An imagined memo from a staffer in his company counseling a strategic break with the conservative movement
Glenn Beck's nightly Fox News show is ending.
Is he going to get any attention beyond his core fan base once he lacks a regular televised platform? If so, he'll have to show us something new - and I think he's going to pull it off. The man's rise to fame basically entailed reinventing himself every time he lost hold on the public's attention. How he'll evolve next is impossible to know. What Roger Ailes and friends should fear most, however, is that he turns on his former allies in the conservative movement. Does that sound crazy?
It isn't.
Here's the memo I imagine floating around inside his media company.
TO: Glenn Beck
SUBJECT: The David Brock Option
DATE: April 7, 2011
Glenn,
Dude, sweet show last night! Speaking of which, I removed chalk from next week's office supply order - figure we've got enough already to get us through. Bet one of your fans would pay big money for the chalk boards. Especially if you broke 'em up with an ax or something on the last show.
I read up on David Brock like you asked. And I definitely see what you mean. Esquire would totally publish a long confessional magazine piece from you, but you're right: it can't be you admitting you were a charlatan or going over to the other side. It would be more like, "Wow, I looked deeper into this gold business, which several people at Fox assured me was on the up and up, and now I see that a whole lot of wealthy entertainers on the right are just sticking it to their listeners. That's why I'm gonna set up a fund for anyone who bought marked up commemorative coins because of me." I don't know if we should do that specifically, but you get the idea: we leverage the fact that the most conspiracy-minded people in the conservative movement trust you more than Roger Ailes or Rush Limbaugh (though I wouldn't go after him unless he attacks first), and the genius of it is that we'll never lose an argument because whatever dishonesty we choose to expose will be true: They actually are conspiring to mislead rank-and-file conservatives in all these totally egregious and provable ways!