seen the Burning Bush of reason and declared – on FOX News of all places – that he played a role in dividing the country.
The man who said, “If you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot,” spoke to Megyn Kelly Tuesday about his time on the conservative network and his regrets.
“I remember it as an awful lot of fun and that I made an awful lot of mistakes and wish I could go back and be more uniting in my language,” Beck said looking apologetic, “because I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart.”
For those of you who can’t, or don’t want to remember, here are some of the more “beloved” utterances from the Eminence of enlightenment:
“When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I’m just like, ‘Oh shut up’ I’m so sick of them because they’re always complaining.” (September 9, 2005)
“I say we nuke the bastards. In fact, it doesn’t have to be Iran; it can be everywhere, anyplace that disagrees with me.” (Beck,when asked for his views about bombing Iran, May 11, 2006)
“So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research. … Eugenics. In case you don’t know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. …The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening.” (March 9, 2009)
“There are a lot of universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the children as terrorists are in Iran or North Korea. … We have been setting up reeducation camps. We call them universities.” (September 1, 2010)
But he saved is most infamous utterance for August 28, 2009 when, without offering a shred of proof declared that President Obama, “This guy is, I believe, a racist.”
Flash forward to January 21, 2014, and the “immaculate repentance”:
“It’s not who we are,” Beck told Kelly. “I didn’t realize how really fragile the people were, I thought we were kind of a little more in it together. Now, I look back and I realize if we would have talked about the uniting principles a little bit more, instead of the just the problems, I think I could have looked back on it a little more fondly.”
Everyone makes mistakes, and for that, I can forgive Beck. But, if he truly believes his rhetoric contributed to dividing the country, he can atone by practicing a more civil tone on his radio show – something that isn’t even on the horizon for pundit Ann Coulter.
Coulter was being interviewed by Piers Morgan the same day as Beck. Here’s the exchange she had with the CNN talk host.
“I mean,” Morgan asks, “do you, like Glenn Beck, look back on some of the stuff you said and thought maybe I could’ve curled in there in a bit, just calm things a bit and been less polarizing?”
“I’m not the female Glenn Beck,” Coulter responded. “He should be more like me: a uniter!”
Ann Coulter… a uniter?
Morgan continued to press. “Every single viewer watching this knows you’ve gone too far,” he insisted. “You’re being increasingly divisive, which is part of the problem, right?”
“You’re part of the problem,” Coulter answered. “I am the solution.”
Actually, after spending the better part of 10 months reading from the Coulter Catechism, the only solution Coulter offers are her endless ad hominem attacks:
“I was going to have a few comments about John Edwards but you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot.”
“I think our motto should be, post-9/11, ‘raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.’ ”
“The swing voters – I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don’t have set philosophical principles. You’re either a liberal or you’re a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster.”
In March, 2010, Ann Coulter came face-to-face with a Muslim student who took exception to a remark by the “colorful” conservative who said that Muslims shouldn’t be allowed on airplanes, but rather “take flying carpets.”
University of Ottawa student Fatima Al-Dhaher flatly told Coulter that she didn’t own a flying carpet. What mode of transportation would she then suggest?
“What mode of transportation?” Coulter repeated, straight-faced. “Take a camel.”
That’s not unity, that’s indignity.
In Shameless, an ethical look at Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck, I wrote, “For Coulter, outrage is the gift that keeps on giving, getting the media attention she so desperately craves. Who else is as raucous, raunchy, and vainglorious?
“Wait, that would be the Queen of the D-List herself, comedian Kathy Griffin. Think about it, Coulter fits the mold to perfection: Anything outrageous equals media attention. Except for one, tiny detail: when Griffin offers up an outrage the audience generally laughs because she’s a comedian. When Coulter makes an outrageous remark, she defends it as rational policy.”
Memo to Beck: The next time you plan on visiting the Burning Bush, take Ann with you.