In the Quentin Tarantino-written movie, True Romance, Don Vincenzo (played by Christopher Walken) explains to the soon-to-be-tortured-and-executed Clifford Whorley (played by the late Dennis Hopper) that “Sicilians are great liars,” and that “[his] father was the world heavy weight champion of Sicilian liars.” That may have been true in the Tarantino-verse, but I’m betting that his Don Vincenzo’s father couldn’t hold a CANDLE to the new heavyweight champion of American, Right Wing Liars: GLENN “BOOM-BOOM” BECK.
Consider this. As of earlier today, Media Matters has 4,424 items from this oracle of obfuscation, dating back to January 17th of 2006, when CNN first hired him. That’s exactly 1,781 days ago. Which means that Glenn Beck has lied an average of two and half (2.48) times a day*, every day, for the past FIVE YEARS! And that doesn’t even account for the time he was off the air between his ouster at CNN and when Fox picked him up. Now… one might say that maybe he’s not “lying,” per se, because he actually believes this stuff, or that he’s not “lying,” just really bad at research, journalism, etc… But I’m not willing to give him the benefit of that doubt here. Because when you rake in over $30 Million Dollars a year to talk about current events, you really should GET IT RIGHT occasionally. If you’re paid that much, and screw up two and half times a day for five years? You’re a paid liar, and you know it.
This past week however, Glenn Beck has truly outdone himself, both with the number of lies, the diversity of subject matter, and the absolute, utter absurdity of the claims being made. The following are just SOME of the items from MMFA, just in past couple of days:
Here’s Beck, making things up about the Food Safety Bill,
And finally, making things up about Net Neutrality.
That last one is particularly artful/egregious, as it manages to conflate the RW distortion of the Fairness Doctrine, which was taken off the books almost 10 years before the Internet was even a thing, and their idiotic opposition to Net Neutrality which (usually) amounts to little more than “It’s a violation of their freedom of speech to prohibit them from censoring you. ” It’s also truly amazing, when you consider the long established RW opposition to Net Neutrality, that he could seriously manage to screw up the basic premise of the issue that badly.
But then… He’s Glenn Beck. A very good candidate to become MMFA’s very first TWO-TIME Misinformer of the year! (He’s definitely got MY vote!)
(And no, I don’t get a vote.)
*As a point of comparison, Rush Limbaugh had only 2,953 items, dating back to 1/6/06, for an average of just 1.65 lies a day. And Rush has his own section on the website! And yet Glenn Beck is still about 50% more dishonest – by just under a lie a day, over five years – than Rush Limbaugh! Who have thought that was possible?
