It becomes clearer each day that Glenn Beck's grasp on how the world works is quite tenuous. He simply doesn't understand things, and reaches out for theories, no matter how harebrained they might be. When he latches on to something, it becomes his guiding principle until he becomes distracted by a new theory. He's like a cat with a new ball of yarn. One day it's a faulty “history” book, the next it's the writings of a virulent anti-semite, then it's a Robin Hood movie. The underlying facts don't matter, just whether the theory tickles Beck's fancy or not.
Today Beck's ball of yarn is The Call, a book apparently published by French anarchist saboteurs. On his radio show today, Beck explained that this book was his key to understanding what he sees as a battle within the left that is currently underway. He claims that Democrats are divided between Marxist true believers (who he identifies as “black flag” anarchists) and just run of the mill Marxists (who purportedly believe in “total government”). On the true believer side are figures like former White House advisor Van Jones, Andy Stern of SEIU (Stern recently announced he's resigning from SEIU), and Bill Ayers. On the other side, according to Beck, are people like Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. In the middle of this epic battle is of course President Obama.
This theory -- like every other theory Beck dreams up -- makes no sense. It accuses the Democratic party of being comprised of people who either support the abolition of government or are in favor of complete government control. That assertion isn't borne out of anything the party has actually done, however. It's clear that Democrats, for instance, favor more regulation than Republicans do, but it's a big leap from increased oversight of offshore drilling (for instance) to anarchism or Marxism.
Yet, this nonsense proved to be no impediment to Beck inventing dramatic showdowns - for instance alleging that President Obama selected Joe Biden as his vice president in order to keep the supposedly more radical Andy Stern in check and to keep labor unions under control. Beck extended his theory to the Democratic primary in Arkansas, where Beck claimed that President Clinton was simultaneously supporting and attacking unions through his support of Sen. Blanche Lincoln and opposition to Lt. Governor Bill Halter (who has more support from organized labor). When President Obama said he wanted to “know whose ass to kick,” Beck explained that this was a coded message to Bill Ayers. To Beck it's all evidence of a struggle between labor-affiliated Marxist-anarchists in opposition to total government anarchists. Is it any wonder he brought one of his chalkboards into the radio studio to explain this?
Those conspiracy theories may make for a weird yet entertaining movie, but it's a far cry from an even remotely coherent political critique or analysis. Even worse is that in the time it has taken to write this, there's a good likelihood that Beck has found a new, more garish ball of yarn to paw at.