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Subject: [IJV-L] Glenn Beck blasts the uprising in Cairo as a threat to our
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http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/72-72/4824-glenn
-beck-left-code-pink-caused-egyptian-upheaval 




The Daily Beast
February 1, 2011

Uprising in Egypt Splits U.S Conservatives

by Michelle Goldberg

Glenn Beck blasts the uprising in Cairo as a threat to our way of life.
Michelle Goldberg on how the rebellion is splitting U.S. conservatives—and
the fallout for the 2012 presidential campaign. Plus, full coverage of
Egypt’s  <http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsmaker/upheaval-in-egypt/>
protests.

Store food and prepare for the coming global insurrection: That's the
warning Glenn Beck  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH7GPPpsw6g> issued
Monday. The Muslim Brotherhood and American radicals, he informed us, are
operating in tandem to bring about "the destruction of the Western world."
On his Fox show, Beck presented a clip of Mohamed
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-26/mohamed-elbaradei
-the-return-of-the-challenger/> ElBaradei calling for a "New Egypt that is
democratic, that is based on social justice." The phrase "social justice"
flashed on the screen, because in Beck's world, it's a code word for a
totalitarian leftist agenda, just as the Egyptian protesters' use of the
phrase "day of rage" signals their kinship with Bill Ayers of the Weather
Underground. "We've shown you tonight that Hamas, Code Pink"—the feminist
anti-war group—"and the Muslim Brotherhood are all linked together." With
the future bleak, Beck called on his viewers to pray for "our way of life"
and for Israel.

Since the war in Iraq, it seems, Beck, like others on the right, has changed
his mind about the desirability of Middle Eastern democracy.

It was only a few years ago, you'll remember, that conservatives were
crowing about a new birth of freedom in the Muslim world. Gunning for war
with Iraq, conservatives attacked earlier generations of foreign-policy
realists for propping up Arab dictators, arguing that political oppression
and corruption created stultifying societies were terrorism bred. George
Bush made the rhetorical championing of Middle Eastern democracy a
centerpiece of his presidency. In a 2003 speech at the American Enterprise
Institute, he promised that a "liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom
to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives
of millions."

It was never entirely clear how the right's support for political freedom in
the Muslim world meshed with its overwhelming contempt for Muslim people.
Still, Bush had the passionate backing of most conservatives. A March 2003
dispatch from The Dallas Morning News, for example, featured an
up-and-coming right-wing radio host who was organizing pro-Bush rallies
across the country: "From his studio in Philadelphia, syndicated radio
talk-show host Glenn Beck urges Americans to support President Bush and what
he characterizes as Mr. Bush's plan for seeding freedom in the Middle East
with the invasion of U.S. troops."

Now, as Egyptians pour
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-01/egypts-million-ma
n-march-protesters-to-hosni-mubarak-resign-now/> into the streets and demand
control of their political destiny, an interesting divide is opening up on
the right. On one side are those who actually took all that democracy stuff
seriously. On the other are those who see the Muslim world only as an enemy
to be crushed and controlled. With a Republican primary approaching, it
remains to be seen which view of Middle Eastern policy will triumph among
conservatives.


“The former Soviet Union, everybody, radical Islam, every—this is the story
of everyone who has ever plotted to or wanted to fundamentally change or
destroy the Western way of life,” Beck says. 

Beck, hero of the Tea Party, has become the hysterical tribune of the
anti-democracy forces, linking the uprising in Egypt to a bizarre alliance
of all of his bête noirs. "This is Saul Alinsky. This is STORM from Van
Jones," he warned on Monday, continuing, "The former Soviet Union,
everybody, radical Islam, every—this is the story of everyone who has ever
plotted to or wanted to fundamentally change or destroy the Western way of
life. This isn't about Egypt. Everything is up on the table." It would all
end, he warned, with the restoration of a "Muslim caliphate that controls
the Mideast and parts of Europe," along with an expanded China and Russian
control of the entire Soviet Union "plus maybe the Netherlands."

It sounds nuts, of course, but such fears are now rampant on the religious
right, which has long seen American involvement in the Middle East in
millennarian terms. In the apocalyptic view of politics that dominates the
Christian right, Muslim nations are closely connected to the rise of the
Antichrist, while the restoration of the Jews to the entire biblical land of
Israel is key to the Second Coming. The end of days will be marked by the
emergence of a one-world government and a great world war in the Middle
East, culminating in a battle at Megiddo, or Armageddon, an actual place in
Israel. (Beck is a Mormon, but he's always incorporated elements of American
evangelicalism into his ideology.) To side with the protesters in Egypt, at
the expense of Israeli security, is to back Satan's team in the coming
biblical showdown. Thus John Hagee, the chiliastic preacher who founded
Christians United for Israel, took to his website to praise Hosni Mubarak as
"an American ally and closet friend to Israel," writing, "Israel will soon
be surrounded by enemies screaming for their blood
<http://www.facebook.com/notes/john-hagee-ministries/january-31-2011-weekly-
update/10150109590018905> . Will America support them? Our president
certainly has not been supportive of Israel to this point in his
administration; why would he change now?"

Not surprisingly, the politicians closest to the religious right have been
the quickest to side with Mubarak. On Tuesday Mike Huckabee, who is in
Israel, called into Fox & Friends to criticize the Obama administration for
failing to back an ally. In Israel, he said, there's "real shock and
surprise… at how quickly the Obama administration abandoned a 30-year ally
and a longstanding friend to peace and stability President Mubarak." On Sean
Hannity's radio show, Newt Gingrich warned that Egypt "could go the way of
Iran."

At least some neoconservatives, meanwhile, have shown an admirable
consistency, urging support for Egypt's demonstrators. Michael Rubin of the
AEI, for example, wrote a piece for Forbes.com
<http://www.forbes.com/2011/01/28/egypt-riots-middle-east-opinions-contribut
ors-michael-rubin.html>  headlined "The U.S. Should Not Fear Regime Change."
"I don't see many neoconservatives who love Mubarak and really want to
protect him," Rubin told me, adding, "When it comes to support for
dictatorships, you can only kick the can down the road for so long before
the road ends."

This highlights an interesting difference of opinion between
neoconservatives and conservative Israelis, who are often thought to move in
lockstep. "Israelis aren't on board on the democracy game," says Rubin.
"They'd much rather rely on aging dictators to keep things quiet. They're
perfectly happy selling out Lebanon to Syria, and perfectly happy selling
out the Egyptian people to Hosni Mubarak."

Some neoconservatives are even claiming credit for the revolution under way
in Egypt's streets. "[T]he revolt in Tunisia, the gigantic wave of
demonstrations in Egypt, and the more recent marches in Yemen all make clear
that Bush had it right—and that the Obama administration's abandonment of
this mind-set is nothing short of a tragedy," Elliott Abrams, Bush's former
deputy national security adviser, wrote in The Washington Post
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/28/AR201101280
3144.html> .

This is somewhat galling, since, as Julie Millican
<http://mediamatters.org/blog/201101310011> pointed out in Media Matters,
Bush was always a Mubarak cheerleader. But at least it suggests that some on
the right are willing to support the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian
people—and that they won't snipe at Obama for failing to prop up the Mubarak
regime. It suggests that not all conservatives were being grossly
hypocritical when they championed an end to Arab autocracies. Only some of
them were.

Michelle Goldberg is a journalist based in New York. She is the author of
The New York Times bestseller Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian
Nationalism <http://www.kingdomcoming.com/>  and The
<http://www.amazon.com/Means-Reproduction-Power-Future-World/dp/B0043RT9DU/r
ef=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1291951253&sr=8-2> Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power
and the Future of the World, winner of the 2008 J. Anthony Lukas
Work-in-Progress Award
<http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/newsitem.aspx?id=100001>  and the Ernesta
Drinker Ballard Book Prize. Goldberg's work has appeared in Glamour
<http://www.glamour.com/women-of-the-year/2007/11/empowering-hands> ,
Rolling Stone, The Nation
<http://www.thenation.com/article/palin-and-christian-right> , New York
magazine, The  <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/michellegoldberg> Guardian
(UK) and The New  <http://www.tnr.com/> Republic. Her third book, about the
world-traveling adventuress, actress and yoga evangelist Indra Devi, will be
published by Knopf in 2012.

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