A cowardly surrender or a clever parody?

No, he doesn’t look less stupid in real person

Glenn Beck already has a bit of a history as a thin-skinned crybaby (no, I’m not referring to his fake crying on the air), illustrated by examples such as when he tried to pull the plug on a parody website because it uses the exact same rhetoric and style as he does (only, against him). Here’s the latest example of Beck pouting in the face of anything that’s less than praise: Forbes magazine announced its picks for its “scariest people of 2009” bit, which includes other controversial names such as Roman Polanski, the Gosselins, Bernie Madoff and Rod Blagojevich. Beck himself had the (dubious) honor of being at spot #1. As the magazine says of Beck:

This cable-news demagogue commands big ratings, an army of fans and crocodile tears on demand.

Perfect. Except, not for Beck himself, who then whined to the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Steve Forbes himself, as he interviewed him on his show. Forbes subsequently apologized to Beck, and then, even corrected the article to be nicer to Beck.

However, pay attention to what Forbes says – and especially, how he says it. Here’s the exchange during the interview on Beck’s show:

FORBES: It was a mis — it was a miscommunication. We were going to put you on the most admired, most beloved, most reasonable, most enlightened list.

BECK: Right, right.

FORBES: But we figured if we did that, it would yeah, we wanted to put a mask on you so you wouldn’t get killed by the liberals.

BECK: I mean, here’s the competition: Rod Blagojevich, Bernie Madoff, Michael Jackson, David Letterman, Michael Moore, Roman Polanski. You’ve got a rapist who is nine slots lower than I am ….

FORBES: We normally would put you on the 400 list but we respect your privacy.

And then, here’s Forbes’ correction to the article:

By Steve Forbes
I hereby amend Halloween Masks -- The Scariest People Of 2009
"Glenn Beck is the scariest person to big tax; big government; big spend; and weak defense liberals."

Naturally, most see this as Forbes plainly bowing down to the whiny demagogue in posting a seemingly less offensive description below his Halloween mask. But – honestly, I think this appears to be a clever bite back at Beck. I mean, just look at what he tells beck – that he was “gonna be” on the “most admired, most beloved, most reasonable, most enlightened list”, that he would’ve been put on the “400 list”, and that he is one of the “scariest people” to things like “big tax, big government”, and most notably of all, to “weak defense liberals” …

I dunno if it’s just me, or wishful thinking (or both), but this sounds more like Forbes is actually taking the mickey out of Beck, though on a level that he – and, perhaps, most – would be unable to tell it as such. It certainly doesn’t sound very serious an apology and amendment to me.

(via @todayspolitics)
Technorati tags: Glenn Beck · Forbes magazine · Steve Forbes · parody · scariest people of 2009