On Monday, Glenn Beck laid out for us his grand unified theory of climate change, Fannie Mae, and cupcakes. In Beck's retelling, it's a grand conspiracy to turn the nation into some sort of criminal enterprise, and the only reason we know about it is because Glenn Beck heroically exposed the plot on his chalkboard of truth.

Well, apparently it didn't take the first time around, because Beck has spent the rest of the week complaining about how everyone is ignoring this huge story he “broke,” and trying to convince everyone that it's definitely not a conspiracy theory and is really, really, really true. For real.

And as my colleague Brian Frederick pointed out, things reached a whole new level of sadness and desperation last night as Beck offered the following rebuttal to the claim that he's just making up all the stuff he makes up:

Really? Who owns this network? Rupert Murdoch. Do you know how much money Rupert Murdoch is, well, he's got all these things going on. Do you think he's going to let a guy at 5:00 say a bunch of stuff, put this together, it's completely wrong, and stay on the network? ... Because Fox couldn't allow me to say things that were wrong.

Ah, yes... if there's one thing that keeps people honest and morally upright, it's vast amounts of money.

I briefly considered doing a run-down of all the lies and wrong things Murdoch's wealth has thus far failed to keep off his airwaves, but then I got to thinking that there's more to this than simple dishonesty.

Perhaps Beck knows that he's lying, but isn't quite ready to admit it outright, and this is his way of letting us know that he's coming to grips with the fact that pretty much everything he says is crazy talk.

Think about it -- only someone who really doesn't want to be believed would level an argument as absurd as “I have to be telling the truth because my boss is rich.” It's a call for help. He's asking us not to believe him because he doesn't believe himself. Strength in numbers!

It's a tough process, coming to terms with one's own dishonesty. Just know that we support you in this endeavor, Glenn. We're still going to point out all your lies and mock you for statements like the one above, but that's all part of the healing process. And it's fun, too.

But when all is said and done, we'll all be able to sit down and enjoy a cupcake together, secure in the knowledge that in doing so we're not helping to turn the United States into an organized crime outfit. And that'll be nice.