There are American icons and then there are American icons. And Bruce Springsteen is surely one of them. The kind you don’t mess with if you know what’s good for you. He’s the Boss and… you’re not, OK? Get it? Got it? Good.

Apparently Glenn Beck never got that memo because on his radio show Thursday, the Joseph McCarthy-loving, blubbering Fox News personality decided to read the lyrics to “Born in the U.S.A.” in a monotone voice similar to how William Shatner infamously declaimed Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” This is a tune Ronald Reagan tried to commandeer for his 1984 reelection campaign, a move rebuffed by Springsteen, the son of a union member.

According to Beck, the song is un-American.

“Born down in a dead man’s town,” read Beck to the listeners of his March 11 radio program. “The first kick I took was when I hit the ground. You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much. ‘Til you spend half your life just covering up.”

Here’s what Beck had to say about the famous song afterward:

That’s what it’s all about.That’s what America’s all about, according to Springsteen…. It’s time for us to wake, wake up, out of our, um, dream state. Wake up out of the propaganda. The, you know, this is the thing that, people who come from the Soviet-bloc or Cuba, they’re all saying, “How do you guys not hear this? How do you not see this?” Well, that’s ‘cause we don’t ever expect it.

The Boss… un-American? Bruce Springsteen? Is that what Beck is trying to say? Now I could offer some snarky commentary—that’s my job, I’m a blogger after all—but it’s totally pointless when discussing Beck, someone I could call “nuts” and the copy desk at the Los Angeles Times will probably let it sail right past because it’s not like it’s an opinion!

And that’s not all. In January, Beck “analyzed” the Utopian lyrics of the Beatles’ “Revolution” and concluded that the song illustrated Liberal plans to slowly bring Marxism to America.

Glenn, wouldn’t that have been, uh, Lennonism? And I hate to remind you that Charles Manson saw hidden messages in Beatle songs too.

Cross posting this from Brand X

Confused.  Isn’t Beck always talking about how America is falling apart?  But when Bruce Springsteen talks about it, it’s not OK.  Oh, I get it, because BitUSA is anti-war, and war is good, but the government that now goes to war is not good. 

Confused again.

me and a mate were discussing this today - beck is up there with nick griffin of the bnp for “ultimate hate fuck”

Glenn Beck is the far right’s answer to second rate shock jocks. This bullshit all started when he ran at the mouth about taxes and public options, shit that resonated with the contemporary conservative, but being that he’s on TV and the radio all the time, he has to keep coming up with outrage or he’ll lose momentum and the public eye will turn elsewhere. So he digs down deeper. Ever since he hit the scene, he’s been losing support from conservatives because every time he opens his mouth he says something crazier than the last thing he said. Eventually he’s going to whittle down his options to a point where he’s left with no choice but to tag republican icons with labels like communists and nazis. Six months from now I see him slamming some speech Reagan made in the 80’s and insisting that he was a secret nazi.

The only people who will still be tuning in a year from now are people who get all their news from shortwave radio broadcasters and Stormfront.

Beck’s a tool, and if you buy (or react) into every nutjob quote he has to says, you’re his tool. That’s what he wants, free publicity. You should know this by now.

Richard, please stop posting on this guy. You have other great, interesting and bizarre things to blog about. Stop giving nutjobs like Palin and Tagbaggers publicity.  The finger pointing from BOTH sides (LEFT AND RIGHT) is not making things better in America. It’s just helping to make matters worse.

You are all tools. If you took your liberal, self-righteous heads out of your asses, you’d actually see the truth. From someone who has lived in a state that has been destructed by liberal/democrat b.s. I will say that you are living in a fantasy and Beck is basically telling you that there is no Santa Claus…..grow up, read more and get with it - morons

I took my head out of my ass and all I saw was more shit.
Oh, and Glenn Beck is my Santa Claus.

Hey, BReP.

I don’t take any lessons in history or political philosophy from a man who cannot distinguish between ‘socialism’, ‘communism’, ‘fascism’ and ‘Nazism’.

You can believe the things Beck tells you if you like. But clearly you are much more ‘grown up’ and you have read far more than I have.

Oh. And incidentally, you are very, very foolish for believing that Beck’s simplistic, ignorant beliefs offer solutions to the extremely complex problems you’re facing.

America should try and be more like evil communist/ fascist/ Nazi/ Maoist Denmark. Social mobility’s still alive here. Do you remember the American Dream?

Reagan fucked it in the anus. With his penis.

Like Beck is fucking you in yours. With his.

Ta ta.

The only way I see the Glenn Beck story ending is with him going out the way his obvious influence, GG Allin, claimed he would go out - committing suicide on stage.

That is, assuming he hasn’t lost all his advertisers and even Fox gives him the heave-ho first.

SDC that’s the way I envision it too, except my vision includes a gay hooker scandal first.