As we've noted, numerous commentators have criticized Glenn Beck's unhinged reaction to the protests in Egypt. David Corn of Mother Jones recently noted that Beck's response was “beyond reason,” leading Beck to attack him on Tuesday night. Now Corn has responded, stating that “Beck did not challenge or disprove anything I had said about him” and “Beck derided a comment that was never made.” Corn also called out Beck for his suggestion that there is no “democratic model in the Islamic world”:

[Beck] proceeded on a flight of hypocrisy, suggesting that the demonstrations in Egypt cannot lead to democracy, because democracy cannot work in the Middle East (outside Israel) or in the entire Islamic world. With these words, Beck was erasing Turkey and Malaysia from the map. But he also was forgetting his past support of the Iraq war as an endeavor to bring democracy to that country.

A few examples: In March 2004, Beck hailed the “great deal of good news” about the “transition to democracy in Iraq.” Two years later, on his television show, Beck maintained that the point of the Iraq war was not to disarm Saddam Hussein but to promote democracy: “Searching for weapons of mass destruction was a side benefit of going into Iraq. The real reason was to plant the seeds of democracy and change the face of the Middle East.” He added, “We have to succeed there.” Months later, Beck celebrated “the positive side of the war in Iraq”--which, he said, included freedom of speech in Iraq (marked by the widespread display of political campaign posters) and the election of female legislators.

So when Beck was selling the Iraq war, he enthusiastically claimed that democracy was taking root and blossoming there. But now, as he tries to tie pro-democracy protests in Egypt to a sinister Islamic extremist plot to subordinate much of the planet, he's not so hot on democracy in the Middle East or the Islamic world, essentially arguing that democracy cannot work in an Islamic nation. For Beck, it seems, promoting democracy only matters when it serves his larger purpose.