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Glenn Beck claims Fox News victim of “media genocide”

Juliana Williams — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:01:32 +0000

In a perverse twist of reality, Glenn Beck now seeks to claim victim status from the progressive response to his false and malicious “reporting.” On his radio show on Tuesday, Beck compared Fox News to the Jews persecuted in the Holocaust. It almost seems like Beck hijacked our earlier post about the Democrats’ response to his efforts to remove Obama Administration officials one-by-one.

I’m sorry Glenn, but the bully doesn’t get to play the victim card when people start standing up to him.

19 More Advertisers Drop Beck

Juliana Williams — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:54:38 +0000

From Jack and Jill Politics, October 6th.

Great news today in our campaign against Glenn Beck. We’re announcing that nineteen more of Beck’s advertisers have stopped supporting his show. That number includes two British companies who just announced that they’ve pulled their ads from the UK broadcast of Beck’s show after hearing from customers.

Two companies–Waitrose (the British supermarket chain) and Metropolitan Talent Management–pulled their ads not only from Beck’s show, but from Fox News in general.

Over 280,000 of us have now called on advertisers to stop supporting Beck’s show. We are keeping Beck isolated and making sure that he continues to be a financial liability for Fox. Eventually, Fox will have to explain why they are continuing to give Beck’s race-baiting and fear-mongering a platform even as it hurts their bottom line.

Here’s the full list of new companies ditching Beck: AmMed Direct, Citrix Online, Concord Music Group, Diageo, Eggland’s Best, Equifax, Eulactol USA (producer of Flexitol), GetARoom.com, Hoffman La Roche (maker of BONIVA), Metropolitan Talent Management, ooVoo, Overture Films, Scarguard, Schiff Nutrition (maker of Tiger’s Milk and Fi-Bar), Seoul Metropolitan Government, Subaru, Toyota-Lexus, Waitrose and Woodland Power Products, Inc.

From the press release:

Comments from advertisers recently distancing themselves from Beck:

“We will not be airing on that show [Glenn Beck] any longer,” said Michael McHale, Director of Corporate Communications for Subaru of America, in a phone conversation with ColorOfChange.org.

“Lexus ads are not appearing on the Glenn Beck show,” said Nancy Hubbell, Communications Manager for Lexus Prestige, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We have no plans to buy Beck,” Hubbell later reiterated in a separate email to ColorOfChange.org.

“Please rest assured that we do not endorse Beck’s views and are having our advertising agency request that Fox no longer air our advertisements during his shows,” said John Mills, Director of Marketing for AmMed Direct, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.

“We are currently shifting our presence on the Fox Television network to a time slot that will not include the Glenn Beck television program,” said Bernardo de Albergaria, Vice President of Global Marketing & eCommerce for Citrix Online, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “I have received confirmation that Fox has been instructed to begin this transition immediately and I am advised it will be fully implemented by October 9th.”

[Citrix Online pulled its advertisements from rotation on Glenn Beck's radio show in early September, but was recently contacted regarding ads that were recently seen on Beck's television show.]

“We did not specifically purchase time on Glen Beck [sic], rather the Fox News Channel as a whole,” said Dino Balzano, Director of Advertising and Merchandise at Concord Music Group, in email to ColorOfChange.org. “But, of course, if we consider this ‘news cluster’ purchase again in the future, we will only do so if we can be guaranteed to NOT be in that program.”

“Pending further review, Eggland’s Best has suspended TV advertising on the Glenn Beck show,” said Katy Gray, a spokesperson for Eggland’s Best, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.

“Equifax advertisements that appeared during the Glenn Beck Show were not specifically slated to air alongside the show and were purchased as part of a larger, rotational media buy on Fox Network,” said Demitra L. Wilson, Director of Public Relations for Equifax, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We have taken the necessary steps to ensure that our ads will no longer appear during this programming.”

“You will not see Flexitol commercials on the Glenn Beck show. Period,” said John Swigert, Vice President and General Manager at Eulactol USA, makers of Flexitol, in an email to ColorOfChange.org.

“We asked to no longer run our commercial on the Glenn Beck show,” said Bob Diener, President of GetARoom.com, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We were running on rotation and so did not know where the show would air.”

“We are appalled at what’s going on,” said John Scher, co-CEO of Metropolitan Talent Management, in a phone conversation with ColorOfChange.org. “Metropolitan Talent Management is 100% dedicated to not buy advertising on any part of Fox News.”

“We learned of this yesterday and have taken action to discontinue ads on that program,” said Marty Walker, Chief Marketing Officer for ooVoo, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We gave the order to stop yesterday.”

“We’re no longer going to book any of his air time,” said Adam Keen, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Publicity for Overture Films, in a phone message to ColorOfChange.org. “I’m really glad to be informed of what you guys are doing.”

“We never, ever planned on advertising on that particular show,” said Alan Graham, Marketing Vice President of Scarguard Labs, LLC, in a phone message to ColorOfChange.org. “We have taken the necessary steps to ensure we don’t run ads there again.”

“We have requested that they [Fox News] no longer run Schiff advertisements on that show,” said Raquel Wilson, Director of Marketing for Schiff Nutrition, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “We were not aware Schiff would be slotted on the Glenn Beck show.”

“The Seoul government has no plan to extend, resume, or add its commercial on the program,” said Joan E. Bloom, a US spokesperson for the city of Seoul, in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “In other word [sic], there will not be Seoul commercial in the Glenn Beck program any more.”

“Our advertising is no longer running on that program,” said Vincent VanOss, Director of Advertising for Woodland Power Products, Inc., in a phone message for ColorOfChange.org.

Media conservatives denounce Glenn Beck’s “hatred

Juliana Williams — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:52:47 +0000

(re-posted from Media Matters)

On September 22, conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough announced an “honor roll” for conservatives who are willing to denounce Glenn Beck’s “hatred,” making specific reference to Beck’s statement that President Obama is “a racist” with a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Several media conservatives in addition to Scarborough have denounced Beck’s rhetoric as “harmful” and “race-baiting.”

Scarborough announces “honor roll” for conservatives who “call out” Beck’s “hatred”

From the September 22 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

SCARBOROUGH: You cannot say that the president of the United States, Mike Barnicle, hates all white people. You cannot call the president of the United States a racist. You cannot wallow in conspiracy theories as he did for about a month, suggesting that FEMA might be setting up concentration camps and going on Fox & Friends and saying, “I can’t disprove it,” and then wait a month. You can’t stir up that type of hatred — calling the president a racist.

BARNICLE: Yeah.

SCARBOROUGH: And then say, “I’m just a rodeo clown.” Can I — can I — I’ve got an honor roll. We’re gonna have a conservatives honor roll on this show.

BARNICLE: All right.

SCARBOROUGH: And trust me, you want to be on this honor roll. I know how these stories end. I always know how they end — and I’m talking to you Mitt Romney, and I’m talking to anybody who wants to be president in 2012. You need to call out this type of hatred, because it always blows up in your face.

But yesterday, Pete Wehner, Karl Rove’s political guy inside the White House — brilliant guy, writes for Commentary. And we disagree on a lot, Pete and I do, but Pete came out yesterday and said Glenn Beck is bad for the conservative movement. We need more people doing that. You cannot preach hatred. You cannot say the president’s a racist. You cannot stir up things that could have very deadly consequences. I was in Congress in 1995. I know where this can end. You can’t do it, and then say, “I’m a rodeo clown.”

Scarborough not the only conservative to denounce Beck’s actions

Former Bush speechwriter Peter Wehner: “[T]he role Glenn Beck is playing is harmful in its totality.” In a post for Commentary magazine’s Contentions blog, Peter Wehner, a regular contributor to the blog, stated, “Only recently have I watched portions of [Beck's] television program, as well as interviews with him, and heard parts of his radio program. And what I’ve seen should worry the conservative movement.” He later added, “Some of Beck’s statements — for example, that President Obama has a ‘deep-seated hatred for white people‘ — are quite unfair and not good for the country.” Wehner also stated, “And certainly some of the things Beck has done on his program are fine and appropriate. But the role Glenn Beck is playing is harmful in its totality.” [commentarymagazine.com, 9/21/09]

Mark Levin: Beck “mindless,” “incoherent,” “pandering,” and “pathetic.” On September 21, conservative radio host Mark Levin attacked Beck for saying in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric that “John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama.” According to Levin, “To say [McCain] would be worse is mindless, incoherent, as a matter of fact.” Levin later added: “I think there’s enormous confusion and positioning and pandering. It may be entertaining, but from my perspective, it’s not. It’s pathetic.” [Think Progress, 9/22/09]

David Frum: “GOP Surrenders to Beck’s Mob Rule.” In a September 11 blog post titled “GOP Surrenders to Beck’s Mob Rule,” former Bush speechwriter David Frum stated: “When Glenn Beck made his Fox debut, some shrewd conservatives responded with a wink. Maybe the show was paranoid and hysterical. Maybe Beck was none too scrupulous about facts and truth. But why be squeamish? The other side did as bad, or nearly. And see how usefully he mobilized the base! Those shrewd conservatives assumed Beck was working for them. Big mistake. Beck is working for himself — and he chooses his targets according to his own scheme of priorities.” In the blog post, Frum discussed Beck’s smears against Obama administration official Cass Sunstein and stated: “Glenn Beck is not the first to make a pleasant living for himself by reckless defamation. We have seen his kind before in American journalism and American politics, and the good news is that their careers never last long. But the bad news is that while their careers do last, such people do terrible damage.”

Parker: Beck and Rush Limbaugh are “empower[ing] racists.” On the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, after host Chris Matthews played clips of Beck calling Obama a racist and Rush Limbaugh claiming that “in Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering,” Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker stated: “What Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh did in those two clips is to empower racists and to legitimize them. And so that’s — that’s the shame and horror of what they’re doing.” [9/20/09]

Brooks: Beck and Limbaugh are “race-baiting.” Also on The Chris Matthews Show, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks said, “What Rush and Glenn Beck are doing, that’s just race-baiting — 100 percent, that’s race-baiting.” [9/20/09]

Hasselbeck slams Beck: “[D]anger in what he said,” and he is not “able to back it up.” On ABC’s The View, co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck said of Beck’s “racist” comment: “There’s danger in what he said, too. … That was a bit sensationalist to go and say something like this. And I think whenever you throw that word out at somebody, you better be able to back it up. And he’s not able to.” [7/30/09]

Little Green Footballs’ Johnson: “Wehner agrees with me: Glenn Beck: Harmful to the Conservative Movement.” Conservative blogger Charles Johnson said on his blog, Little Green Footballs, “TIME Magazine’s David Von Drehle asks: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America? I don’t know why anyone would think a far right populist demagogue who rants and weeps in front of millions of people and spreads conspiracy theories straight out of the canon of the John Birch Society would be a bad thing.” In a subsequent post, Johnson said of Wehner’s “Glenn Beck harms the conservative movement” blog post: “Commentary’s Peter Wehner agrees with me.”

In addition to media conservatives, GOP Rep. Inglis told town hall attendees to turn off Beck’s show. At an August town hall event, Republican Rep. Bob Inglis (SC) said to attendees who watch Glenn Beck: “Turn that television off.”

Glenn Beck Has Lost over 50% of His Ad Dollars

Juliana Williams — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:18:25 +0000

Cross-posted from the Huffington Post
by James Rucker

Our campaign to hold Glenn Beck accountable for his race-baiting and fear-mongering has been a great success, with 62 advertisers making it clear that they don’t want their brands linked to Beck’s vile rhetoric. Up until now, however, there’s been a question of what the real consequences are for Beck and for Fox, especially as Beck’s ratings have soared. It’s starting to become clear.

Today, we’re announcing that Glenn Beck’s show has lost over 50% of its advertising dollars since just before our campaign started. From our press release about the news:

The advertising boycott of Glenn Beck has cost the controversial host over half of his estimated advertising revenue since it was launched by ColorOfChange.org a month ago. This according to data analyzed from industry sources.

Estimated advertising revenue [the total amount of advertising money being spent during a block of commercial time for a program] was collected on a week-by-week basis for a period of two months. According to the data collected, the amount of money spent by national advertisers on Beck’s program per week was at its highest at approximately $1,060,000, for the week ending August 2, 2009. ColorOfChange.org launched their campaign at the end of that week and since then, 62 advertisers have distanced themselves from Beck. Data collected for the week ending September 6, 2009 shows Beck’s estimated ad revenue at $492,000, equal to a loss of $568,000.

“Fox News Channel has consistently claimed they haven’t lost revenue as advertisers abandon Glenn Beck, but the numbers prove otherwise,” said James Rucker, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org. “Fox News Channel has a limited amount of ad positions. If 62 companies refuse to run ads on two of their 24 hours of programming, they are losing inventory. No matter how high Beck’s ratings have been lately, advertisers still see Beck as toxic and don’t want him associated with their brands. There is no way that Fox News Channel is making the money they should be making with Glenn Beck.”

Our campaign is working. Respectable companies don’t want to be associated with Beck or support his show with their dollars. It’s resulting in a major loss of funding for his show, and at the same time making it clear that Beck’s race-baiting and fear-mongering are far outside the mainstream.

The longer Beck stays isolated, the more of a problem he’ll be for Fox, and the less he’ll be able to spread his lies and distortions. If we can keep the pressure on, Fox will have to make a choice: 1) drop Beck because it doesn’t make business sense to keep him; or 2) communicate to the world that they’re so intent on providing a platform for race-baiting and fear-mongering that they don’t care if they lose money (a serious problem for a public company like News Corporation, the owner of Fox).

Thanks for everything you’ve done to make this effort a success — none of it could have happened without the more than 200,000 of you who have stepped to be a part of this campaign. More than ever, it’s time to keep the pressure on. You can help by joining us in thanking the advertisers that have stopped supporting Glenn Beck, and calling on those whose ads are still running on his show to follow suit.

Glenn McCarthy Beck Video

Morgan — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:26:50 +0000

As Media Matters has noted, Fox News personalities have been leading the charge to attack Jones, Holdren, Sunstein, and other Obama administration officials and nominees they have described as “czars” — often by unearthing and criticizing statements the officials had made in the past rather than critiquing their job performance or credentials for those positions. Sean Hannity, for example, declared that “my job starting tomorrow night is to get rid of every other [‘czar’]” while Megyn Kelly reported – with no sense of irony – that Obama “advisers are now under scrutiny” following Jones’ resignation.

But it has been Beck’s dogged pursuit of these so-called “czars” that has recalled Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s infamous witch hunt for Communist spies within the government. Some examples of Fox News’ relentless fear mongering are as follows:

Beck calls Sunstein a “czar” while reporting on his Senate confirmation vote
http://mediamatters.org/clips/200909090040

A Beck show dramatic reading: Obama’s czars — or our new robot overlords?
http://mediamatters.org/clips/200909010030

Fox News accompanies discussion of Obama administration’s “czars” with ominous music

http://mediamatters.org/clips/200909080002

In segment about Obama administration “czars,” Hannity warns of “a shadow government right here in the U.S.”

http://mediamatters.org/clips/200907140003

Funding Beck’s Witch Hunt

Juliana Williams — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:42:04 +0000

While Glenn Beck was the most vocal and visible attack dog working to bring down Van Jones, this has been part of a right-wing effort to destroy the Obama Administration by painting them as communist radicals. From Kevin Gradia on the Huffington Post:

You probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that Glenn Beck wasn’t the mastermind behind the campaign to remove Van Jones from his position as the head of the White House Council on Envrionmental Quality… that would be giving Beck way too much credit.

Turns out that the attack was orchestrated by a fringe group of free-marketeers called the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) who describe themselves as “grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state and federal levels.” You can read a complete backgrounder on AFP here. It suffices to say they get a lot of money from some of the biggest players in the right-wing attack machine…

We also know that their strategy moving forward will be to frame green jobs and the clean energy bill as a radical socialist plot.

From The Reid Report:

Jones, it seems, wasn’t pushed out by Glenn Beck. Beck was just the vehicle. The real pushers were anti-climate change advocates from, wait for it, the oil industry. From this DU post, which identified Phil Kerpen from “Americans for Prosperity” as the man “who started it all.” Apparently, he even bragged about his role on Fox News yesterday, and also issued the following boast on his website:

How Van Jones Happened and What We Need to Do Next

Now that Jones has resigned, we need to follow through with two critical policy victories. First, stop cap-and-trade, which could send these groups trillions, and second repeal the unspent portion of the stimulus bill, which stands to give them billions.

The Van Jones affair could be an important turning point in the Obama administration if we use it as a window to understand the structure of the left and to stop the huge power-grab now taking place in the name of green jobs.

AFP, and its former incarnation the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, are the third largest recipient of funding from the Koch Family of Foundations, which is run by the ultra-conservative oil baron Charles G. Koch. The Koch Family of Foundations has been a major funding source for many of the think tanks that are in the business of delaying action on climate change issues.

Americans for Prosperity is also the group that sent buses around the country to town hall dust-ups, where its speakers compared healthcare reform to the Holocaust, and its proponents hung members of Congress in effigy (they’re also connected to the Jack Abramoff web of intrigue and tangentially, to the birthers) but their main issue is climate change — or rather climate change denial, for the purposes of stopping any reform that would cost its financial benefactors money.

Even further, Enviroknow obtained two documents from AFP outlining the “Green Jobs Radical Network.”

Both documents place Van Jones near the center of this so-called radical network. Other prominent individuals in the environmental and progressive movements mentioned in the documents include Stephen Chu, John Podesta, John Holdren, Jason Grumet, Bracken Hendricks, Robert Borosage, Carl Pope and Andy Stern, among others.

So what does this all mean? The effort to oust Van Jones was funded and led by an organization dedicated to preventing any progress on clean energy and to discredit the environmental movement as a whole. AFP funds McCarthy-esque scare tactics, AFP does the muck-raking, AFP feeds the material to Glenn Beck who proceeds to add his own racist spin on the issue. Wonderful, Beck is serving as the mouthpiece for fringe conservative organizations and calling it reporting.

This is not reporting. It is spreading corporate PR.

I can’t help but be reminded of the famous quote from Ghandi: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” It won’t be easy, but we need to keep fighting.

Call it how it is. It’s one thing to dig up information to act as a watchdog on the government. It’s an entirely different thing to fabricate lies about government officials (Van Jones is not a convict), encourage intimidation of Congressmen (burning effigies outside of healthcare town halls) and act on behalf of corporate funders (AFP) as Glenn Beck has done. And of course, the mainstream media is almost silent over this outrageous breach in journalistic integrity.

So speak up. Don’t let this story fade – it is part of a pattern that needs to be stopped.

Who still advertises on Beck?

Morgan — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:05:24 +0000

After receiving this tweet from GoToMeeting on Sunday, claiming they were no longer advertising on Beck. Media Matters did a follow up and found that indeed, their ad had appeared last night, since they track which ads appear every evening. Interestingly, GoToMeeting still claims their ad have been removed. Their most recent response:

@FoxNewsBoycott We have removed our advertising from the Glenn Beck program, and we will re-evaluate at a future date. ^GD

If anyone can provide more information on GoToMeeting’s status, please leave a comment on this post with info.

The full list of advertisers is here.

Rosland Capital
Hydrolyze
The Foundation for a Better Life
Carbonite
Citrix (GoToMeeting)
Topdot Mortgage
News Corp. (The Wall Street Journal)
Lear Capital
Clarity Media Group (The Weekly Standard)
National Geographic Society (National Geographic Channel)
IRSTaxAgreements.com
Independent Women Forum
Zero Technologies (ZeroWater)
Loan modification help line 1-888-336-5967

Today and tomorrow’s targets are in bold. And a sample tweet (h/t to @jessejenkins):

Why is the @NatGeoChannel advertising on Glenn McCarthy Beck and race/red-bating Fox shows? http://tr.im/ycQT Please #StopFoxRacism

And this one curtesy of @climatebrad

@GlennBeck hates the environment but loves @NatGeoChannel’s ad cash http://tr.im/ycQT #StopFoxRacism http://tr.im/ycRy

Lastly, we must also acknowledge StopFoxRacism.com for their hard work in building this campaign. Follow them on twitter: @StopFoxRacism

“We Blew It.” No Kidding.

Juliana Williams — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:43:25 +0000

In the week before Van Jones’ departure from the White House, the White House was ominously silent in its support for Jones. Additionally, most of the major environmental organizations, who had supported Jones’ work and appointment to the White House seemed dumbstruck on to how to respond to attacks, so didn’t. It was only this morning, over a day after Jones resigned that Green For All, the organization he founded and lead just prior to working for the Obama Administration, sent an announcement to their supporters with the news. Other organizations have been slower to respond.

While I believe this was a strategic mistake on the part of the White House (allowing the right-wing media to smear members of the Administration one-by-one), the Obama Administration should not waste precious time and political capital debunking Glenn Beck’s lies. Instead, their role in this is to instill confidence in Administration officials’ competence (which they certainly did not do).

As a result, the responsibility to tackle smear campaigns like this rests with the media (to debunk lies), other members of the Democratic Party (to provide support for the Obama Administration) and civic organizations (to articulate the vision of Van’s work). But there was no coordinated progressive response to dismantling the smear tactics coming from the extreme right and magnified through the media. Given the vast silence on the Left is it any surprise that the attacks worked in turning public opinion against Van Jones?

Yesterday Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, wrote a response to Jones’ departure titled “We Blew It”, in which he takes some amount of responsibility for the lack of vocal support for Jones.

When I saw the first Glenn Beck piece on Van Jones and the Apollo Alliance as the new vast left-wing conspiracy, I could not take it seriously. Silence enabled Fox to keep pushing…I assumed it would blow over.

Well, that was a mistake. So was the decision by the White House to treat the initial attacks not as part of an assault on the president but, instead, to allow them to be viewed as being about Van Jones…

It was organized by the Republicans as part of a conscious strategy, and it is only the first. We should be critical of ourselves for having blown this one. But we shouldn’t forgive either ourselves or the Administration if the next time we sense this happening we don’t fight back harder, faster, and in a way that calls a mob a mob, racism racism, and an attack on the president an attack on America.

I appreciate Carl Pope’s sentiment, and hopefully he and the rest of our movement has learned that silence doesn’t make a problem go away. Just because the Left won an election does not mean making progress will be easy. The extreme Right is committed to preventing the Obama Administration from making changes this country desperately needs and will to resort to hateful and dishonest tactics to see that happen.

And now that they have tasted victory, Beck and others have turned to his new targets: Cass Sunstein, Mark Llyod and Carol Browner. Problems don’t disappear by covering our eyes; diseases don’t go away by ignoring them. As David Robert’s of Grist writes, “Our civic immune system has grown weak. There are no filters, no longer shared standards of evidence, truth, or decency. The poison courses unhindered through the body. Nothing, no matter how factually insane or morally repugnant, can be repelled.”

What we need now is for the people of this country (media, organizational leaders, and most importantly individuals) to refuse to accept false and hateful speech to masquerade as reporting. We need all those people to make it unacceptable to profit from such statements.

Speak up.

Beyond Beck: Left refuses to bend over

Juliana Williams — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:18:38 +0000

Emily Gertz at Change.org writes:

It was about how some Republican legislators took advantage of Beck’s well-distributed crazy to hassle and distract the Obama administration — enough to ultimately set back energy, economic, and climate policy reforms.

And it’s about the administration’s outsized sensitivity and suprise at this sort of clamor from a small (if vocal) portion of the electorate — and its avatars — that will not be swayed by reason or truth…

These particular legislators seem impervious to facts — as my Grist colleague Dave Roberts puts it, this is all about “bitch-slap politics.” But they are weak when it comes to increased public scrutiny, to craving approval, and ultimately, if the Democrats can get it together, to being rendered largely irrelevant in energy and climate policy reform.

These are the people who climate action advocates will focus on — bluntly, directly and aggressively — if they want to win.

If they want to lose, they’ll focus on Glenn Beck.

David Sassoon at SolveClimate.org writes:

The White House is now on the defensive, protecting Jones and his effective work promoting green jobs, but no matter the outcome, Murdoch and his News Corp. brand are in a vulnerable position. When the dust settles on Pennsylvania Avenue, Murdoch will still have to contend with the Color of Change campaign…For now, Murdoch is making a short-term buck on Beck’s race-baiting. Longer-term, it’s a losing corporate strategy. The color of demographic change is trending darker, and companies will be forced to be sensitive not to offend their own workforce or their customers by supporting race-baiting speech with advertising dollars.

That’s Murdoch’s bread and butter, and Beck’s attack on Jones to protect his own revenue stream has only amplified the success of the ad boycott and has really let the genie out of the bottle.

David Roberts at Grist writes:

Our civic immune system has grown weak. There are no filters, no longer shared standards of evidence, truth, or decency. The poison courses unhindered through the body. Nothing, no matter how factually insane or morally repugnant, can be repelled.

Like I said, Beck’s more greasy huckster than true believer. He went after Jones to get revenge on Color of Change, a group Jones co-founded, for targeting his advertisers (which are dropping like flies). Rupert Murdoch will only put up with the stench as long as money’s coming in.

But make no mistake, it’s racial resentment that blew this story up. The worst outcome of all this is that it will validate Beck and his long history of paranoid conspiracy theories and repugnant allegations. It will be like chum in the water, almost as invigorating to the crazies as bagging Dan Rather. Much, much more ugliness will ensue, and it will become that much harder to focus on the multiple crises converging on the country.

Brad Johnson of Think Progress writes:

On Tuesday night, Glenn Beck invoked the red-baiting of a bygone age, making the claim that there are “Communists in the United States government.” Beck’s McCarthyite rampage came during an extended screed attacking White House Special Advisor for Green Jobs Van Jones, a former Center for American Progress senior fellow and the co-founder of Green for All, an environmental-entrepeneurial organization…

Evidently, Beck is attacking Van Jones to divert attention from his accusations that President Obama is a “racist” who “hates white people.” A successful boycott by Color of Change, an organization co-founded by Van Jones in 2005 but with which he has had no active involvement since 2007, has led to 57 advertisers abandoning Beck’s show.

Gillian Caldwell of 1Sky writes:

What does this mean? …

More lynchings – Van’s is just the first scalp and they wont stop there. But what they didn’t bet on is that he can and will be even more effective on the outside than he was able to be on the inside — particularly now that they have launched him to a position of national prominence and interest with this lynching. As others have pointed out, Van’s resignation could mean it will be impossible for outspoken progressives to work in the White House, which would be a very bad result for the country.

GoToMeeting.com drops Beck

Morgan — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:59:12 +0000

In a tweeted response from GoToMeeting.com, they have stopped advertising on Glenn Beck.

@mogmaar We have removed our advertising from the Glenn Beck program, and we will re-evaluate at a future date. ^GD

This in response to my earlier tweet:

GoToMeeting.com likes Glenn ‘McCarthy’ Beck: He gets crazier, their ads on his show get more views. Great business model http://bit.ly/DO3qK

Hat tip to ColorofChange.org or laying the groundwork on this. I hope more advertisers follow GoToMeting and the 57 other companies that have refused to let their commercials be aired on Beck’s show.