Vol. CCLIII, Live Free! or Die No. 14 The New Hampshire Gazette First Class U.S. Postage Paid April 10, The Nation’s Oldest Newspaper™ • Editor: Steven Fowle • Founded 1756 by Daniel Fowle Portsmouth, N.H., Permit No. 75 2009 PO Box 756, Portsmouth, NH 03802 • [email protected] • www.nhgazette.com Address Service Requested The Fortnightly Rant Fasten Your Seatbelts, It’s Going to Be a Bumpy Ride In retrospect, it would not have Kentucky and Connecticut. By required a great deal of foresight the early 1990s, though, the ba- to predict that Democratic con- by-faced Beck was “consumed by trol of both the White House alcoholism and drug addiction.” and Congress would inspire the His marriage ended in divorce, (presumably) Loyal Opposition and his life was on a downward to redouble its efforts to get its spiral. Then help arrived, from an views across. But for anyone to unexpected source: God. have predicted the full ardor “God stalked me like he had a and flamboyance of their efforts giant baptismal rifle,” Beck told would have been impossible the Salt Lake Tribune. “I thwarted without the aid of dangerous and him. I led people astray as much illegal South American halluci- I could but he kept putting Mor- nogens. Less than three months mons in my way.” into the Obama administration, Since his conversion to Mor- it seems clear that the next four monism Beck has seen his career to eight years will be notable for take off. In 2002, his radio show an endless supply of spectacu- for Premiere Radio Networks larly unhinged talk, and perhaps was launched on 47 stations. It is once asked televangelist John action, from the disenfranchised now broadcast on more than 300 Hagee “[t]here are people … that AVE UR RIDGE S ALLY PRIL fringes of the Far Right. Judging stations. actually believe [Barack Obama] S O B R A 28 from what’s out there already, Beginning in May of 2006, might be the Antichrist. [What the railing that went on against Americans no longer had to seek are the [o]dds that Barack the Clinton Administration will out Beck on the radio. Any un- Obama is the Antichrist?” Hagee look, in retrospect, like the civil wary couch-potato clicking on was reassuring. “No chance,” he airing of disparate views. CNN’s Headline News Network said, to which Beck replied, “OK. The person who best represents at the wrong time of day was Good. Whew.” this trend is in danger of stumbling across Beck may have been relieved to Glenn Beck Beck’s one-man psychodrama. learn from such an authoritative (right). We Considering that it appeared on figure that the President is not want to take a network frequently derided the Antichrist, but that doesn’t Memorial Bridge has carried foot, bicycle, automobile, and truck traf- a good look by the right as the Communist mean we’re in the clear. “The fic between Kittery, Maine and Portsmouth, New Hampshire since at him now News Network, Beck’s show rep- thing that I do find about Barack 1923. The “Maine-New Hampshire Connections Study,” now under- because at the resented a radical departure. It’s Obama,” Beck said, is “this guy way, could lead to its permanent closure in just two years. The Sarah rate he’s go- a wonder CNN’s lawyers didn’t really is a Marxist. He believes in Mildred Long Bridge, half a mile further up the Piscataqua River, is ing, he can’t BECK insist on running a disclaimer in the redistribution of wealth.” also subject to possible closure. Its rail link is essential to the mission last long. the crawl: “Warning—If you are Last October, CNN dropped of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. On April 28, a public rally will Glenn Beck’s persona is that of expecting commie propaganda, Beck—the day after Matt be held to support New Hampshire Transportation Commissioner Everyman, an average guy who this show may give you whip- Drudge reported that Beck had George Campbell’s plan to use federal stimulus money to rehabilitate just happens to have a Fox televi- lash.” signed a contract with Fox News both the Memorial Bridge and the Long Bridge. Updates on the Rally sion camera focused on him for On January 10, 2006, before he for a show to begin in January. will be posted on our website, www.nhgazette.com. For more about an hour every weekday evening, even debuted on Headline News, Fox is, of course, the first place the threat to the bridges, see page two. and a radio network broadcast- Beck earned a few headlines of a sensible person would look for ing his voice for three hours his own for this observation: a right-wing demagogue with live on October 7, 1996.* Street Journal, a paper he had every weekday morning. His ra- “[W]ho’s a bigger prostitute? delusions of grandeur. And it is What kind of man would do a long coveted. To get it, he had to dio show is said to be the third Heidi Fleiss or [professional at Fox that Beck has truly blos- thing like hiring Roger Ailes to buy its subsidiary assets, includ- highest-rated national radio talk football player] Terrell Owens? somed. He rants, he raves, he pollute America’s airwaves with ing the Portsmouth Herald. show among adults ages 25 to … Who’ll do anything for pow- sheds tears so copiously that even the likes of Glenn Beck? Rupert The uncanny resemblance be- 54. His success has brought him er or money? … at least Heidi Joe Scarborough is reduced to Murdoch, the Chairman, Chief tween News Corporation’s re- a $4.2 million mansion in New Fleiss will admit to being a pros- helpless laughter as he watches Executive Officer and Founder cord of relentless and insatiable Canaan, CT surrounded by an il- titute … [Gold Star Mother] Beck’s clips. And why not? It’s of News Corporation. growth and a certain malignant legal six-foot high fence to keep Cindy Sheehan. That’s a pretty a match made in heaven—or Murdoch got his start in jour- disease is too obvious to be over- out the riff-raff. big prostitute there, you know some other mythological place nalism in 1952, at the age of 21, looked. But a firm diagnosis can While Beck does not gloat what I mean?” frequently cited by religious fun- when his father Sir Keith Mur- never be decisively established. over his success after the manner On February 8, 2006 Beck damentalists. doch died and left him with a Before the News Corporation of Rush Limbaugh, he does ac- compared former President Jim- Fox News is run by Roger debt-encumbered tabloid news- can be shown to be a fatal disease, knowledge that he’s come a long my Carter to North Korean dic- Ailes. In 1967, while Ailes was paper, The News. From that frag- it will have to kill the patient— way for a guy of his limited abili- tator Kim Jong Il and found him a producer for The Mike Douglas ile beginning, he has built a me- the human race—leaving no one ties. There is no denying that. As wanting: Show, he got into a lively discus- dia empire that spans the globe to make the final diagnosis. Churchill said of Clement Atlee, “Is there a bigger waste of skin sion with a guest on the show and brings in more than $28 bil- Glenn Beck’s ascention to an “He is a humble man, with much than Jimmy Carter[?] … Who’s who thought television was just a lion a year. hour-long spot in the Fox News to be humble about.” the bigger waste of skin … you “gimmick.” Ailes, of course, dis- Among its myriad holdings is lineup is an apotheosis: a drunken Glenn Beck, 45, grew up in a could immediately go to people agreed. He must have been very The Weekly Standard, edited by loser with no talent, other than nominally-Catholic family in like Kim Jong Il. OK, there’s a persuasive because soon after, Fred Barnes and William Kris- the ability to run his mouth with- Mount Vernon, Washington, a big waste of skin, but not really, that guest hired Ailes as a media tol. The Weekly Standard began out stopping has been converted small, bucolic city periodically because his skin’s being utilized advisor for his political campaign. stumping for a war with Iraq im- into the personal representative flooded by the Skagit River. by evil. At least evil is using that Thus, in 1968, was Richard Nix- mediately after 9/11, and it still of each fearful, not-too-bright, His early life was marked by skin. Who’s using the skin of on elected president. Ailes later thinks the Mission was Accom- Fox-watching chump from coast his mother’s suicide, a brother- Jimmy Carter? What purpose played essential roles in the cam- plished. It loses more than a mil- to coast. Any one of the millions in-law’s suicide, and a sibling’s does the skin of Jimmy Carter— paigns of Ronald Reagan and lion dollars a year, but apparently who’ve been screwed over for the death by heart attack. At the age it’s like an empty suit walking George Herbert [Hoover] Walk- it’s worth it to Murdoch. past thirty years by American tax of 13 he won a chance to be a ra- down the street.” er Bush. Following that string of Murdoch also owns the Wall policies, labor laws, and corpora- dio DJ for an hour.