Punditry

Someone sent me a copy of Glenn Beck’s latest book, meaning I’ve officially crossed over into being Maclean’s designated Professor Emeritus of Beckology or something. Anyway, I wanted to call attention to something that is starting to happen, and which I suspect is going to continue: a split between Beck, who is now on the verge of becoming the definitive Fox News personality, and other conservative pundits. After Beck’s interview with Katie Couric, where he mentioned that he thinks Obama was probably a better choice than McCain (not setting the bar very high, of course), Mark Levin, a popular and insane radio host who is sort of a non-telegenic version of his friend Sean Hannity, attacked Beck (refusing to mention his name, a classic talk-radio technique) as being “incoherent” and “pathetic” and a mere “5 pm-er.” And the day before, Peter Wehner, a former assistant to Karl Rove who was considered kind of the resident intellectual of the Bush White House, wrote that Beck is bad for the conservative movement not only because he pushes crazy conspiracy theories, but because of “his admiration for Ron Paul and his charges of American ‘imperialism.’”