Over on Comment Is Free, Dan Kennedy has an excellent deconstruction of a Glenn Beck rent-a-rant:
Beck, on his syndicated radio programme, pulled together that and several other audio clips, then launched into one of his signature monologues about "dictatorship", "fascism" and "communism". Drudge linked to the video using the headline "School kids chant: 'I am an Obama scholar'…", as though it were anything more than an attempt to inspire poor kids from a poor city to stay out of gangs and get an education.
In some respects this is another mini-Shirley Sherrod affair: taking a slice of video, distorting it out of context and using it to make ludicrous claims, amplified through the right-wing media.
Beck's not going to go away anytime soon. Maybe we should just stop paying attention?
