On Beck, Mark Steyn described Michelle Obama as "Kim Jong-Il dressed up with a bit of Oprah Winfrey dressing"

Summary: On CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, columnist Mark Steyn said of Michelle Obama: "[T]his is Kim Jong-Il dressed up with a bit of Oprah Winfrey dressing." Steyn also called Obama "a conventional university socialist." Host Glenn Beck said of Obama, "Her language is riddled with socialism," and said of the Obamas, "[T]here's a socialist agenda there for America."

On the April 10 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, author and columnist Mark Steyn said of Michelle Obama: "[T]his is Kim Jong-Il dressed up with a bit of Oprah Winfrey dressing." Steyn also called Obama "a conventional university socialist." During the segment, host Glenn Beck said of Obama, "Her language is riddled with socialism," and said of the Obamas, "[T]here's a socialist agenda there for America." Beck and Steyn made the comments while discussing remarks Obama has made, including her reported statement on April 8 in North Carolina that "[t]he truth is, most Americans don't want much. Folks don't want the whole pie. ... The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and revamped education system then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so someone else can have more."

Beck frequently compares supporters of progressive economic policies to communists and socialists. On the January 24 edition of his show, he called Sen. Hillary Clinton "Comrade Clinton" and "a liberal fascist," and characterized former Sen .John Edwards (D-NC) as "a communist." On January 22, when Jeff Frankel, an economics professor from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, suggested focusing tax cuts on "lower-income, working Americans," Beck said to Frankel, "Nice of you to join us, Stalin." On January 9, Beck said of Edwards: "I listened to him last night give a speech, and, I mean, why not just start wearing the Soviet star on your head and the Workers World Party?"

From the April 10 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: Now, I got to move from racism to Marxism, and Obama is still in the center of it. For months I've been telling you, Barack Obama, and more his wife than Barack -- I mean, at least looking at her language -- I believe there's a socialist agenda there for America. And Michelle ain't helping him any. She's adding fuel to the fire. Remember, Michelle is a campaign surrogate for her husband. So he can't be everywhere, so he sends her out to speak for him.

This is what she said at a North Carolina campaign stop, and I quote, "The truth is, most Americans don't want much. Folks don't want the whole pie." I do. But I -- there's a fat man screaming to get out of me. "Most Americans feel blessed to thrive just a little bit." Well, good, let's lower the bar. "But that's out of reach for them." And then she continued, "The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so someone else can have more." Well, hello and welcome back, Karl Marx.

A redistribution of pie doesn't make me feel any better. Thanks, but no thanks, Michelle. When it comes to pie, or money, I'll take all I can get. I want all my pie. I should be able to keep my pie. And you know what? I want you to have a huge piece of pie, as well. Have the whole thing. It's not because I'm -- I'm selfish, I'm not. Unlike the Obamas, I happen to give away more than 1 percent of my income to charity.

The bottom line is this: success and money -- it's not finite. This is America. That's not a zero-sum game. There's as much as you feel like working for it. You know, you've got to -- you got to look at money and success as the ocean. It doesn't hurt the ocean to back a dump truck up to it and take a bunch of water out of it. There's more. Stand in line, go get it. Let's stop thinking about pieces of pie, and remember that if you wanted to look at it as pie, this is America. We're a freaking bakery. Bake more. Make as many pies as you want.

Mark Steyn is the author of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. It's out in paperback this week. And you got to read this book, if you never have. Why? Because Canada is trying to ban it. Mark, talk to me about this pie stuff. I think -- I think there is hidden language in especially Michelle Obama. Her language is riddled with socialism.

STEYN: Yeah, I think she's a conventional university socialist. And you're right, I give enough of my pie to the federal government, and they waste most of that pie. So, when she's talking about universal health care and revamping and reforming education, by any reasonable measure, American education is overfunded.

[...]

BECK: Let me give you this. I'm going to -- you just tell me what we're missing here in Michelle Obama's language. Listen to this. Quote, this is from the UCLA speech she gave, "And Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. Put down your division, that you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones, that you push yourselves to be better and that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved and uninformed." My gosh.

STEYN: Yes, exactly -- soft, fluffy totalitarianism. The right to be uninvolved, the right to be left alone is one of the most precious rights in a constitutional republic. And if she wants me to shed my cynicism, she's going to have to prize it from my cold, dead, cynical fingers. This is not -- this is Kim Jong-Il dressed up with a bit of Oprah Winfrey dressing. It's unbecoming of --

BECK: Yeah.

STEYN: -- an American presidential candidate.

BECK: You know, I just wish these candidates would go back and read the words of the founding fathers. You have a right to fail.

STEYN: Yeah, yeah.

BECK: You have a right to starve to death.

STEYN: That's right.

BECK: You don't -- the government is not the person to come in and tell you how to live your life. If you want to fail -- there are a lot of people that, you know, hold themselves up in the woods in a cabin, like, "I'm gonna sit here and eat my tin can." That's exactly what you have a right to do in America.

STEYN: Yeah, and that is the most precious right -- and I wouldn't mind if she was saying, we need 300 million self-reliant, engaged citizens out there. But she just wants 300 million cheerleaders, for a messianic president.

BECK: Well, you're gonna --

STEYN: Sorry, count me out.

BECK: Thank you very much, Mark. Appreciate it.

—K.E.