Beck struggles to tie WikiLeaks to George Soros

According to Glenn Beck, George Soros is connected to pretty much everything that's bad in the universe, but today, Beck settled on trying to make the case that Soros is somehow behind WikiLeaks, the organization that recently posted secret government communications on its website. Beck claimed that Soros is using Wikileaks to "cause chaos" and bring down America using, as always, the nefarious "bottom-up, top-down, and inside out" technique of "George Soros operative" Van Jones.

Weaving a tale that began with organizations supporting accused leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning, Beck continued:

BECK: Then you have the Movement for a Democratic Society. Now what is the Movement for a Democratic Society? ... It's the adult counterpart of the Students for a Democratic Society. So it's like the Gray Panthers and the Black Panthers. The Gray Panthers are the old ones. Now, who's the guy who started SDS back in the 1960s? He's the guy who's now running the Open Society Institute for George Soros. Well, so, that's -- that's good.

WikiLeaks founders, when they started to talk about the need to raise $5 million, they said the only ones that had this kind of money that could do what they were looking to do was the CIA or George Soros. And they complained that the initial round of publicity had, quote, "affected our delicate negotiations with the Open Society Institute."

Now, I'm sure George Soros -- because he's come out and he has said he is so against this WikiLeaks thing. He is so against it. WikiLeaks advisory board member was the director of the China office of Human Rights Watch, which is Soros-funded. And the WikiLeaks editor -- you know he's hiding out in Great Britain -- he's represented by attorney Mark Stephens, which is weird, because Stephens also does pro bono work for the Open Society Institute. Isn't that weird, huh?

So let's see if I've got this straight: An organization that supports the accused WikiLeaks leaker is "the adult counterpart" to another organization, founded by a man who is now president of Soros' Open Society Foundation. While looking for funding, "WikiLeaks founders" allegedly mentioned the "CIA" and "George Soros" and the group was reportedly in "negotiations" with OSI. A "WikiLeaks advisory board member" used to work for "Soros-funded" Human Rights Watch and Julian Assange's legal council "does pro bono work" for OSI. Beck sure has a slam-dunk case there.

In a July interview with John Young, one of the early founders of WikiLeaks who runs the website Cryptome, CNET reported that Young pulled out of the effort "when other Wikileaks founders started to talk about the need to raise $5 million and complained that an initial round of publicity had affected 'our delicate negotiations with the Open Society Institute and other funding bodies,' " as Young put it.

So Beck doesn't even allege that Soros has funded Wikileaks. He's just alluding to a connection because WikiLeaks apparently wanted money from Soros. According to Young's website, Soros' Open Society Foundations said in August that they "do not support" WikiLeaks. In fact, the Open Society Foundations was among the groups that recently criticized WikiLeaks for endangering Afghan civilians by releasing their names.

And what about that "advisory board member"? Well, according to Wired UK, "most of the members of the advisory board to whom Wired spoke admitted that they had little involvement with Wikileaks, and have not done much 'advising.' " And David Kushner reported in April, "When I contacted the impressive figures listed on its advisory board, some didn't know they were mentioned on the site or had little idea how they got there." WikiLeaks has since removed any mention of advisors or board members on its website.

And is it really that "weird" that a leading British lawyer is involved in pro bono work? Stephens is a senior partner at Finers, Stephens, Innocent (FSI), a law firm that employs more than a hundred attorneys across nine subject matters. FSI's pro bono work is a "crucial part" of the firm and it offers free legal council to more than 25 organizations. Stephens himself founded the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, a national charity that provides free legal help to those who cannot afford to pay. So is Beck saying that lawyers are weird for offering free advice to those who don't have enough money to pay? Or just to OSI? 

Beck then got to the crux of his argument, pointing to Czechoslovakia as an example of what Soros is attempting to orchestrate here. Recounting the Communist revolution of 1948, he said "people at the top" could "infiltrate" the government and "orchestrate all kinds of events on the ground" and "cause chaos," just as happened then. That's "the theory of Van Jones," he specified -- the "bottom-up, top-down, and inside out" theory.

This is at least the fourth time Beck has held up the Communist revolution of 1948 Czechoslovakia to advance his theory that Soros is somehow using that as a model to take over the world -- or something. But Beck almost always conveniently leaves out the fact that Soros supported the overthrow of the communist regime in that country -- in fact, and when Beck sees fit, he cites Soros' involvement in that Velvet Revolution as a black mark against him.