Tears of a Clown Tears of a Clown

Tears of a Clown

Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America

    • 1.5 • 35 Ratings
    • $14.99
    • $14.99

Publisher Description

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank takes a fair and balanced look at the unsettling rise of the silly Fox News host Glenn Beck.

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that “the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” In America in 2010, Glenn Beck provides the very refreshment Jefferson had in mind: Whether he’s the patriot or the tyrant, he’s definitely full of manure.

The wildly popular Fox News host with three million daily viewers perfectly captures the vitriol of our time and the fact-free state of our political culture. The secret to his success is his willingness to traffic in the fringe conspiracies and Internet hearsay that others wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole: death panels, government health insurance for dogs, FEMA concen­tration camps, an Obama security force like Hitler’s SS.

But Beck, who is, according to a recent Gallup poll, admired by more Americans than the Pope, has nothing in his background that identifies him as an ideologue, giving rise to the speculation that his right-wing shtick is just that—the act of a brilliant showman, known for both his over-the-top daily out­rages and for weeping on the air.

Milbank describes, with lacerating wit, just how the former shock jock without a college degree has managed to become the most recognizable leader of antigovernment conservatives and exposes him as the guy who is single-handedly giving patri­otism a bad name.

GENRE
Politics & Current Events
RELEASED
2010
October 5
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
272
Pages
PUBLISHER
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
2.4
MB

Customer Reviews

Doc JJB ,

Hit job

Not accurate at all

Prince Carver ,

Seriously?

This might be the worst thing that ever happened to literature.

Tberry79 ,

No Substance

This book seems like a typical cheap-shot piece. It launches personal attacks on Beck's values and personality, but doesn't argue his ideas or reporting.

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