Neoconservative columnist Bill Kristol called out conservatives, and in particular, Glenn Beck, for fear-mongering about the unrest in Egypt, saying that “when Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left,” he’s “marginalizing himself.”
As MediaMatters has documented, Glenn Beck has been on a conspiracy theory rampage since the protests broke out, characterizing them as a plot by everyone from the “Socialist Communists,” to the “Marxist Communists,” the “uber-left,” “the Anarchists,” “the radicals,” and, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood.
In a column for this week’s issue of the Weekly Standard, Kristol writes that “hysteria is not a sign of health” when it comes to debate over Egypt, and that:
When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.
Kristol continues: “Nor is it a sign of health when other American conservatives are so fearful of a popular awakening that they side with the dictator against the democrats. Rather, it’s a sign of fearfulness unworthy of Americans, of short-sightedness uncharacteristic of conservatives, of excuse-making for thuggery unworthy of the American conservative tradition.”
“Let’s hope that as talk radio hosts find time for reflection, and commentators step back to take a deep breath, they will recall that one of the most hopeful aspects of the current conservative revival is its reclamation of the American constitutionalist tradition,” he adds.
h/t Politico’s Ben Smith.
