What does Glenn Beck stand for?

There has been a lot of coverage in the media of certain companies pulling advertisements from the Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck program. Apparently, an organization called Color of Change is taking credit for this taking place due to an online petition. I have read information on their website, and from reading this, it boiled down to them being upset over Mr. Beck calling the President a racist and having a deep-seated hatred for white people.

Since I like to do my own fact-checking, I looked into this. I discounted anything from Fox News, or any online blog/source unless it was from a known organization or another media source such as a local paper or CNN that provided a date verifiable quote. I have provided neutral or source links with my research. In those instances when I needed to define a position from Mr. Beck, I did utilize his website for quotes.

Racism comments

In the Color of Change video, Mr. Beck was quoted while being interviewed on the Fox and Friends program in response to the "beer summit" at the White House. Mr. Beck said the president had "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." and "I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people. He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."

First of all, as I have expressed in another post, it was wrong for the president to:

1) Become involved in a local police matter, and

2) Make a statement that the police "acted stupidly" when he himself said he did not know all of the facts.

If he is willing to get involved in Cambridge, MA over a disorderly conduct arrest, what if a person complained that their TV was stolen in San Diego, CA and it took the police 35 minutes to arrive? What if a person involved in a traffic accident in Indianapolis, IN that got a ticket and thinks they were not at fault? Our nation has systems in place to deal with things like this, and we don’t need the president speaking about them, especially with "uncalibrated" words.

To expand upon this and waste time and resources over what was a local matter shows the president had a special interest in this matter. As it turns out. the professor involved was a friend of his. Professional police officers and judges recuse themselves in matters involving people known to them. The reason for doing so is to avoid the perception of bias in the matter. I have deferred investigations to another officer when a family member or friend was involved for this reason. I’ve seen our local judges do so in one case (involving the daughter of a former co-worker), and not do so in another (involving a sitting judge of the same circuit). It was proper in the former, and a disaster in the latter (an innocent driver was penalized). It would have shown good judgment for the president to do so in this matter, since one of the people were personally known to him. I would have expected the same if the president had been friends with the officer.

Circumstantial information

Mr. Beck has criticized the appointment of several "Czars" to head government programs, notably Van Jones as the "Green Jobs Czar". I looked for unfiltered biographical info on Mr. Jones.

I went to the Color of Change website here:

http://www.colorofchange.org/about.html

I found this:

Former Staff

Van Jones (Co-founder, inactive) While Van hasn’t been active in the work of ColorOfChange in recent years, we are proud of where his work las led him. After helping ColorOfChange get started in 2005, Van moved on to other pursuits. In 2007, he founded and served as the executive director of Green For All, an organization dedicated to creating opportunities for low-income communities connected to the greater effort of addressing climate change. Van now serves as Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

There is certainly evidence that this organization, which notes Mr. Jones as a co-founder, is proud of him. This lends credence to the perception they would undertake action against anyone critical of Mr. Jones, such as the advertising boycott they originated recently.

As a side note here, a website supporting Mr. Beck in this matter has been organized: defendglenn.com/

The support for reparations issue

I next looked into the reparation allegation. I found a news article dated June 28, 2008, which is located here:

http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/07/28/news/story05.html

The quote from then Senator Obama was as follows:

"I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it’s Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds."

As a side note, there are some that say there is no such thing as media bias other than on Fox News. When I read the above story, this jumped out at me:

When Obama walked on stage at the McCormick Center, many journalists in the audience leapt to their feet and applauded enthusiastically after being told not to do so.

And this:

Obama, who acknowledged that he needed a nap, stood up to say farewell to the audience of journalists, many of whom gave him another standing ovation.

I could find very little as to the president saying anything related to reparations. When asked about it directly in a debate on April 26, 2007, his response was non-responsive.

QUESTION: Hello, America. Hello, presidential candidates. This is Will from Boston, Massachusetts. And I hope, you know, they put this question on. It’s a question in the back of everybody’s head. You know, in some people, it’s further back than others, collecting cobwebs.

But is African-Americans ever going to get reparations for slavery?

I know you all are going to run around this question, dipping and dodging, so let’s see how far you all can get.

OBAMA: I think the reparations we need right here in South Carolina is investment, for example, in our schools. I did a…

(APPLAUSE)

I did a town hall meeting in Florence, South Carolina, in an area called the corridor of shame. They’ve got buildings that students are trying to learn in that were built right after the Civil War. And we’ve got teachers who are not trained to teach the subjects they’re teaching and high dropout rates.

We’ve got to understand that there are corridors of shame all across the country. And if we make the investments and understand that those are our children, that’s the kind of reparations that are really going to make a difference in America right now.

At least Dennis Kucinich came out and said he supported reparations and why.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/23/debate.transcript/index.html

I found this quote from a USA Today story from August 2008 titled Obama opposes slavery reparations, in which they quoted a 2004 NAACP survey then-candidate Obama completed:

In a 2004 questionnaire, he told the NAACP, "I fear that reparations would be an excuse for some to say, ‘We’ve paid our debt,’ and to avoid the much harder work."

Also in this same article:

"I have said in the past — and I’ll repeat again — that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed," the Illinois Democrat said recently.

Link: www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-02-candidate_N.htm

Mr. Beck has alleged that since the president was a member of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s congregation for many years, and Rev. Wright is in support of reparations (see link below), that this had to influence the president. This is a difficult allegation to prove, however, in my experience, people do not continue to attend a church where they disagreed with the pastor.

Rev. Wright was listed as the keynote speaker for the June 21, 2007 National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA) (Philadelphia Branch).

Link: http://www.ncobraphiladelphia.org/joomla/schedule.html

Reparations summary

My research on the reparations issue is that the president has been evasive on the issue, and Mr. Beck could certainly infer the position the president wanted more than money based on the 2004 quote and the presidents long-term association with Rev. Wright.