Hard-Right Cowboy: Beck Israel Event Co-Stars Jon Voight

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published

As part of his Restoring Courage program in Israel, Glenn Beck will host an August 24 event in Jerusalem called “Courage to Declare.” One of the scheduled speakers will be actor Jon Voight, who in recent years has launched a litany of unfounded and unhinged attacks on Obama.

Among Voight's warnings and attacks on Obama:

  • Obama “Rapes” America. “President Obama has been cleverly trained in the Alinsky method and it would be very important that every American knows what that method is. It is a socialistic, Marxist teaching and with it, little by little, he rapes this nation, taking down our defenses, making new language for the Islamic extremists.” [Fox News, Huckabee, 4/12/10]
  • “False Prophet Obama” Thinks He's A “Soft-Spoken Julius Caesar.” “Obama really thinks he is a soft-spoken Julius Caesar. He thinks he's going to conquer the world with his soft-spoken sweet talk and really thinks he's going to bring all the enemies of the world into a little playground where they'll swing each other back and forth. We, and we alone, are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression. [...] Let's give thanks to them [notable conservatives] for not giving up and staying the course to bring an end to this false prophet Obama.” [NRSC/NRCC fundraising dinner, 6/8/09]
  • Obama Is Building A “Socialist Nation” And “Causing Civil Unrest.” “We're witnessing a slow and steady takeover of our true freedoms. We're becoming a socialist nation, and Obama is causing civil unrest in this country.” [Fox News, Huckabee, 8/30/09]
  • Obama “Weaken[s]” America With “Aggression And Arrogance.” “This will be the first president to ever weaken the United States of America. President Obama uses his aggression and arrogance for his own agenda, against the will of the American people when he should be using his will and aggression against our enemies.” [Fox News, Huckabee, 4/12/10]
  • Obama Will Run The Country With The Mindset “Of Very Angry, Militant White And Black People.” “Sen. Barack Obama has grown up with the teaching of very angry, militant white and black people: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Rev. Michael Pfleger. We cannot say we are not affected by teachers who are militant and angry. We know too well that we become like them, and Mr. Obama will run this country in their mindset. The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.” [Washington Times, 7/28/08]

When it comes Israel, Voight has also lobbed incendiary attacks against Obama.

In his June 2009 speech to the NRSC/NRCC fundraising dinner, while discussing Obama's “arrogance” toward Israel, Voight wondered if Obama might allow “a new Holocaust.”

In a June 2010 “open letter” to Obama published in The Washington Times, Voight claimed Obama “lied to the Jewish people” and has “promoted anti-Semitism throughout the world”:

You will be the first American president that lied to the Jewish people, and the American people as well, when you said that you would defend Israel, the only Democratic state in the Middle East, against all their enemies. You have done just the opposite. You have propagandized Israel, until they look like they are everyone's enemy -- and it has resonated throughout the world. You are putting Israel in harm's way, and you have promoted anti-Semitism throughout the world.

You have brought this to a people who have given the world the Ten Commandments and most laws we live by today. The Jewish people have given the world our greatest scientists and philosophers, and the cures for many diseases, and now you play a very dangerous game so you can look like a true martyr to what you see and say are the underdogs. But the underdogs you defend are murderers and criminals who want Israel eradicated.

On his radio show, Beck called “friend of the program” Voight “one of the only normal people in Hollywood.” The actor, in turn, has cited Beck as an important player in stopping Obama and has told him: “I want to be aligned with you, Glenn.”