His megalomaniac personality has hurt him in the past. Did lots of drugs (by his own admission, no smears), almost lived his job (everything radio all the time), and moved so frequently that he has no friends. Kind of interpolating there, but fascinating nonetheless.

A very driven person, projecting his intimidation at not having a college education (not uncommon in the radio business - just a fact) in the form of a blow hard egomaniac who can't quite figure out where to draw the line.

The Colbert lampoon of Beck where he cocks a shotgun while wearing a gas mask and a diaper and screaming incoherently makes a lot more sense now.

All talk radio hosts are frauds who just say what they are paid to say. Your efforts would be better spent trying to find a way to counter this idiot in a way that actually gets noticed by the media and public. Let's fix the problem before we worry about where it came from. I could care less about his history and more about how to undo the damage he has caused.

The guy's completely crackers.

It sounds like Beck and "zoo" radio were made for each other. He makes money, the listeners get inane, aggressive clowning. Anyone who will make money by vile public cruelty is among the lowest of our species.

on Glenn's back.

87>

"makes blood shoot out of my eyes"

and

"I was a scumbag".

Good time to read "People of the Lie". Beck qualifies. It's an exploration of evil as a pathology.

I'm an atheist, and Peck has to be read with a grain of salt insofar as his religion is concerned, but I do think he's on to something in his perception that these types of people KNOW what they are doing, and do it anyway.

(And what's with this "didn't finish college" thing? Jeez, what a common theme it is amongst the post-Buckley conservative survivors. Is there a conservative who can command intellectual respect anymore and back it up with a non-legacy education?)

Glenn Greenwald and Joan Walsh are the only columnists here who trod all over their own letters sections to their own columns, 'correcting' those weaklings who dare deviate 0.01% from dogma. Of course everyone else is just deleted. See liberals just have the heart to play the clown. Beck is insane, but he knows he's an insane clown. He has clear sense of his own buffoonery.

An insane clown..just like you. Bring on the Bozos..

Personally, I like seeing Glenn Greenwald and Joan Walsh showing up in the letters column to interact with letter writers. I think it's part of journalists taking advantage of the new technology. Not that I want to pressure writers to consider that a mandatory part of their job duties, but I think it's a plus.

Correcting what is written? Insisting on a reality based form of communication? It's about time SOMEBODY took the power of the internet seriously, instead of using it as a no-holds-barred playground to screw with the heads of readers.

We see what has happened. Our country is all but ungovernable.

I used to argue with witless college kids who thought anarchy would be a real cool thing. They never seemed to grasp the horror that would result if all laws, rules, morals and government were done away with.

With the elimination of the now somehow despised Fairness Doctrine, we see how unregulated media has turned a number of our citizens into people who will believe any lie told to them. The lies of the Bush administration were never taken to task. Clinton told a lie that had nothing to do with public policy, and was impeached for it. The next administration ravished the now-supposedly-cherished-by-conservatives Constitution our soldiers are dying to defend.

Some younger people have no memory of a government that doesn't lie to them, but see that the "clowning" of some media personalities, only out to make a name and a buck, is taken as Gospel truth. Can a nation survive when anything might be true or everything is a lie?

It is truly a sickening state of affairs for anyone who cares what happens to our society.

Of COURSE it matters where Beck came from. If you say "Glenn Beck sucks" without knowing why this is so, you are just a copy of Glenn Beck, and you will never be able to thwart him. Would you stop a vampire by walking up and slapping him in his fangs? Don't be a George Bush. Sit down and learn something first.

Complain about Howard Stern all you want, at least he had some philosophical integrity about what he did. Stern complained about the "morning zoos" who imitated his wildness and borderline behavior but had no originality or honor in behavior. By contrast, the "zoo" hosts were short-bus children without Ritalin or supervision, tearing at one another and any semblance of order.

And isn't it interesting that Elephantman and Zorkna's bosses at the Republican Party, whose machinations helped make a "morning zoo" of radio and economics and politics, are now tearing each other apart and looking stupid? Like the "morning zoo" hosts?

Now I know why I never listened to zooey, jock radio with all its loopy, silly noises, antics and stunts. It always struck me as utterly juvenile. It must be full of fart jokes, like Glenn Beck.

Zorkna thinks he's Glenn Beck. Zorkna, you can't get there from here.

He'll be a new freak

Next week...

To be sure, this is all interesting, but the best Salon can hope for is to provide some sufficient background information on Beck -- the hows and whys of his persona -- to those of us who already dislike him and know that he is a classic huckster and a charlatan who preys upon the less educated for support. It is the latter who needs to read articles like this to see they are being played like a fiddle by people like Beck. But, sad to say, they won't. They will continue to hang on to his every word as gospel while the rest of us will see that he is an even bigger asshole than we originally realized.