In this blog post,
AEI’s Charles Murray criticizes Glenn Beck for playing fast and loose
with the facts, a charge that I mostly agree with.   The problem, it
seems, is that Beck does not demand that his staff double and triple
check the information before he puts it on the air.  This is Murray’s
take on the problem:

Beck was, as usual, standing in front of his blackboard. Chalked on it was:

?The democracy will cease to exist when you take away
from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.?
Thomas Jefferson

It is a sentiment with which I completely agree. I?ve written whole
books with that sentiment as the subtext. The problem: The quote is a
fake. Thomas Jefferson never said it. Jefferson would have been
sympathetic to the idea, as other writings
clearly imply. But he didn?t actually say it. In front of a national
television audience, Glenn Beck put up a quote that his researchers
would have discovered is a fake if they had done the slightest bit of
Googling.

On the positive side, Murray states:

Beck is spectacularly right (translation: I agree with him) on about 95
percent of the substantive issues he talks about. He is a full-throated
libertarian in a world of wishy-washy Republicans. The man is a gifted
communicator. His style doesn?t happen to be one I like, but many times
I?ve sat there on my sofa wishing I could make the same point as
effectively.

But Murray’s conclusion is absurd:

It?s not in our power to decide whether Glenn Beck?s show continues. He
will save the Republic or fail to save it whatever we do. All we can do
is be honest about what we think. I?ll go first. I say it?s spinach and
I say the hell with it. What Beck does is propaganda. Maybe propaganda
has its place, but let?s not kid ourselves. Glenn Beck and Keith
Olbermann are brothers.

For me, this is yet another example of the disagreement
between the “thinkers” and the  “communicators” in the movement.