Bullies

While I would not recommend anyone sit through all 6 minutes and 17 seconds of this drivel, I must say that watching the whole thing it reminded me of who and what bullies really are.

You see the same personality and psychological traits among those like Glenn Beck (and, while we're at it, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Samuel Werzelbacher, Michael Savage and, yes, Michelles Malkin and Bachmann and Ann Coulter--the list is terribly long but they are almost always white men...). It's the bully at work.

There are many things bullies may grow up to be, but I find two that are particularly notable. There's the oft-imagined path of big fat loser with six kids and a wife in a trailer park. And then there's the one traveled by the monster you see above. This is the path of the disgruntled yet opportunistic sourpuss who comes into some money through media savvy and then gets an outlet from which they can spew forth whatever imagined threats have come or are yet to come their way. Such imagined threats conveniently mask their own shortcomings. Perhaps they abuse their wives and/or kids. Perhaps they seek quick discreet gay sex in public parks (then maybe go on a gay-bashing spree). Many are racists. Many are misogynists. Almost all are homophobic. All are cruel and hateful--personality disorders in suits.

I knew boys like Glenn Beck in grade school, high school and college. The pasty-faced, ruddy-cheeked, round- and blue-eyed (yes, many are beady-eyed as well), big-framed types that walk with a swagger. The charm they learn is used to bludgeon, not persuade. (Perhaps in a sense Barack Obama is the anti-bully.) They are bombastic, rude and petty, yet they reveal, sometimes quite plainly, their insecurities and flaws in their abusive behavior. Take, for instance, the spelling and grammar errors in many right-wing responses in blogs, or in the right-wing blogs themselves. The writing in ALL CAPS. "Democrat" Party. (It's DemocratIC, you morons!) If you wanted to hide your illiteracy writing in a blog is not the way to do it.

There's no novelty in Fox News any more. We know they're lying. We know they propagandize. They're not coming up with anything new. It's the same old group-think'ed, paranoid talking points force-fed to an ever shrinking pool of teabag-obsessed know-nothing white people.

Ultimately the fate of a bully is that of a bore: they are just plain ignored.