Thursday, September 2, 2010


Glenn Beck is coming to Anchorage.

A rather large number of you have asked (in jest I presume, since most of you are not complete suicidal fools) if I’m going to see him.

Heh heh. Sure.

The thought of paying to see Glenn Beck caper and sob for an hour, surrounded by enraptured Tea Party seizure monkeys in the throes of orgasmic spasm, induces in me a sickening nausea, it’s a repellent visceral skin crawling reaction similar to the one most people have upon being informed they’re infected with 30 foot parasitic tapeworms. 


I’m actually considering it (attending the Glenn Beck rally, not eating raw infected pork – though I understand they can actually cure the worms. With the Beckinites, you have only the Zombie Cure and fire).

Why in the name of Hideous Soul Destroying Dread Cthulhu would I consider such a thing? Why, Jim, why?

Good question (But, for crying out loud, buck up, stop sobbing)

See, speaking of Cthulhu, Sarah Palin is going to be there too in all her tentacled glory.

Beck and Palin, together. 

Imagine it, if you can, if you dare. It will be At the Mountains of Madness indeed. That stage will be like gazing upon the naked Singularity, a place where science, history, nature and humanity break down and only the dark mathematical chaos of the quantum foam applies, a pinpoint of geometrically cascading ignorance and stupidity forming a ravening vortex of suck surrounded by an accretion disk of spiraling fear and densely packed ignorance, a lightning flecked tunnel into a different universe – the one where the sad syphilitic clown lives.

And it’s in the most opulent venue Anchorage, Alaska has to offer, the Dena’ina Center (we don’t have any sacred civil rights monuments to highjack here, sorry – unless they intend to steal Native Alaskan culture…).

And it takes place on 9/11 (September 11? Must be Ground Zero was booked, I guess).

And both Beck and Palin have insinuated that they’ll be making a big announcement. Until then it’s Extra Double Sooper Seckrit.


I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if a million intelligent people cried out…and were suddenly silenced.

What could it be? What could it possibly be? 

Will they announce the completion of the Space Ark, ready to spirit the Tea Party faithful safely away in 2012, powered by the Holy Ghost warp drive, ready to blast through the wormhole to Jesusworld when the seas rise and the earth burns per ancient Mayan Prophecy?  Will they demonstrate a new line of leisurewear, genuine American made pure polyester distilled from the thick long chain polymer molecules painstakingly gathered from Glenn Beck’s viscose reptilian tears – and perfect apparel for the Rapture?  Will they announce the founding of their own religion – MediaWhoreOtology (Abbr: MeHo, breath between the syllables) – and pass the plate? Will they finally give The Word, the coded missive to the faithful to began Novemberpogrome and The Revolution? Perhaps their fevered union has produced progeny, the UberJebus as foretold by Tea Party Prophecy, sprung from Glenn Beck’s doughy pimpled loins and growing even now in Palin’s cold crystalline womb, coiling fitfully and blinking its baleful Sauron-like eye? After all, was it not Palin who, upon the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, said that a true patriotic woman’s place was to birth the warriors of the Restored America? Gives you goose bumps, doesn’t it?


What do you mean, too farfetched?

Oh sure, you say that now, but don’t come crying to me when twenty foot tall UberJesus, resplendent in open necked beige synthetics and cracking his tapeworm lash, herds the Tea Party Stalwarts onto SS Reagan beneath the hellish orange light of his fearful gaze and flies away to Conservahala leaving the rest of us bereft amongst the shattered glass and oil soaked beaches.

Hey, it could happen!


Well, fine. What else could it be then?

Roger Ebert put into words what a lot of folks suspect, to wit: Beck/Palin 2012! (or maybe Palin/Beck 2012, nobody is really sure which one is wearing the giant throbbing candy cane striped strap-on in this relationship, though my money’s on Palin just because Todd looks like the kind of guy who’s used to a big red gag ball. But, hey, I digress.). 

Yes, that’s right. There exists the possibility that on September 11th another great tragedy will slam headlong into America and Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin will announce their campaign for the White House.  Ha! And you thought my scenario was farfetched.  You’re not laughing now, you bastards, are you? Fear the UberJesus, folks, fear him.

Ebert said:

The symbolic date of 9/11 invests this event with the inescapable possibility that [Beck] and Palin plan to announce their Presidential candidacy for 2012.

I admit to some skepticism here.  I am not Scully, I am the anti-Mulder for I do not want to believe (though you do have to admit a hidden extraterrestrial conspiracy to take over the world and turn humans into gestation vessels filled with gelatinous alien goo would certainly explain a few things).  Frankly I would be astounded if Beck tried to run for office. Think about it, he makes millions now and is accountable to no one, not even his pet God.  He can spin any falsehood, cry a river of tears, urge revolution and genocide and theocracy, goad the simpleminded to storm the castle in an orgy of violence and bigotry and hatred and fear – and he doesn’t even have to take a piss test, let alone answer to voters, Congress, or the Supreme Court.  Beck has never been big on accountability, well, not his own anyway.  President? I don’t think so. It’s not all just blowing up Third World countries you know.  Every minute of every day is scripted to the second. Navy doctors telling him to exercise and what to eat and palpitating his prostate. Endless paperwork and meetings. People actually expect results. People expect you to live up to your word. There’s criticism from the pundits. You have to display Diplomacy.  No, somehow I just don’t see Glenn Beck giving up the carefree life of chalkboard General for that.

Now, there are some alarming signs:

The Conservative blog HotAir sneered at the very idea, saying that neither Beck nor Palin would be foolish enough to “co-opt 9/11 for something as self-aggrandizing as a campaign launch.”  Are you kidding me? Are you familiar with these people? Like at all? There is no act self-aggrandizing enough for either Beck or Palin, these are the two white folks (and whitey white White in every sense of the word) who just co-opted Martin Luther King and the black Civil Rights movement. No, if anything the self-indulgence of announcing his bid for the White House on 9/11, of all days, is exactly the kind of thing that would appeal to Beck’s ego – after all, Beck said he’s going blind, and you know what kind of self indulgence causes that, right? Same thing. Hell, given his recent antics on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Beck might just announce he’s running for President to honor the victims of 9/11. Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past him.

And then, of course, Beck has repeatedly denied any political aspirations.  You know what his word means. Just saying is all. Same same with Sarah Palin.  She has repeatedly said she wouldn’t run, and if this was the Opposite Planet and I wasn’t an Alaskan I might even believe her. But she also said she was “exploring her options.”

I think Ebert is half right.

I think Palin is coming home to Alaska and on 9/11 she will announce her official bid for President in 2012.  I think she intends to strike while the iron is hot. I think she’s been paddling her political surfboard out to sea, and now she intends to ride the wave of anti-Obama sentiment while there’s time to build up momentum. Now is the time, right now, before that wave starts to shoal, and it will

If Palin intends to launch a campaign, now is the time. Right now.  Here’s why:

We are at the height of the Tea Party Maximum: Palin has won a victory here in the Alaska primaries.  A whole lot of folks credit the Miller/Murkowski upset to Palin’s backing and I think they’re right.  She has the appearance of a solid victory now, on her home turf, and partial victories elsewhere.  The Tea Party is feeling powerful and ascendant (one wonders if they’ll co-opt “Yes We Can!” as a slogan? No? They stole Martin Luther King, folks, think about it).  However, a couple things to note: First: only 27% of registered Alaskan voters turned out, half voted for the Democrats or Independents or Levi Johnson, and only half of the remainder voted for Joe Miller - he won only by the thin skin of his bleached white teeth. Hardly a groundswell, more like a tiny bitter ripple in a pond of apathy. And Murkowski’s concession may have handed the Democrat, Scott McAdams, a victory in the only race that matters, the November general election, because it galvanized the democrats and the moderates and the Murkowski supporters who despise Joe Miller and his Tea Party interlopers. Palin and her people are savvy enough to realize this, the time to play on that victory is now, before everybody else notices how small it really was and well before the general elections. Miller may win in November and if so that’ll add to Palin’s cred. However, he could very likely lose - but by then his fate will be mostly unnoticed in the hysteria of Palin’s careening campaign bus.  Second and far more importantly: The Obama Administration is beginning to turn things around.  Most of Palin’s appeal, most of her rhetoric (Hell, most? All) is based on opposition to Barack Obama. But, the President has made good on many of his promises, like it or not, agree with his agenda or not, he can point to the things he promised and the things he’s delivered in the first two years of his office – and that impressive list is long and growing longer every day. Hell, that list even includes a Nobel Prize (and Obama is only the second wartime president to hold that distinction, the last one was Woodrow Wilson) and if Obama can get the Palestinians and the Israelis to drink beer together he might even get another one. Think about that. Palin quit her job.  She can no longer use the stock condemnation of Obama’s “inexperience” compared to her term as state executive. She can’t say he hasn’t done things, because he’s accomplished things no other president ever has. The only thing she’s got going for her is the current anti-government resentment.  If, in the next two years, the unemployment rate drops and the economy improves – and you can expect it will now that the huge money sink of Iraq is winding down and Afghanistan is coming into line - things that are very likely to happen, a great deal of anti-Obama sentiment will evaporate. Just as it did for Reagan at the same point in his administration. If she declares now, she can build up momentum before that happens (yes, yes, if it does).

Location, location, location: Here on her home turf, surrounded by the adulation of Glenn Beck’s ardent followers, in a venue of her own choosing, a place where opposition and heckling are unlikely in the extreme, where public and media access can be strictly controlled, on a day holy in Conservative ethos? September 11th in the Dena’ina Center in downtown Anchorage is the perfect launch site for Sarah Palin’s presidential bid.

If she doesn’t declare there, now, she never will.

But, Jim, how does Glenn Beck fit in, I hear you ask in that shrill aghast tone you use when you damned well know I’m right and yet are too horrified to admit it?

How does Glenn Beck fit in?  It’s obvious, he’s her champion. With his own money and influence and network, free of the hated Lamestream media and backed by Rupert Murdock. He’s a mercenary commander with an army of viewers two million strong, filled with righteous fire and shallow patriotism and not exactly long on brains or the ability to think critically.  Cannon fodder for the revolution.  Beck will make the announcement, he’s the Master of Ceremonies, the King Maker and the Court Fool. That’s his role and he revels in it. 

How sure am I?

I’d say the odds are better than the guesses that led us into Iraq – yeah, OK, so somewhat less than 50/50.  Nothing is ever sure with Palin. she’s moody and vindictive and unpredictable.  But, there’s the rest of it, she set up a PAC which is what you do when you’re seriously considering running. Newt Gingrich sure thinks she’s going to make a bid, and while I trust his judgment about as far as I’d trust the actual Cthulhu, he is a Republican insider (of course, he’s a tricky bastard, Gingrich is, and he may be encouraging her to run as a stalking horse that he can mount and ride later, maybe by offering her VP on his own ticket – but that’s an entirely different post altogether). She is actively campaigning for other far right conservatives, that’s something you do when you’re building a brand and a launchpad and a network of obligations you can call in later.  She has courted the right-to-life movement hard, and in an interview with Christen Radio set to air next week she said she “put her life in the Creator’s hands” and if America wanted her to run, she would. God has told Sarah to run before, and it’s very, very, very likely that God will tell her to again. And then there are her own words. Last weekend on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, as a guest speaker at Glenn Beck’s Restoring Horror Rally, she said, “"Let's stand together, let's stand with honor, let's restore America!” Those are the kind of things a Presidential candidates says (though usually in a less shrill shriek).  And finally then there’s this, from an interview on Fox news Sunday last:

It really comes down to it's not being about me, or what I want, or what I predict is gonna happen. If the voters of America are in the mood for a kind of unconventional, candid, honest public servant, it doesn't necessarily have to be me, but if that's what they're in the mood for, they're going to let that be known, and they're going to help really propel and push that candidate forward, and then that candidate, of course, will make the decision whether to run or not. Don't know if that's going to me, Chris. As I've always said, I'm not going to close any door that perhaps would be open.

Aw Shucks, Fellas. Sure, I mean if you want me to. I’m just a regular gal, but if you insist…


If she’s going to do it, now is the time. The walls between the universes have thinned, and the light of alien suns are shining through. Now is the moment when the Dread Cthulhu can push through. Right now.


You know, it would almost be worth risking carnivorous bowel sucking tapeworms to see that.

Stand tuned, folks.


  1. ::sighs:: Thing is, the thought of any of it makes my stomach churn.

    This is a good one again, Mr. Jim... I'm feeling depressed and fearful. :(

  2. I think rather than "Yes We Can" they will instead attempt to co-opt "Oh No You Didn't". Since they're so into co-opting black culture these days, the Sassy Black Woman is the next logical step after MLK.

    gonare- how a hick asks what you're doing this weekend

  3. Made a typo in that last one....whoops.

    We really will see an apocalypse if Dumb or Dumber somehow manage to weasel their way into the Executive branch...

    Think about it: all the characters are there. We have Palin playing as the Whore of Babylon. The False Prophet is Glenn Beck, and the Beast is the Tea Party.

    Then there's the 4 horsemen - Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Dick Cheney, and maybe Mitt Romney.

    Maybe that's just my random-associative imagination going at full bore, but...

  4. A great post, Jim, and I agree with your analysis and I agree with your conclusions, though for slightly different reasons.

    Your reasons may be better, as mine lean towards the armchair-psychological.

    If the series that appeared in Salon last year is factually accurate, then the ginormous irony of Beck's life is that what you see of it today is, in a sense, a failure. Beck didn't set out to be a pundit and messiah, he wanted to be a popular entertainer, a morning zoo radio personality, Orson Welles. And he fucked it up. Badly. Developed a huge substance-abuse problem, pissed off the wrong people in major markets, and found himself doing talk radio in a podunk market, where (IIRC) a producer countered Beck's suggestion of doing another morning zoo format with the idea of Beck proving he was okay by doing a politics show later in the day. And the rest was history.

    The thing of this is, I think Cesca and others are right: what you see with Beck today is an act, a part he plays. God knows what his politics are, or if he has any; I suspect he really is a conservative, and some of what he spouts may be sincere in the way that only an ignorant man who's recently been turned onto old ideas can be sincere, but that it's all only an inch deep.

    The punchline, though, is that Beck is more successful at what he does now than he ever could have been at what he'd rather have done. But I don't think he's going to give up his redemption for something that is even less like the only thing he's ever talked about a sincere love for.
    Palin, on the other hand? Going Rogue makes it painfully obvious that what saved Palin from the equivalent of a trailer park has been a mix of serendipity and other people's political calculations. Since it was handed to her, she thinks she deserves it. And she thinks the Presidency will be the same, I just know it; I'd love to be wrong.

    Thanks for the post, Jim!

  5. If you're right this could be horrifyingly entertaining (from my view point) Can the US afford a president that walks away part way thru a term? Why won't Glen Beck take his impending blindness as a sign from God that he's backing the wrong horse?

    mkburn - surprisingly appropos

  6. It would be hilarious if, as I personally suspect, their sooper-sekrit announcement will be an even more nakedly cynical use of the date, and they'll announce some Tea Party advocacy cable network, or Sarah's new show or some shit. I really don't think she could really stand up to the scrutiny that a full-on presidential bid would bring.

    And, as you point out with the Miller/McAdams race, I think the Tea Party types are vastly over-estimating their broad appeal, especially since most of their campaigns have had a Purge-worthy element to them that I can't imagine is going to endear them to the moderate end of the party. And they can't win without those guys. But I've said before, and I'll say until I'm proven wrong, I think the Tea Party is creating a de facto party split, even as they try to keep things all under the GOP banner.

  7. My stomach hurts just thinking about this.

  8. "a pinpoint of geometrically cascading ignorance and stupidity"


    Part of me thinks she'd be a fool to give up her current highly profitable gig as cheerleader-babe to the radical right, but the rest of me knows very well she is, in fact, a fool.


  9. Can't you just watch it on TV? Less crazy-cooties.

  10. You DO know that any naming of the Elder Gods is akin to *summoning* them?

    Lets hope the possession takes the form of one of the Loki type ones - you know raw Chaos without much planning involved.
    Given the nature of the two demons that your poor country (ok, I live next door, so us Canadians too) are infested with - its pretty much the best we can hope for.

    Wish I could call you false, but we all know 'Life is weirder than Fiction'...

    (great piece - as always!)

  11. Hmmm.... Is there any way that we could arrange to get Cthullhu instead of Palin/Beck? Much safer, and with any luck, His Tentacledness would want to eat the souls of the Tea Party.

  12. Pamela,

    The error in that is to assume the members of the tea party actually have souls.

  13. I'm not sure which thing in your posting is more horrific to me. The actual horror of the scenario you describe or the fact that your description of said made me laugh and laugh and laugh (yes there was much wincing and cringing to be had as well but the laughing came from a terrible terrible place).

  14. I now have to leave my office, go outside next to a very busy 2nd avenue, and howl with laughter at the mental picture of Todd Palin wearing a "big red gag ball."

    I saw the FB post about you going national with that post. I almost find myself hoping that Todd reads that characterization and knocks on your door looking for satisfaction. Given the Palin family track record, that wouldn't be surprising. They do seem to deal in thuggery when they think no one will notice. I have a very pleasing image of Todd leaving that meeting bruised, bloody and having been forced to wear the gag ball by you!

    (pause for mental image enjoyment . . .)

    Yup, better run out of the door now!

  15. I'm not exactly shaking in my boots at the thought.

    Levi's mom, that would be another story...

  16. Jim, I know you're straight, and happy, and with a great woman, etc.

    So am I.

    And yet, reading today's piece, I can't help but say;

    I love you, and I want to bear your children.


  17. OK, totally not the result I was going for.

    But, you know? What the hell.

    People are gonna talk though, Nick. Just sayin'

  18. I'm going with the Haldane quote --


    If true, then perhaps Beck/Palin will SURPRISE us all with the strangeness of their big announcement.

    Which could be either cool, or horrifying. Or both.

    perpul = How Teabaggers spell purple.

  19. I'm kind of hoping for the Space Ark thing

  20. I'm kind of hoping they spontaneously combust.

    sesselog n. Journal kept by a ship's sessel. (Compare to Captain's log, cat's log, and nut log.)

  21. Is Beck still insisting he "had no idea of the date's significance" when he picked it?

    Versuch: n, german. "Request". Gimme a hard one already, captcha.

  22. 911. 911. Now why does that sound familiar.

    I, for one, look forward to what he has planned for Dec 7th.

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  24. On Pearl Harbor Day, Beck and Ashton Kutcher will reveal to Sarah Palin, Rupert Murdoch and a throng of 75,000 Tea Partiers that they've all been punk'd bitches, in the second-biggest prank of Kutcher's career (the biggest having been perpetrated on Bruce Willis).

  25. Are Europeans at all confused by us calling it 9/11? If they get that it's a date thing, do they wonder what happened on the 9th of November? Do they rechristen it 11/9 for local consumption?

    Sue me. I'm a little retarded sometimes, but these are the things I wonder about.

    (This may seem only tangentially "on topic", but my use of the "R" word ties it into Sarah again.)

  26. Nice tie-in. Well done, Nathan, indeed.

  27. As a rule, us Euros tend to be a little more conscious of the reality that just because we adhere to some notational convention (be it the Metric system, the Celsius temperature scale, date notation or what side of the road you're supposed to drive on), everyone else everywhere else will do things the exact same way.

    Especially with the English right in our back still digging in their heels over the Metric system...

    orkessea: The legendary tales of Odyz, the Ork Warboss and his meandering journeys trying to get back to his favorite Orkhold, and what he did to the three full tribes that had moved in while he was gone.

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  29. "...because Todd looks like the kind of guy who’s used to a big red gag ball" ROTFL!

    I like Raven's interpretation of the Whore of Babylon riding the beast. (I always thought Rumsfeld and Wolfawitz were two of the heads.) Sarah and her churching mentors said they thought God was sending her up the ladder of power. Maybe they are telling her now is the time, and like George W, she is too self-unaware to understand it isn't true.

    If I could handle it, I wouldn't mind seeing it, if only to take photos and post them to my buddies Outside. I don't want to give either of them my money though.

    I agree with Eric about Glenn Beck. In fact, I don't think Rush, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, or Sean Hannity are true believers at all. They are snake oil salesmen laughing all the way to the bank. Ann Coulter is probably just a woman scorned, by Bill Clinton--he probably turned her down at some point during his presidency.

    They don't have to do any research or provide support for anything they say or write; they don't even have to talk to anyone who challenges them. They get to just show up and blather whatever divisive, inflammatory garbage enters their heads and they get paid Millions for it. (I want their job. I can piss people off with the best of them too! I'd get good ratings.)

    I don't believe for one single second that any of them live the righteous lives they claim to value, just like Sarah doesn't live like all those moms across the country believing she is just like them.

    If you haven't seen it yet, rent This Divided State. It's fascinating, and get a load of Sean Hannity, then tell me he is a righteous man who isn't "misbehaving" on a routine basis as he travels around the country. He's like the jock in high school who swaggers around mocking anyone he thinks is a nerd and talking his way into younger girls' pants (or is a date rapist) and feels entitled because he is just So cool. He is nothing like the crowd he panders to and only the blind or the stupid can't see it.

    Actually, I suspect Sarah isn't a true believer to the core either, but is mercenary, self-serving, limited in what she's been exposed to, and limited in abstract thinking ability so this is the path that gets her where she wants to go.

    Glenn Beck with a red gag ball in his mouth probably paints a more accurate picture of him too.

  30. Oh, about like you'd expect. Beck categorically denied any political aspirations, Palin didn't declare but made vague noises that she's "thinking about it."

    So, turns out I was wrong. It was just another stop on the Glenn Beck Traveling Snake Oil Show.

  31. Neither one of them is going to run for anything. There are actual laws they'd have to follow about money, appearances, etc. Besides, if they won they'd have to do real work. Clowning around on TV is more their style. You're safe -- sort of. I guess it depends on your definition of "safe".

  32. If either one of them get elected to anything, I'd likely move Yellowknife and become your neighbor