Anytime a conservative figure shows up in TIME can only mean… bad news. Popular conservative talk show host Glenn Beck makes it into the magazine this time, but let’s at least give credit to the editors for avoiding another Obama cover (24!).
Remember when Rush Limbaugh made the cover in 1993 and again in 1995? Funny enough, back in 1995 the cover text said “Is Rush Limbaugh good for America?” And what do we see with Glenn Beck’s story? “Is Glenn Beck bad for America?” Sounds to me that the creative juices are running out in TIME.
So the real question is, Why would TIME even propose such a question about Beck? The TV personality has a large loyal audience, sometimes with ratings high enough to match those of his other Fox News colleague, Bill O’Reilly, whose program is regularly #1 in the prime time period. Clearly the liberal media is curious about Beck. After all, he originally had a program on CNN Headline News, then jumped to Fox News to host a 5:00 p.m. show. His popularity surged in such a short period of time that many on the left have declared him public enemy #1.
And understandably so. Thanks to his expose about Obama’s “green czar” Van Jones, the White House has one less (self-proclaimed) communist and 9/11 “truther” within. The president may be able to fire corporate CEOs, but Glenn Beck’s the TV show host who can get the president’s men fired. Obviously, Beck doesn’t deserve all the credit — his loyal conservative viewers supported the cause by blogging, tweeting, and flooding switchboards in Washington, D.C.
TIME portrays Beck as a “mad man” angry and fearful of the latest developments in America. Furthermore, the piece suggests that Beck is profiting from this fear:
There are bigger one-voice enterprises in the world: Oprah, Rush, Dr. Phil. But few are more widely diversified. In June, estimators at Forbes magazine pegged Beck’s earnings over the previous 12 months at $23 million, a ballpark figure confirmed by knowledgeable sources, and this year’s revenues are on track to be higher. The largest share comes from his radio show, which is heard by more than 8 million listeners on nearly 400 stations — one of the five biggest radio audiences in the country. Beck is one of only a handful of blockbuster authors who have reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller lists with both nonfiction and fiction. (Among the others: John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell and William Styron. Unlike them, however, Beck gets a lot of help from his staff.) His latest book, Arguing with Idiots, will be published this month, and if things go as expected, it will be the third No. 1 with his name on the front published in the past 12 months. Taking a page from Stephen King — who once called Beck “Satan’s mentally challenged younger brother” — Beck recently entered into a partnership with Simon & Schuster that pays him a share of profits rather than a traditional author’s royalty, and he plans to create a range of books for every audience, from children to teens to adults.
Hell, yes! The man is clearly very good at what he does, and America is still a capitalist nation. The left is just jealous that none of its personalities actually made obscene amounts of money from spewing liberal garbage — how come it’s always the conservatives that are raking it in? It’s all Economics 101, supply and demand. The fact that conservative show hosts are getting wealthier by the day means that Americans want to hear the conservative message. It’s that simple. Liberals are a minority in America and only a majority on Capitol Hill. Same rule applies to the dominance of Fox News.
Glenn Beck may be a curiosity to TIME and other mainstream media loyalists, but he’s really just a simple man: an American that realizes his talents, works hard, and trying to make a good living for him and his family. And that’s why so many other Americans can identify with him.
