Dear Glenn

Earlier today, I was minding my own business in a B&N in downtown DC when I noticed that the lady next to me was, by most reasonable standards, a complete wingnut. She was reading a pamphlet titled "10 reasons to oppose socialism," she had a copy of "Pocket Pistol" magazine on the table in front of her, and there was a "don't tread on me" flag sticking out of her purse. At first, this surprised me because ladies like this one are usually pretty scarce in downtown Washington. As I looked around, I noticed there were many people who I would readily describe as "her type." It then dawned on me that today was the day of Glenn Beck's speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

As someone who went to a very crunchy high school and a left leaning liberal arts college, people like this are wholly foreign to me. I realize that they must exist somewhere because elections are usually pretty close and someone must keep Fox's advertising rates up. Until this point, however, the arch-conservative, gun-enthused, god bless america gear wearing Americans had always seemed very distant; like an imaginary monster that Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart use to frighten progressive citizens into voting. Similarly, it's very easy to imagine that no one actually adheres to that type of jingoism because, to someone like me, it's completely nuts.

Their reason for being there was not lost on me: one of their most important seers was making a grand speech intended to somehow reclaim America's honor in an afternoon (commemorative T-shirts are $25. No refunds in the event of an unsatisfactory reclamation of honor). The bigger question in my mind is why people take someone like Glenn Beck so seriously. It seems to me that most reasonable people dismiss 99% of what he has to say as absolutely preposterous. An example is the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or "the bailout." Glenn Beck would have his viewers believe that this is entirely President Obama's doing, which is completely ridiculous. The bill was signed by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008, months before Obama took office or had even been elected.

Or the steadfast claims that the Cordoba House is funded by a terrorist organization. Anyone with even a modicum of critical thinking in their body would need no more than 5 minutes to discover that the financing group behind the Cordoba House, the Kingdom Foundation, is owned by Al-Waleed bin Talal, largest owner of Newscorp stock outside the Murdoch family. If we assume that the Cordoba House is in fact a training ground for terrorists, as countless talking heads on Fox have speculated and then "follow the money" as Mr. Beck loves to say, we can reach only one conclusion: Fox News funds terrorism.

Fox News -> Newscorp -> Bin Talal -> Kingdom Foundation -> Cordoba House -> Terrorism

The most troubling part of this is that, despite both being matters of public record and also indisputable fact, it seems that a very small portion of Glenn Beck's audience takes the time to look this up. If they did, surely there would be no room for debate. You can't disagree with when a bill was signed or who signed it because their signature is on it. Nor can you dispute the fact that the Al-Waleed bin Talal owns a large share in Newscorp. Both are empirical facts and not up for debate, which can only mean that a large portion of America is either unwilling to ask questions or engaging in willful ignorance. Neither bodes well.