He's our SCotD, and it's also our QotD, from Commentary:
Beck seems to be a roiling mix of fear, resentment, and anger -- the antithesis of Ronald Reagan.
More:
[T]he role Glenn Beck is playing is harmful in its totality. My hunch is that he is a comet blazing across the media sky right now -- and will soon flame out. Whether he does or not, he isn’t the face or disposition that should represent modern-day conservatism. At a time when we should aim for intellectual depth, for tough-minded and reasoned arguments, for good cheer and calm purpose, rather than erratic behavior, he is not the kind of figure conservatives should embrace or cheer on.
Wehner has had a long career in Republican circles, and, as a conservative, he is right, I would say, to dismiss Beck as "harmful" to conservatism. (Although, Reagan certainly played on anger and fear, too.)
And yet, I wonder if his ode to a more genuine conservatism isn't just a little too quaint, and grossly inaccurate. He may long for conservatism with "intellectual depth," one full of "tough-minded and reasoned arguments," one defined by "good cheer and calm purpose," but "modern-day conservatism," the conservatism of today, is more anti-Burkean than Burkean, a shallow facade masking the relentless pursuit of power at its core.
Today's conservatism is more populist than elitist, more about lies than the quest for the truth, more about party, the Republican Party, than country, more about vindictiveness than "good cheer," more about screaming bloody murder than "calm purpose."
It's more about Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter and Dear Leader Rush and the rest of that rightist ilk than it is about the sober conservatives of Wehner's imagination.
Is Beck harmful to conservatism? Yes, probably -- although, one wonders what can actually harm conservatism, given how low it has fallen.
But, to many, Beck is conservatism. And, even if he flames out, there will be many more to take his place.
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