Beck: the politics of conspiracy hucksterism

[the_archfiend]

This post will not set out the details of the Boston Marathon bombings. Any number of sources I can think of have done a much better job of this than I can. Instead, let me bring up a certain individual (competitors in the rubber chicken circuit like Alex Jones need not apply, for once) who seems to have happened upon a incredibly crass (and therefore successful) new way to boost his public profile. Namely, Glenn "Weepy" Beck.

On one radio segment, Weepy made a certain claim about a Saudi national who was supposdly implicated in the Boston Marathon incident (later identified as Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, who was sought as a witness, not a suspect); this sort of borderline-libelous public accusation is bad enough (consider, for example, the New York Post's similar blunder), but Beck decided to make the situation worse even after the Tsarnaev brothers were identified as the culprits by merrily continuing on his path into cloud-cuckoo land on the subject.

In another segment, Beck blathered on about The Conspiracy, claiming that it was the second most important story of his career after 9/11 and that - wait for it - he was waging a massive battle for TH3 TRUTH and that there were going to be big, biiiiig things coming up on this "story", To wit:

"I don't bluff, I make promises. The truth matters. I've had enough of what you've done to our country. I thought I had heard and seen it all.  I thought I didn't trust my government.  Oh no, no, no.  There is no depth that these people will not stoop to.  They have until Monday and then The Blaze will expose it.":

Yeah. Sure it will.

This was all last week, of course. Now on to this week:

On Monday, Beck's gigantic Hindenburg of a conspiracy theory was hauled out of the hangar. What it consisted of was essentially this: a reiteration of the accusation against Ali Alharbi, followed up by all sorts of fun coincidence-based stuff about how he was classified as an Al Qaeda operative (even though Djokar Tsarnaev denied any links to foreign Islamist groups after his capture) , and that information was being sought by the House of Representatives' Committee for Homeland Security, etc. It doesn't seem to matter to Beck's camp that there may not even be a legitimate reason for that investigation (because, after all, political witch hunts happen in this day and age) or what the circumstances are, because...Obama! And judging by his use of the term "powers and principalities", Satan!

Where that comes up is right here.

You'll notice from the link that Weepy doubled down on his public dick-waving on the issue with the following statement:

This is not a conspiracy theory. We have the documentation. You want to play ball with us, Washington? Come on, bring it on, play ball! We are not afraid. We know exactly who we are dealing with. We are dealing with, quite honestly, principalites and power beyond our imagination.  But we know who we have on our side. Bring it on.

That's right. The essence of his argument is "bring it on". How cute.

This, of course, is coming from a man who is an admitted former drug addict. Notice that I used the word "former": the fact that he seems to be acting like a current user stoned out of his gourd on cocaine is strictly coincidental. Just like his own conspiracy theories, right?

And as with most conspiracy theories Weepy touts, this one hasn't run out of steam quite yet. Far from it.

His latest public screed was used to put the onus on the Federal government to disprove his conspiracy theory, not the other way around. If this sounds like the typical goalpost-shifting that most conspiracy theorists use when their pet projects blow up due to a lack of evidence, it probably is. And after a while, it wouldn't matter; the Federal government has more important things to do concerning the bombing than confirm or deny the ramblings of a seemingly delusional talk show host.

The question is why Beck is doing this.

For ratings, of course. And with ratings comes increased advertising revenue, which is important to all commercial broadcasters regardless of programming emphasis.

The problem is that he's trying to manipulate public opinion in the wake of a terrible tragedy. For ratings.

Draw your own ethical conclusions concerning that point.