Glenn Beck's Exasperating $32 Million Year

"We're an entertainment company"

Glenn Beck has always been in the business of infuriating liberals. But who knew it paid so well? In the last twelve months, the Fox News host earned a jaw-dropping $32 million, according to a new profile in Forbes. A huge chunk of that comes from book and magazine deals ($13 million) and his radio broadcast ($10 million). But what's really exasperating the left is Beck's apparent agnosticism toward politics: “I could give a flying crap about the political process,” he says. “We’re an entertainment company.” Witness the animosity over Beck, Inc.

• This Guy's Unbelievable, writes Brian Guilfoos at Plunderbund: "Glenn Beck is the ultimate snake-oil salesman of our time ... Perhaps the people that worship him as some kind of luminary should open their eyes to the truth: He’s selling you what you want to hear, and he doesn’t even believe what he’s saying. While most of these other entertainers worked very hard to avoid alienating a portion of their potential audience, it was being controversial that earned Beck his. He won’t step away from that as long as it continues to make him money."

• What I Wouldn't Do for that Kind of Money! writes The Guardian's Michael Tomasky: "Maybe I should sell out for a little while. Even just three months of selling out would do me just fine, at Beck's rates. Then I'd come back to the fight. Actually, with that kind of money in the bank, I might just go golf."
  

• He Even Knows His Fans Are Suckers, writes Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly: "I guess the only surprising thing is that Beck would admit that he doesn't 'give a flying crap about the political process,' in effect acknowledging that he considers his minions -- who've been convinced by Beck to care deeply about the political process -- a bunch of suckers."
  

• He's a Menace to Society, writes Ben Cohen at The Daily Banter: "The long-term effects of Beck’s incessant stream of propaganda are hard to calculate, but they will not be pretty. The constant feeding of paranoia, thinly veiled racism and red baiting are likely to cause vulnerable sectors of the public to act out. We are already seeing angry white people attacking congressmen, abusing the disabled and threatening the President (Obama receives an average of 30 threats a day on his life, a 400% increase over Bush). And as Beck continues to bait, his followers continue to bark. But as the President has stated, given the economic times, some of it is to be expected."