Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America [Hardcover]

I have never been a big fan of Glenn Beck's schtick, and I suspect it is likewise for most people who read this book. But after reading it I am not only in awe of Beck's great broadcasting talent, I am also saddened that such a manipulative and misinformed man can influence millions of people.

This book then is a good primer for those of us who only know Beck as some sort of heir to Rush Limbaugh and who don't consume his shows, books and "courses" with a religious fervor. What a wake up call this book is, then, as Milbank uses Beck's own works culled from Beck's prodigious output of broadcasts to paint a portrait of man who at best plays loose with the facts and manipulates the racial fears of his mostly white audience and at worst uses coded phrases and apocalyptic imagery to provoke others to violence.

Milbank is successful in showing how Beck is able to embrace any stale far-flung conspiracy theory, a one-world government for example, and weave it in to some present day impending catastrophe using props such as a chalkboard that Beck says only he has the courage to present to his fervent (and misguided) listeners.

Milbank is particularly effective at showing how Beck is different from all the other right wing ideologues like Hannity and Rush because Beck takes it all one step further by pushing the envelope of fear to the brink of what's allowable in a broadcast. Obama is a racist and his administration wants to run the country like Nazi Germany, according to Beck. Beck says he can't dispute an Internet rumor that FEMA runs concentration camps. American liberals "have been raised to hate the United States government in many ways" (p. 198); Union members want a "one-world government" (p. 199); "Like it or not, fascism is on the rise. The government is a heroin pusher, using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state." (p. 122);

There is even a broadcast, chronicled in Chapter 11 in the book, where Beck is so mad at Obama he pretends to light a hapless member of his staff on fire with a gas can (filled with water) with these words: "President Obama, why don't you just set us on fire? For the love of Pete, what are you doing ... We didn't vote to lose the republic."

Yes, sometimes the book does become a laundry list of outrageous things Beck has said and this can be a tiresome after a while, but Milbank does a good job showing us how inaccurate the things Beck says are (Chapter 13 The Facts are Stubborn Things). In the latter part of the book Milbank is more analytical and is successful in likening Beck to Father Coughlin, a priest who broadcast to millions on radio in the 1930s and 1940s, who, like Beck, had a large audience and who hated the president, used race to bait his listeners, called his enemies communists and saw conspiracies at all levels of government.

There is also a chapter that posits what happens when Beck's forceful language really does propel someone to take a violent action, and another chapter that shows how Beck's 9/12 Project could be considered the birth of the Tea Party movement and Beck its founding father.

Far from just a screed against Beck, the author seems to respect Beck's talent and his ability to use humor and to organize his message while at the same time laying out the unpleasant realities of what Beck has said and done. Milbank writes about how even Beck's Fox colleague and right wing blowhard Bill O'Reilly can't believe some of the stuff that Beck says. I couldn't either. But there are millions who believe every word Beck says and this book shows us how something like that could happen.

Glenn Beck is the pied piper of the Tea Party movement, a deranged and disgraceful lunatic whose antics would be funny if he weren't taken so seriously by so many of the people who watch his show. Well, either that or he's a brilliant showman, selling the world on a persona with which he shares little besides the same name and physical appearance, a Stephen Colbert without the wink to the audience. Either way, he is a force to be reckoned with and, one would hope, taken down from his perch as a spokesman for what ails America by a document so damning that even his strongest supporters can't deny the truth.

This book is not that document.

Dana Milbank certainly has the credentials to pull it off, but the book feels like a rushed effort, with attention-deficit-disorder-style chapters which briefly (oh so briefly) highlight the many ways in which Beck is just plain wrong or just plain deranged, without really getting far beyond talking points or Milbank's own cutting remarks. Even those of us firmly in agreement with the stated premise (Beck is a crazy person or a cynical charlatan) can't help but feel that a better, more extensive book is needed, especially to combat Beck's own hyperbolic denunciations of anyone who catches his fancy (be it Van Jones or Woodrow Wilson). Beck's power base will bash the book unfairly as a smear attack, but if anything they'd be correct in questioning the timing of the book (right before the midterm elections, and apparently several weeks ahead of whenever it was supposed to come out judging by the rushed feel of the chapters).

The book is weakest when Milbank compares Beck to Father Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semite who preached intolerance to the Great Depression-era populace and became a national icon. Coughlin, no less disgusting than Beck, comes off through his own words as vastly more intelligent than the self-professed "rodeo clown" could ever hope to (not a stretch necessarily, as my three-year-old cousin could also make a claim to sound more intelligent than Beck), and Milbank actually undercuts his argument by letting Coughlin's words drone on to be followed by Beck's delusional soundbites which lack even the remotest hint of having been thought out before spoken. Both men are hateful, but the back-and-forth bogs down the chapter, which strangely seems to last longer than any of the others. It's like going back and forth between Frank Burns (Beck) and Charles Winchester (Coughlin); both are disagreeable, but Beck is definitely a ferrat-face.

The germ of a great idea, to disect Beck and use his own words to discredit him, gets lost in Milbank's efforts to meet a deadline and include Beck's delusional "March to Restore Truth" or whatever the heck that was that happened in Washington on the anniversary of MLK's more inclusive march in 1963. There's a lot in here to like (the poking of holes in Beck's official hagiography, the discussion of a photo session in which the crying Beck is made to produce authentic-looking tears through trickery, etc.), but it goes by so quickly that you can't process it before moving on. In due time, Beck will fade into the dustbin of history like so many demagogues and delusional cretins who soiled our body politic, but a more illuminating book about his ravings and mistruths will have to wait.

"Tears of a Clown" is the sort of book I should love, and indeed I applaud the effort behind it, to expose a dangerous pox on America and our internal discourse. The effort is noble, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm also surprised that other reviewers can post things like, "This book is filled with the author's opinions and not any real facts." That's strange, especially when it devotes a chapter ("The Facts are Stubborn Things") to showing that the gap between "fact" and what Beck asserts is often wide enough to make the space between Japanese commuters look like the Grand Canyon.

The bottom line is that Beck is such a polarizing figure that this book is unlikely to change any minds. But if you're looking for something to confirm your suspicions that his arguments often aren't grounded in fact or reason, this is a pretty good place to start.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 71 reviews  2.5 out of 5 stars