Ken Berwitz

If Fox News Channel (FNC) finds keith olbermann an obnoxious, tasteless, viciously offensive loudmouth - as well they should - why did they hire his right wing clone and hand him a show?

glen beck is an obnoxious, tasteless, viciously offensive loudmouth. 

Does he have some facts that are indisputable and is he sometimes right in his conclusions?  Yes and yes - just as olbermann does and is (a broken clock is sometimes right too).  But that doesn't change what glen beck is or how he comports himself.

Here, excerpted from an Associated Press article, is the latest example of what I'm talking about (among many to choose from):

Fox's Glenn Beck: President Obama is a racist

By DAVID BAUDER (AP)

 

NEW YORK — Fox News Channel commentator Glenn Beck said he believes President Barack Obama is a racist.

Beck made the statement during a guest appearance Tuesday on the "Fox & Friends" morning show. He said Obama has exposed himself as a person with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

His remarks came during a discussion of Obama's reaction to the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates is black and was arrested for disorderly conduct by a white policeman over a misunderstanding about a break-in at Gates' home.

 

An Obama spokesman, William Burton, said the White House had no comment on Beck.

 

Beck's statement was challenged on the air by Fox host Brian Kilmeade, who noted that most of the people who work for the nation's first black president are white.

 

"I'm not saying he doesn't like white people," Beck said. "He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."

Good for Brian Kilmeade, whose challenge to beck's imbecilic mouthings was a needed breath of fresh air.

It is true that beck's ratings are very high, and rapidly moving even higher.  Why?  I think it is partly because people who like his point of view have no alternative in that time slot, coupled with the fact that the competition he does have is CNN's unexciting Wolf Blitzer and MSNBC's perrenial cellar-dweller Chris Matthews.  How fortuitous.

Given his success so far, the only way beck will be taken off the air is if he keeps making even more obnoxious, tasteless, offensive comments, to the point where FNC will have to cut him loose.  But this is a ratings-driven business, therefore I would not count on that happening any time soon.

So, for the forseeable future glen beck is, and will remain, an affront to good taste and an embarrassment to FNC.