Glenn Beck's "Light Me On Fire" Immigration Moment—The Nuttiness Continues

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Did Glenn Beck vote for Barack Obama? You might think so from listening to his latest rant, from his show on Thursday night. (You know, the one where he suggested that the president should shoot him in the head and/or set him on fire?)

The tirade, whose proximate cause is a proposed immigration overhaul, is rife with wackiness, but one part in particular caught my attention. At around 3:29 in the video (embedded below), Beck—having graciously not set his guest/prop on fire—turns to the camera and, with rising, ahem, urgency, addresses his most important (and undoubtedly most loyal) viewer:

President Obama, why don't you just set us on fire. For the love of Pete, what are you doing? Do you not hear—do you not hear the cries of people who are saying stop! We would like some sanity in our country for a second!

Umm, Glenn? Those cries you hear are your viewers asking for sanity on their television set. But back to his voting record.

We didn't vote for any of this stuff. We voted for change. You know what that change was? The change we wanted was an end to the games. We wanted the games to be ended. We want people to say what they mean and mean what they say. We want people just to be honest. We want the parties to actually stand for something. We want the spending that is out of control—you're building bridges that lead to nowhere. You're spending money that leads only to slavery!

Let's set aside the fact of accusing a black president of leading the country toward slavery ... I love it when conservatives, having been trounced in the last couple of elections, take it upon themselves to lecture on the (invariably conservative) meaning of said elections. We didn't vote for any of that stuff? Well yes, that's true—Beck almost certainly didn't vote for that. He presumably voted for more GOP rule.

It reminds me of an old Beavis & Butt-head exchange where an incensed Beavis says My uncle didn't go to Vietnam so you damn hippies could burn the flag. Butt-head: Beavis, your uncle was never in Vietnam. Beavis: That's what I said. My uncle didn't go to Vietnam .

Anyway, the video's below. It's worth watching to the end for Beck's concluding insane giggle. As Hot Air's Allahpundit notes, Inside Cable News calls it an Olbermann moment, but ...

It isn't, exactly — Olby takes his Special Comments way too seriously to indulge in the sort of shtick with gasoline that Beck tries here — but it's close enough. We're not even three months into Obama's term and already he's screaming on air. How's he going to deal with another three-plus years? What's especially weird is the instant transition from light-hearted sight gag to seething outrage. Either he's acting or his mind is ... highly nuanced.

Admirably put.

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