Glenn Beck spent two segments of his Fox News show today on Libya, and he managed the rare feat of being both irresponsible and incomprehensible.
In the first segment, Beck summarized various events in the Middle East before getting around to Libya, and he then started in on the conspiracy-mongering: “This is a country that is in trouble, and I fear is going to make England, France, and the U.S. look bad. I wonder if that was intentional.” He then suggested some sort of nefarious link between the actions in Libya and the appearance in the German magazine Der Spiegel of pictures of U.S. troops posing with the bodies of dead Afghans. “Is it a coincidence? Sure, it is. I'm sure it is,” he said.
That led to Beck referencing the shootings of two American airmen in Germany by an “Islamic terrorist gunman.” Beck continued:
And now, coincidentally, when Germany says, no, they don't want to go into Libya, but France, U.S. -- U.S. forces, air forces -- go into Libya. Hmm. Isn't that weird. At the same time, we get these “Kill Team” images, we get these images from Der Spiegel.
Beck asserted that “there's something here” in the Der Spiegel photos, repeating a claim that the reaction to them could be worse than Abu Ghraib. After stating that “99.99999 percent” of U.S. troops are “good, decent, caring individuals, the best and the bravest humanity has to offer -- not just America,” Beck again said the poor image of U.S. soldiers because of those photos will “start in Germany. And it will set the Islamic world on fire, most likely in Europe and Germany.”
From there, Beck jumped to a Time magazine report noting that the White House is aware that Al Qaeda has operations in Libya, and that it would try to take advantage of a power vacuum in a post-Gadhafi Libya. Despite that arguably unsurprising news, Beck declared, “That's exactly what we said would happen.” After quoting an Al Qaeda spokesman denouncing Moammar Gadhafi, Beck said: “Could Gadhafi have been telling the truth? Yes, yes, he could. And no, Gadhafi is not a good guy, even though there are those in this country who think he is, and with Cass Sunstein and George Soros' help, tried to convince people that he was.” You knew Beck would work Sunstein and Soros in here somewhere, right?
Then, Beck jumped to complaining about the U.S. response to Libya, with stops at complaints about getting United Nations approval and allegedly unconstitutional actions. Then he went back to conspiracy-mongering: “There are people that might think that we're making a big mistake here. But is it a big mistake -- I mean, for the cynical people? Because the more cynical people might be wondering, 'Is this being done on purpose? Is there a reason to entangle us in a mess like this?' ”
If you can any coherency beyond the conspiratorial nature of his musings, be our guest. And we still have another segment to go.
Beck began the second segment by listing all the “friends” Gadhafi has supposedly bought with his billions, adding, “As for me, I'm a little pickier about my friends. I tend to shy away from those who have tried to kill the president of the United States.” He followed that up with clips of President Reagan, who was targeted for assassination by Gadhafi, denouncing the Libyan leader -- which would seem to undermine Beck's previous argument by articulating the case for taking action against Gadhafi. Then Beck himself made the case: “What makes you think a man like this isn't funding the terrorists anymore, wherever they are?”
Finally, Beck tried to sum up whatever he spent these two segments ranting about: “So, what are we doing in Libya? Why are we there? What is happening, and is it a coincidence that Der Spiegel came out so the entire Western world could be -- what was it that I said here? Oh, the protests would become cascade -- they would cascade, they would sweep into the Middle East, and they would begin to destabilize Europe and the rest of the world. What a crazy conspiracy theory.” No doubting him on that last point.
We're confused. Is Beck saying Obama took action against Libya to distract from the Der Spiegel photos or to further their impact in the Islamic world -- both of which are highly irresponsible accusations to make? Does he think the Germans are evil for not wanting to participate in the Libyan action, or that they're trying to set up the U.S. by releasing the photos while we're involved in Libya? And why did he play a clip of the sainted Ronald Reagan to seemingly make a case for removing Gadhafi after warning that his removal would empower Al Qaeda?
Beck's thoughts on Libya now aren't any more coherent than they were last week.