Seeking the truth on the road from supporter to critic

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Guest viewpoint by Lisa Houserman

I'm a reporter in real life and even though I pretty much write for a living, this is the first time I've ever actually written a blog post. Anyone who reads my weekly column in our local paper knows that I generally just launch into my writing. Because of this, I figured that it was the best course of action to take with this particular piece as well. I think that simply telling my story about how I found the Review and also chatting about my long history of actually being a Glenn Beck fan might be a good starting and finishing point so here goes....

honest?

For about 2 years I was a very devoted fan of Glenn Beck. I taped his show nightly, listened to his radio show and also saw one of his comedy tours, which was simulcast in a local movie theater. I feel it is pertinent to my story to let you know that I truly was a Beck freak. The reason why I enjoyed him so much was due to his sense of humor and because I thought he had the makings of a possible, future libertarian thinker.

Full disclosure here. I am a libertarian thinker and, although I realize some of our political goals will never be reached and am a realist, I still feel that the libertarian way of thinking offers the most individual freedom compared to the other parties.

Anyhow, I noticed a change in Beck right around the first of the year. It seemed to me that he was trying to push the idea that the Founding Fathers were super, duper religious or something. I really didn't understand what his point was because even if it were true and they were all evangelical Christians, for example, it didn't change the fact that the United States is secular with freedom of or from religion for all. Then, I began to notice how he almost frothed at the mouth over all things Obama. He talked about the radicals that Obama surrounded himself with in his administration and seemed obsessed with this.

At first, I believed Beck. Now, I am not a stupid person and never thought I was easily taken in by anyone, including Beck. Well, as time went by, I saw more changes in him and was starting to feel a touch uncomfortable with his methods. Since I was always glued to Fox News and really, really, really believed that they were telling the truth on many of their shows, I found it to be a struggle within to even look at another channel such as CNN or MSNBC, just for two examples. Also, Beck, and others at the network, constantly called folks like Media Matters “smear merchants” and that was pretty much taken as gospel by me. I honestly believed just about everything this person said. 

I began to feel even more uneasy when he began to really get out of control in his views and would then claim to be a libertarian. I felt that he was not a libertarian and, by the way, just to get off subject here for a moment, a good test in finding out if someone really is a libertarian thinker is this. Just ask if he/she thinks the war should come to an end or if we should cut military spending. Also, ascertain whether or not the person thinks we truly own our bodies and should be able to put whatever we want in them, in terms of drugs. Ask him/her too about gay marriage. I think you get where I'm going here and Beck does not answer correctly to any of the above.

Moving along to what happened with my quest for the truth about Beck, I was more or less dared to investigate him with an open mind. Since I'm known as an open minded, non spin reporter, I took my friends up on this issue and boy, I did not like what I found. At first, I didn't believe what I unearthed and still was in the mindset that the “liberal media” was making stuff up about Beck.  Well, as the mind opened up further, I really took in a bunch of information and discovered this very blog in the process.

What I admired about the Review was that Victor said in his description of himself that he is a Lincoln Republican. So, I felt comfortable in knowing that I wasn't looking at some exceptionally far left blog. I also found that Victor backed up all his statements and I know, from experience, that this is a very timely effort.

OK, getting back to the overly religious tone that Beck's show took, I noticed that he began to have this guy named David Barton appear on a pretty regular basis. This guy was not making sense with some of the stuff he was saying and I began to look at him as well. What I found was stunning and quite frightening, to tell you the truth.

David Barton was heavily involved in the changing of the Texas textbooks during that insanity.  He also claims to be an historian when in fact, he's a right wing religious nut who denies that separation of church and state exists! Beck has been elevating this character and people have been buying Barton's books right and left.  They all deal with revisionist history.  They all also claim that the founders were total Christians and most were ministers!  He comes to that conclusion because they went to seminaries. Barton has a degree in religion from Oral Roberts University and is NOT an expert on history, unless it's his own version of such.

For a thorough debunking of Barton, go to this link and watch Chris Rodda take a turn at him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewwWM4psFo8 This is a several part series and is really well done. Rodda is the Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

Beck has a ton of influence and even had me buying books right and left until I began to research him on a regular basis. During the course of my studies, I developed a hypothesis and it did work out they way I thought it might. My hypothesis was that Beck's whole shtick was linked to his Mormonism in some fashion. I just had the gut feeling. Turns out that I was right. Rather than my typing this out, I'm sure Victor will direct you now to a piece he did about this. [See "The Man Who Changed Glenn Beck's Life."]

A book that I found to be very helpful was Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance (Wiley, May 2010) by Alex Zaitchik.   It was chock-full of information and documentation of Beck's career spanning many years.  This book is filled to the max with footnotes for those who are of the 'doubting Thomas' mindset like I was. I also have looked at videos and read transcripts of interviews with this author.  I highly recommend this book and give it five out of five stars.

Now, this whole investigative process was quite painful for me and, as I've explained to Victor, people who are set in their ways and have closed minds will never, in a month of Sundays, take the time to look at another viewpoint or do any kind of research. People become comfortable in their own belief systems and do not want to rock their own emotional boats, so to speak. Also, and more importantly, people, including myself, do NOT want to admit to having been wrong. It is extraordinarily difficult and against our basic nature to say, “Hey, I was fooled for over two years!”

In the end, I admitted to having been brainwashed by Beck and by Fox News in general. I now have been actually looking at other networks, blogs, websites, etc., and have found that I get a variety of news by doing so. As a journalist myself, I am a stickler for accuracy in reporting. Ironically enough, I used to put Fox and Beck on pedestals because I thought that integrity was on their list of things to do as well. Boy was I wrong and here, I'm admitting it freely and honestly.

So, in closing, I thank Victor for asking me to do this guest spot and, I encourage anyone out there who is still a Beck fan to take an honest and open look at this person. Go ahead over to Media Matters—they don't bite! Keep reading this blog and most important of all, be honest with yourselves.

Before more people start tuning into Beck's deceitful
 propaganda, 

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