Beck on suicide bomber graduation: “Maybe Jimmy Carter was booked and that's why he didn't speak”

On the June 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, while discussing an alleged Al Qaeda/Taliban training camp “graduation ceremony” shown on a tape obtained by ABCNews.com, Glenn Beck said: “I was surprised, because I really thought speaking at a suicide bomber graduation ceremony, I would just -- I -- maybe Jimmy Carter was booked and that's why he didn't speak at the commencement ceremony.”

As Media Matters for America documented, Beck has also referred to former President Jimmy Carter as a “waste of skin” and contrasted him with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who, Beck said, was not a “bigger waste of skin” because "[a]t least evil is using that skin." During the same show, Beck also asked his executive producer Steve “Stu” Burguiere and producer Dan Andros to vote on who was the “bigger waste of skin” between singer Britney Spears and Carter. As Media Matters has also noted, ABC News hired Beck in January as a “regular commentator” for Good Morning America, and in June, The Washington Post reported that Washington Post Radio is reportedly “considering” picking up “a show hosted by” him. In addition, Beck also hosts a CNN Headline News television program.

From the June 21 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program:

BECK: We have been following the story of the Taliban graduation. This is the Muslim extremist graduation that happened in Afghanistan. Was it Afghanistan or Pakistan? I think it was Pakistan -- and they've just caught three people on the northern border of Iran that had attended this school.

They had communication devices. They had all kinds of things that looked like they were instrumental in running a -- some sort of a suicide operation. We just caught them. They have German passports, but they had graduated from this, you know, this ceremony last week.

We happened to have -- and I was surprised, because I really thought speaking at a suicide bomber graduation ceremony, I would just -- I -- maybe Jimmy Carter was booked and that's why he didn't speak at the commencement ceremony.