Glenn Beck’s History for Dummies

by digby July 26, 2010

This post originally appeared on Hullabaloo.

Did you know that you can attend Glenn Beck University for the amazing deal of only $9.95 per month? The thing is that most of would probably agree that $9.95 a month is $9.90 more than we would be willing to spend.

The good news is that you don’t even have to waste that nickel. Steve Foster over at The Donkey Edge has gone above and beyond the call of duty to actually “attend” GBU and lived to tell about it.

Here’s a little taste:

[M]y right-wing funhouse soon turned into a house of horrors, as I was treated to an approximately 30-minute lecture (presumably the outer limits of a wing-nut’s attention span) that covered our Founding Fathers and the birth of our nation. I had clearly picked the wrong day to give up drinking.What unfolded was a “lecture” about the so-called “Black-Robed Regiment” – apparently a band of Evangelical Christian preachers that invoked from the Bible the political and moral underpinnings upon which the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were based and that single-handedly defeated the British at the battles of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. Ever heard of the “Black-Robed Regiment”? Me neither. It sounds like an obscure 1990s Steven Seagal film.

That’s just the beginning. Click here for lesson’s two and three.

And lest we think this is just a joke, keep in mind the latest findings on the tea party:

Glenn Beck is the most highly regarded individual among Tea Party supporters of the people we tested. He scores an extraordinarily high 75 percent warm rating, 57 percent very warm.

This affinity for Beck came through very clearly in the focus groups. The only news source that participants said they could trust was Fox. Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity were cited as people who “are not afraid to tell it like it is” and support their arguments with solid facts. Beck was undoubtedly the hero in these groups. Participants consider him an “educator” (in contrast to the popular Rush Limbaugh who is an “entertainer”) who teaches people history and puts himself at risk because he exposes the truth. In the words of a woman in Ft. Lauderdale, “I would trust my life in his hands.”

Other comments are just as laudatory:

• I like the way he’s trying to get back to the basics of the Constitution of the United States because I think that’s where our government is losing focus. They’re trying to change the Constitution or somehow twist it…
• He brings out facts… And he actually shows the people saying the things. It’s not like just sound bites. It’s not chopped and really edited. And he is scary because every time I watch the show, which is pretty much every day, my heart feels…and I feel like I want to do something.
• I’m frightened for him… Because of the things that he says. I think that he is stepping on some big toes.
• He really does his research and he really lays it out to you well; a good professor.