Yesterday, Congressman Anthony Weiner announced that his office had investigated one of Glenn Beck's favorite sponsors, Goldline International, Inc, and found that it sells its gold coins for an average of 90 percent above the coins' value by weight, meaning that the investors Beck's fear-mongering screeds round up are unlikely see any gains unless the price of gold doubles.

Today, Glenn Beck mounted an interesting defense of his role in this scheme, defaulting to the “I could respond if I wanted to but I don't, so there!” approach favored by 6 year-olds everywhere:

So Beck thought that it was a “waste” of his “precious airtime” to address the substance of Weiner's criticism of Goldline, which Beck constantly hawks; what did he have time for?

Well, he had time to showcase his theory that an “unholy alliance” -- composed of Jim Wallis, Van Jones, Andy Stern, Media Matters, Weiner, and what looked to be some sort of demon Weiner fan -- is out to “silence anybody who speaks out about this program”:

He had time to recycle his stale smear that Obama embarked on an "apology tour," and -- naturally -- he had time to shill for gold. He even had time to bring up Weiner's name at least 15 times (sometimes to attack Weiner, sometimes to turn his name into a joke). But Beck didn't have any time to address Weiner's criticism.

Instead, even though his show was too full of demon drawings and Weiner jokes to address the substance of the issue, Beck assured his audience he “took apart the truths and the untruths for this report” and put them on his new website, weinerfacts.com.

Surprisingly, it seems that the people Beck put in charge of weinerfacts.com were also too preoccupied to ever address Weiner's criticism of Goldline marking up the prices of its coins. Instead, they used their time suggesting Weiner and Obama are colluding to attack Beck and making hotdog jokes.

Beck may be determined to treat this issue as a joke, but fortunately for Goldline's unsuspecting customers, Weiner isn't likely to be dissuaded by Beck's schoolyard tactics.