Beck acknowledges his role in "turn[ing] the light of day" on Tides

On Friday, I discussed the case of Byron Williams, who on July 18 was pulled over by police while reportedly on his way to "kill people of importance at the Tides Foundation and the ACLU" and engaged in a five to eight minute shootout with ten officers before being shot, capture, and hospitalized. I noted that the Tides Foundation is relatively obscure, and wrote that "the question the media should be asking is why he decided to target Tides."

I also pointed out that while we don't know how Williams heard about Tides, Glenn Beck is virtually the only one on television talking about the organization, regularly bringing it into his conspiracy theories. Beck has mentioned the organization in at least 29 editions of his Fox News program, including twice the week before Williams' shootout.

Today, Glenn Beck acknowledged his role in purportedly "turn[ing] the light of day on" the Tides Foundation. After playing a clip in which Color of Change's James Rucker says that "No one knew what Tides was" until "they were on Glenn Beck's blackboard," Beck says:

BECK: Then he says, the reason why I'm trouble is because no one knew what Tides was before Glenn Beck's blackboard. Tides was one of the hardest things that we ever tried to explain, and everyone told us that we couldn't. It is the reason why the blackboard really became what the blackboard is, is because I was trying to explain Tides, and how all of this worked. Now, you'll notice that I'm a danger because no one knew what Tides was until the blackboard. Meaning that they need the cover of darkness. They must silence people that turn the light of day on to these organizations.

As I noted last week, in "turn[ing] the light of day" on Tides, Beck suggested that they were "using failing capitalism to destroy it" and creating a "mass organization to seize power."