Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
For the past three days, Glenn has been trying to make a point about the Constitution, but the media seems to be missing it. Not surprisingly, the media and the left flew into outrage mode over Glenn’s placing of a fake Obama into a fake jar of urine. They have said that he’s trying to make money and get his name in the paper again. That he’s trying to rile up the left by taking the President and desecrating his image. But the truth is, Glenn has always been about trying to educate through entertainment, but the media once again wants to focus on the presentation and not on the message.
Unlike most cable news commentators, Glenn has never been one to just sit behind a desk and read off a teleprompter. It works great for a lot of successful TV personalities, but not Glenn. Instead, he’ll often use props, chalkboards, live animals, and other tools to make his point. His ability to entertain the audience while talking about complex and often depressing economic and political issues is a big reason why he became such a popular personality on television and radio.
So on Tuesday night when Glenn wanted to talk about the Constitutionally protected right for an artist to paint Barack Obama as Jesus Christ on the cross, of course he would use a lot of crazy props to make his point.
He used paintings from Jackson Pollack, Rubens, and Picasso to point out that even though he’s not particularly impressed by the art and some would find images of naked people uncomfortable, the Constitution protects a person’s right of freedom of expression. Even something Glenn finds personally offensive, like Michael D’Antuono’s painting of Obama in the pose of Jesus being crucified, is Constitutionally protected. At the same time, when Glenn puts a toy Obama in a mason jar filled with yellow liquid in order to artistically express himself, that’s constitutionally protected as well.
“Art is in the eye of the beholder and this guy has a right to do this. I think its offensive. I don’t think it’s close to reality but whatever floats your boat. I support his right to do exactly that. I agree with him that people who are upset should not trump his right to be able to do it and be able to hang it wherever he wants – as long as its wanted there,” Glenn said Tuesday night.
“That document (The Constitution) says I can’t stop him, and the spirit of that document is that I shouldn’t try,” he said.
Glenn went into further detail on radio Thursday morning. “Why did I do this? To make sure that we were consistent on the Constitution. That if we say it's wrong that you should be able to make fun of the prophet Mohammed, then we have to then say it's constitutionally protected to make fun of Jesus Christ. It's constitutionally protected if you're an artist or you're a clown or you're a bum,” he said.
“The only speech worth protecting are those things we find offensive. And I made this (“Obama in Pee Pee”) to ask the left after the monologue of we have to protect art, we have to protect speech. All speech, and the speech that we find most offensive is the one that you really have to stand up for.”
But most stories in the media have missed this point entirely or chosen to bury it in order to focus on the plastic toy in fake urine and the supposed outrage.
Unfortunately, the media also missed the story that the money raised from the auction is benefitting Mercury One’s “Hope for the Holidays” campaign. The media simply says “Glenn Beck is selling it on eBay” with no mention of the charity component.
By ignoring the charity, the media continues to try and paint Glenn as some selfish and phony pied piper who is trying to squeeze as much money out of his fans as possible. This is simply untrue. While Glenn was initially making a point about Constitutional rights, Glenn took the media attention and has been trying to turn it into something to help others.
One last point the most news stories have not reported: Artist Michael D’Antuono appeared on Glenn’s show Wednesday night and talked to Glenn at length about his art, and even said that his impressions of Glenn were wrong and he found him to be a reasonable man.
“As much as I’m making a point with ‘Obama in Pee Pee’, I’m not stupid I know Michael Moore will tweet about it and that will be good for my business,” Glenn told D’Antuono. “I believe in what I’m doing, you believe in what your work and what you’re doing but it doesn’t hurt.
D’Antuono told Glenn that he did very much believe in his work and what he was expressing, but acknowledged that the controversy and conversation that comes along with his artistic expression “doesn’t hurt”.
As the first portion of the interview came to a close, D’Antuono shook Glenn’s hand and said “You’re a very reasonable man” and added “I’m shocked”. Glenn laughed and ended up keeping D’Antuono on for an extra segment, and they ended up talking about how Americans can no longer have honest conversations.
“I consider what I do to be like circus performer art. And part of it is to shake people and wake them up and then get them to have a conversation. And maybe what you do and I do takes the conversation and pushes into an ugly place and so we can’t. But I would like to think the reason why we don’t have these conversations is that there aren’t enough people on either side that are seen in the media and so we can’t,” Glenn told D’Antuono.
So let’s recap. Defending the Constitution? Buried or ignored. Charity component? Nope, the media wants Glenn to push the image of Glenn as a selfish conman rather than a charitable entertainer. Reasonable man who wants to have an honest conversation? Zip. Zero. Nadda. No one in the media wants to call Glenn Beck “reasonable”.
No, rather than having an honest conversation the media once again goes for the easy, lazy headlines that make fun of Glenn and call out the antics rather than the deeper message and substance behind entertainment.
Have you stopped listening to the mainstream media yet?
