Betty Blogger

My Must-See TV: The Glenn Beck Show

At least, our blogger contends, he doesn't pretend to be what he isn't

-Candace Cavanaugh Buehner

When we got our digital video recorder through our cable system about three years ago, my husband and I asked ourselves how we had ever lived without it. We feel the same way about Glenn Beck, the newest addition to Fox News, whose 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. E.T. show (The Glenn Beck Show) has been part of our DVR "always record" list since its debut on January 19.

Beck was already a familiar face in our house, our having first encountered him at of all places, CNN, which until last fall was his employer. CNN never seemed quite comfortable with Beck--clearly, they knew the guy was talented, but couldn't reconcile his conservative views with, well, what CNN is all about. Regardless, Beck was always where we went when we wanted to get something beyond the straight party lines: an honest evaluation and a gut reaction regarding things political, things social, and things just plain interesting.

As Beck's CNN contract wound down, Fox swooped in, made him the proverbial offer you can't refuse, and in the three months since The Glenn Beck Show premiered--with a wink of an eye, the day before the inauguration of our 44th President--it has become a runaway cable hit, third only to Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity in the elite list of most popular cable shows on the American airwaves.

From the first show, the combination of the hospitable new venue and the almost ridiculous riches handed over on a daily platter in the form of Tim Geithner and Nancy Pelosi have allowed Glenn Beck to take his game to a whole new level. He calls it like he sees it and is not above excoriating members of both parties if he sees them doing something nonsensical (printing money nonstop since October? Beck used a handy chart to illustrate how this was a bad idea that started with George Bush and that has grown worse under Obama) or illegal (Google "bill of attainder" and "AIG bonuses" and you'll get the drift).

Using the "Don't Tread on Me" backdrop of the American Revolution, he has developed nine "Core Life Principles," the fundamental basis of which is that the government serves the citizens of this country, not vice versa.

Of course, with popularity comes criticism and thinly veiled derision, including a piece in Monday's New York Times that, while acknowledging the fact that Beck has struck a chord in America, dismissively concluded that he is an "apocalyptic" capitalizing on "conservative populist anger." The Times piece went so far as to intimate that Beck is of the same ilk as the evangelical radio hosts who rose to prominence during the Great Depression--a clear but unwarranted reference to Father Charles Coughlin, the Detroit priest whose controversial and often pro-Fascist diatribes were broadcast nationally during the 1930s.

However, by trying to cast Glenn Beck as nothing more than a "scary," histrionic Chicken Little with a penchant toward emotional ax-grinding against the left, the Times illustrated just how much THEY don't get it. Glenn Beck might not be everyone's bag--one of my conservative friends said he is turned off by what he describes as Beck's "thespian antics"--but the fact remains that 2.3 million people every day tune in to his show to hear a "news person" with honest and sincere convictions, as well as a healthy sense of self-deprecation.

In the end, Glenn Beck does not pretend to be what he is not, and admits his own shortcomings, but never lets his viewers forget the sense of pride and responsibility that he feels as an American. He extols us to remember what it means to be an American, and after the plunging Dows, political backstabbing, and the work/childcare/housework/the-car-needs-gas minutiae eat away at our souls on a daily basis, it is good to turn on the DVR and have The Glenn Beck Show remind us why we ARE so very lucky.

Candace Cavanaugh Buehner lives and works outside of Detroit, Michigan, where Glenn Beck shares DVR space with the likes of Little Einsteins and Sesame Street (kid-friendly) and Breaking Bad and Locked Up Abroad (not so much).

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