To: Sully- who wrote (74029 ) 9/12/2009 5:15:48 AM From: Sully- Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 90947 Beck the Muckraker By: Jonah Goldberg The Corner From the Washington Post : <<< Beck Strikes Again; Yosi Sargent Reassigned at NEA By Michael A. Fletcher The National Endowment for the Arts has reassigned former communications director Yosi Sergant , who had become the latest target of FOX News talk show host Glenn Beck. Acting NEA communications director Victoria Hutter said Thursday that Sergant had left the communications post. The move came after he had come under attack from Beck, a conservative commentator who accused Sergant of attempting to use taxpayer money to fund art to support the president's initiatives. >>> Yes, I know some of my friends on the Right wring their hands about Glenn Beck. I don't so much. Not only am I grateful for his support of my book, I like the guy personally. Moreover, while he can be bombastic and over the top rhetorically (and we don't always see eye-to-eye), what makes his populism palatable to me (I'm not a big fan of populism) is that he's fundamentally a libertarian populist. He's not clamoring for the government to do more, he's clamoring for the government to do less. And that's the safest kind of populism there is. Meanwhile, he's been absolutely fearless in going after stories and trends that even the rest of the conservative media have ignored. But we can have that conversation another time. What I find striking is that if Beck were of the Left, taking down (or helping to take down) Bush appointees -- with the same bombast and success -- he would be hailed as the living reincarnation of the great Muckrakers of yore. He'd be the working man's I. F. Stone, the TV heir to Michael Moore (which is a good thing to the Left). If he explored the roots and idea animating conservatism the way he has with progressivism, he would be a vital service to the education of the nation. And because a left-wing Beck would have to be working at MSNBC, you could be sure that the gang over there would be foursquare behind him. corner.nationalreview.com