In tonight's edition of his show, Glenn Beck once again proved that he definitely knows how to spin any news to paint President Obama as anti-American and pro-terrorist.
Beck criticized Obama for supporting Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of last year's presidential election in the Ivory Coast. Beck specifically highlighted the fact that Ouattara is a Muslim while the person he beat in the elections, Laurent Gbagbo is a Christian.
Furthermore, although Beck condemned Ouattara for a recent massacre that took place in the city of Duekoue, he downplayed the actions by Gbagbo and his supporters, saying only that “the current Christian president who has his own share of issues is refusing to allow a power change. Mostly because he fears that [Ouattara] is going to round up all of [his] supporters and kill them all.”
BECK: What does democracy look like? Well, with Ouattara it's sweet. We know our president says President Ouattara is the man. He's a Muslim, but not officially the president yet because the current Christian president who has his own share of issues is refusing to allow a power change. Mostly because he fears that this guy [Ouattara] is going to round up all of this guy's [Gbagbo] supporters and kill them all. Crazy talk we just heard from the president. Ouattara is the man.
Well, not quite. Even forces loyal to the Muslim president, like these guys, have slaughtered people, grabbed them out of their cars and set them on fire and now they're beheading them too. And our president is supporting them which is great. So by the way, the death toll, about a thousand in three days over the weekend. So we got this guy [Obama] standing with this guy [Ouattara] who's responsible for the scenes where people are [Beck makes a chopping motion].
Beck's defense of Gbagbo follows on the heels of the decision by another prominent conservative, Pat Robertson, to strongly defend Gbagbo.
In his rush to condemn Obama's support for a Muslim, Beck (like Robertson) didn't inform his viewers that Gbagbo and his supporters have been alleged to have committed serious human rights abuses.
The United Nations had to evacuate its Ivory Coast staff from its offices in Abidjan yesterday due to repeated attacks by pro-Gbagbo forces. Gbagbo's forces have also previously shot seven women in the Ivorian city of Abobo as they peacefully protested for Gbagbo to step down.
Furthermore, on March 15, Human Rights Watch reported that “Gbagbo and his close allies are now implicated in crimes against humanity”:
Human Rights Watch believes that Gbagbo and several of his close allies are now implicated in crimes against humanity as defined by the Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court (ICC). The role of Blé Goudé and RTI demonstrates a government policy of encouraging violence, further supported by the refusal of Gbagbo and his military leaders to stop or denounce the recurrent abuses by security forces under their control. The targeted killings, enforced disappearances, politically motivated rapes, and persecution of West African nationals over a three-month period demonstrate a policy of systematic violence by security forces under the control of Gbagbo and militias long loyal to him.
The report also highlights crimes committed by pro-Ouattara forces.
Gbagbo is a ruler who has used the most brutal measures to retain power over the very country that has voted him out of power. But that won't stop Beck from highlighting the fact that Obama is supporting a Muslim over a Christian in order to scare his viewers.