Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance

by Alexander Zaitchik

Overview

Who is this guy and why are people listening?

Forget Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity—Glenn Beck is the Right’s new media darling and the unofficial leader of the conservative grassroots. Lampooned by the Left and Lionized by the far Right, his bluster-and-tears brand of political commentary has commandeered attention on both sides of the aisle.

Glenn Beck has emerged over the last decade as a unique and bizarre conservative icon for the new century. He encourages his listeners to embrace a cynical paranoia that slides easily into a fantasyland filled with enemies that do not exist and solutions that are incoherent, at best. Since the election of President Barack Obama, Beck’s bombastic, conspiratorial, and often viciously personal approach to political combat has made him one of the most controversial figures in the history of American broadcasting.

In Common Nonsense, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik explores Beck's strange brew of ratings lust, boundless ego, conspiratorial hard-right politics, and gimmicky morning-radio entertainment chops.

• Separates the facts from the fiction, following Beck from his troubled childhood to his recent rise to the top of the conservative media heap
• Zaitchik's recent three-part series in Salon caused so much buzz, Beck felt the need to attack it on his show
• Based on Zaitchik's interviews with former Beck coworkers and review of countless Beck writings and television and radio shows
• Explains why Beck is always crying, why he has so many conservative enemies, why he's driven by conspiracy theories, and why he's dangerous to the health of the republic
• A contributing writer to Alternet, Zaitchik's reporting has appeared in the New Republic, the Nation, Salon, Wired, Reason, and the Believer

Beck, a perverse and high-impact media spectacle, has emerged as a leader in a conservative protest movement that raises troubling questions about the future of American politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780470557396
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	05/01/2010
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK is a freelance journalist and contributing writer at AlterNet.org. His writing has appeared in the New Republic, the Nation, Salon, Wired, Reason, and the Believer. He lives in Brooklyn.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Man with the Plan.

1 Portrait of a Young Deejay.

2 Last Stop on the Top 40 Train.

3 The Luckiest Loudmouth in Tampa.

4 It’s Always about Glenn.

5 This Is CNN?

6 A Rodeo Clown Goes Large.

7 Beck Unbound.

8 False Victory.

9 "A Deep-Seated Hatred for . . . the White Culture ". 

10 ACORN.

11 Brother Beck Presents: Mormon Masterpiece Theater.

12 The Ghost of Cleon Skousen.

13 The 9.12 Project.

Epilogue: The Bullet Train and the Rocking Chair.

Acknowledgments.

Notes. 

Index.

Editorial Reviews

* "A gripping and thoroughly researched Beck biography."
—Joe Conason, Salon

“Common Nonsense will tell [his fans] more than they’ve ever known about Beck, but it will challenge the premises of his stories and his crusades. Zaitchik defends ACORN and environmental activist Van Jones from the pounding Beck gave them — at times, the reader feels that he’s watching a medic team pick up wounded bodies from the culture war.”
—David Weigel, The Washington Post

“Fox News host Glenn Beck delights in provocation — see his well-publicized spats with James Cameron, Rep. Anthony Weiner and others — and, according to Alexander Zaitchik's new book, he's always had the knack. Indeed, the book, which Firedoglake calls, ‘careful and studious...part biography, part deconstruction,’ reads like an extended list of all the folks the outspoken conservative pundit has irked during his rise from local radio host to national media icon.”
—The Week

“A superb book… Alexander Zaitchik shows how Beck’s blackboard schemes are fiction—part of what [Zaitchik] calls ‘the oceanic audacity of his self-serving ignorance.’”
—Mark Schmitt, The American Prospect

“A sharp and informative smackdown.”
—Mark Lilla, The New York Review of Books

“A tough critique of the host’s history, philosophies and methods, aimed at separating fact from hyperbole [t]hrough detailed interviews, an examination of Beck’s public statements, and a look at public records.”
—St. Petersburg Times (Florida)

From the Publisher