Bill Kristol, Rich Lowry and Joe Klein Gang Up on Glenn Beck

By Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King

Conservative and liberal intellectual titans took turns this weekend savaging radio and TV talk show host Glenn Beck for his reporting this past week on the alliance between the communist left and radical Islamists. Beck has credited our reporting at Big Government and Big Peace.

Code Pink banner ad as it appeared on the website of The Muslim Brotherhood, January 2010.

In attacking Beck, the trio of D.C./N.Y. elitists displayed a disturbing ignorance of our Nation’s enemies and their tactics to undermine the West and its allies as well as infiltrate Western political establishments–including the presidency of Barack Obama.

Writing at the Weekly Standard, editor Bill Kristol accused Beck of “hysteria” and “inventing” the links between the left and the Islamists. For good measure Kristol plays the “Bircher” card against Beck like Jesse Jackson plays the race card against conservatives:

But hysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.

Kristol’s smug assault on Beck was seconded by National Review editor Rich Lowry, who republished Kristol’s attack, saying it was “well-deserved”:

Bill Kristol has an editorial on conservatives and Egypt. He takes a well-deserved shot at Glenn Beck’s latest wild theorizing:

Time Magazine’s Joe Klein gleefully picked up Kristol’s savaging of Beck and jumped in with his own vengeance, calling Beck a “free-range lunatic” for reporting about “his hilarious commie-muslim caliphate delusions” Klein piles on by promoting an alleged whispering campaign by Republicans to get Beck kicked off Fox for hurting “their brand.”

Today, (hat tip/Ben Smith), we have Bill Kristol sticking with the demonstrators and calling out free-range lunatic Glenn Beck, for his hilarious commie-muslim caliphate delusions. This is not unimportant. Kristol lies very close to the throbbing heart of the Fox News sensibility. And I’ve heard, from more than a couple of conservative sources, that prominent Republicans have approached Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes about the potential embarrassment that the paranoid-messianic rodeo clown may bring upon their brand. The speculation is that Beck is on thin ice. His ratings are dropping, too–which, in the end, is a good part of what this is all about. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a mirror-Olbermann situation soon.

Up until Saturday, it was liberals at MSNBC, the Daily Beast and Media Matters who were mocking, but not refuting Beck over his factual reporting of the alliance between the left, radical Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist groups like Hamas in Egypt.

Kristol’s attack has opened the gates for conservative elites to join liberals in forcing themselves on Beck and venting their welled-up frustration at a him for the crime of spoiling their exclusive elitist worldview.

Bryan Preston at Pajamas Media’s Tatler has been one of the few to defend Beck. In doing so, Preston links to our Big Peace article about Code Pink funding the attempted overthrow of the Egyptian government and the Council on Foreign Relations for Hamas’ ties to the Muslim Brotherhood:

Note to Rich Lowry. Whatever one thinks of Beck, he’s not inventing connections between the American left and the “caliphate promoters.” Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood according to those noted Birchers the Council on Foreign Relations, is among the caliphate promoters, and Code Pink has long been in league with them. What impact that alliance has is certainly debatable, and I doubt that Code Pink is any more effective in Egypt than it has been in the US, but the alliance itself is not an invention of Beck’s.

As a side note, what Preston fails to appreciate is that Code Pink operating in Egypt and Gaza for the past two years has had the ears of President Obama, Hamas, the wife of Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizers of the anti-Mubarak protests. One would be hard-pressed to find another group, even our CIA, which is that wired in to Egypt right now.

But at least Preston acknowledges the basic fact of the alliance.

Kristol, Lowry and Klein savage Beck for informing his audience about what has been reported (unrefuted, we might add) at Big Peace and Big Government documenting the ties between President Obama, Code Pink, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Even Code Pink doesn’t bother to deny what Beck has reported. A statement posted at the Code Pink Web site denies credit for instigating the protests in Egypt, but ignores the group’s ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood as well Code Pink’s ties to former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn:

Glenn Beck’s dangerous rhetoric – blaming CODEPINK for Egypt Unrest:
Middle East unrest according to Glenn Beck and friends,The Guardian, February 3, 2011

CODEPINK Response:
Of all the things Codepink HAS accomplished this past year we just can’t take credit for the popular uprising in Egypt. Despite allegations that the pro-democracy demonstrators are led by militants and extremists, in fact the millions in Tahrir Square are predominately young people sick and tired of being unemployed in a repressive police state. All many have ever known in the despotic rule of Pres. Mubarak, propped up by $1 billion in aid every year from the U.S. taxpayers.

Crowds in Cairo and other cities also include pharmacists, grandmothers, army officers, former employees of the state controlled t.v. station — and yes, CODEPINK activists whose large pink banner “Solidarity with the Egyptian People! Codepink.org” was photographed in Tahrir and seen around the world.

We are proud of those who call for democracy no matter where in the world they are! And we call on Pres. Mubarak to step down now and allow for an orderly transition to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people!

Code Pink fails to mention the Muslim Brotherhood’s ‘day of rage’ protest a week ago Friday that saw mass riots and images of Cairo burning transmitted around the world.

Also, while demurring on taking credit for the protests, Code Pink has elsewhere claimed to inspire by example the protests.

Here are some facts for Kristol, Lowry, and Klein:

Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans is a Democratic party activist who was tapped as an early fundraiser by Barack Obama. Evans has visited the Obama White House, met with the President and his staff.

Since Obama’s election, Jodie Evans and Code Pink have acted as go betweens from terrorists to Obama.

In recent years, Code Pink has met and worked with Islamic terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism including Iran, Syria, Cuba, Hamas, the Taliban and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Code Pink recently ran banner ads on the English language Web site of the Muslim Brotherhood beseeching the brotherhood and their jihadist readers to “Join us in cleansing our country.”

Code Pink provoked a violent response from the Egyptian government while agitating in Cairo with Ayers, Dohrn and over a thousand global leftists to break the embargo of Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Domestically, Code Pink works with communist groups including the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Code Pink co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans are also in the leadership of the Progressive Democrats of America alongside several Democrat members of Congress.

Since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the radical left has made common cause with radical Islamists. Beck showed a video compilation documenting that alliance featuring leftist and Islamist speakers at so-called antiwar rallies that were broadcast on C-SPAN.

If he is to be criticized for anything, Beck should be criticized for being so late to recognize the global conspiracy between the left and Islamists to bring down America, Israel and the West. It is true that Islamists want to establish a global caliphate and Marxists want to establish a global communist government. How will the two partners reconcile their different end-goals should they succeed in taking down America? We hope we don’t have to find out.

Code Pink and the left don’t care about democracy in Egypt. Their goal is to take out an American ally and partner with Israel for peace. If you doubt this, read our Big Peace article detailing Code Pink’s history of subverting American allies like Egypt while propping up our enemies like Iran.

Beck also reported on the rally in California a week ago co-led by Code Pink that called for the lynching of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, and the “quarantine” of conservative financiers the Koch brothers.

Words mean something. When those opposed to America and her allies like Code Pink call for “cleansing” “lynchings” and “quarantines” of their enemies we should be alarmed. Especially so when those calling for such actions work with groups and governments like Hamas, Iran and Cuba who really do “cleanse,” “lynch” and “quarantine” their political enemies.

Kristol, Lowry and Klein should take a stroll outside their elite comfort zones and attend an anti-war rally or so-called pro democracy-for-Egypt rally in New York or D.C. If they did, they would see for themselves examples of the alliance between the left and Islamists in action.