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Post's Levingston Punches Shadows

By Quin Hillyer on 6.15.10 @ 5:43PM

Okay, this pathetic, breathless, completely over-the-top review in the WashPost of Glenn Beck's novel "The Overtown Window" may be the single most irresponsible review I have ever seen in the main pages of a respected daily paper (this excludes the NYT). Writer Steven Levingston should be ashamed of parading his paranoia all over the first page of the Post's Style section, and his editor should mainline some coffee to wake up to his/her responsibility, or else get an ethics transplant to relearn an essential part of an editor's job. Levingston's piece of trash never should have seen the light of day.

This judgment of mine has nothing to do with whether or not Beck's book is any good. I don'k know if it is; I've never read it. The problem is that in bashing Beck from a left-wing sensibility as nutso as anything Levingston attributes to the right-wing nutsiness he claims Beck represents, Levingston doesn't stop at keeping his attack on Beck himself, but instead goes ballistic on millions of Americans who.... well, judge for yourself. Here's Levingston's inexcusable opening paragraph, the paragraph of a cowering 5-year-old fantastist afraid of the boogey man:

The success of Glenn Beck's novel, "The Overton Window," will be measured not by its literary value (none), or its contribution to the thriller genre (small), or the money it rakes in (considerable), but rather by the rebelliousness it incites among anti-government extremists. If the book is found tucked into the ammo boxes of self-proclaimed patriots and recited at "tea party" assemblies, then Beck will have achieved his goal.

Got that? "Self-proclaimed patriots" all have "ammo boxes" and are fond of Tea Party assemblies. Gee, that's original.

But in the last paragraph it gets worse. This is slander, pure and simple:

The danger of books like this is that radical readers may take the story's fiction for fact, or interpret the fiction -- which Beck encourages -- as a reflection of a reality that they must fend off by any means necessary. "The Overton Window" risks falling into the tradition of other anti-government novels such as "The Turner Diaries" by William L. Pierce, which became a handbook of extremists and inspired Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. As Beck tells his soldiers in the voice of Noah: "Put up or shut up . . . go hard or go home. Freedom is the rare exception . . . not the rule, and if you want it you've got to do your part to keep it."

So we see that the rather mundane and unexceptional exhortation to do one's part to keep one's freedom is instead transformed into a call to arms for extremists of the Turner Diaries sort. This is vile slander. This is unaccepable.

(As an aside, I know something about the sorts of people who revere the Turner Diaries: I spent three years fighting against them and sometimes getting threatened by them and once physically surrounded by dozens of them and jostled and pushed, as I fought against David Duke. I also once chased off three skinheads who were mugging an FBI agent and beating him within an inch of his life. Mr. Levingston, I know Turner Diarists; Turner Diarists are enemies of mine; and Glenn Beck is no Turner Diarist. )

Throughout the review, Levingston sounds like he's on a spittle-filled rant against the very idea, or rather the "fantasy," that there is "a nefarious government scheme to subvert the Constitution." Message to Levingston: As a matter of fact, it's not a scheme, but a stated aim of many people in government -- the aim of leaving the Constitution behind in all but name, deriding said document as a dead letter that was racist in origin and thus useful today only for the ideals to be found by a self-selected elite only in the document's penumbras and emanations.

This is why Beck picked up his pen -- to warn readers that disregard for the Constitution is becoming acceptable, is creeping into the window, and must be resisted.

Well, yes. What's wrong with that? It sounds to me like a damn good reason to pick up one's pen. Can there be any doubt that a lot of people in government today don't revere or even like the Constitution?

Anyway, the point is that Levingston's review isn't a blog rant (like this is!), but a formal book review. Yet his disdain not just for Beck but for anybody who enjoys listening to or watching him is palpable and obnoxious. It's enough to make a peace-loving citizen want to buy a gun for protection against journalists unhinged by anger.

View all comments (10) | Leave a comment

Nancy| 6.15.10 @ 5:57PM

The rant by the Washington Post will assure that I read Glenn's book. The media, academics, and most of the Democrats hate everything good about this country, and what America and the Constitution stand for and mean. A pox on them all!

Ken (Old Texican)| 6.15.10 @ 6:20PM

Quin,
Darn it!
I have exceeded my self imposed book-buying budget. (smile)

One of THE most fascinating fictional books I have ever read (2009 copyright)...is "The Last Centurian"
by Ringo.
I hope you will have a chance to read it.

Finally, I will vote with George Washington. Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are indeed worth dying for.

...A lot of vets in our country, (living and deceased), obviously feel the same way.

ggoblue| 6.15.10 @ 7:17PM

the group name BAMN is already taken and is a left wing group committed to preserving affirmative action "by any means necessary"....

in other words they'll kill my kids for the right to take cuts in the line of life....

140 days till the tsunami

Curly Smith| 6.15.10 @ 7:47PM

"The success ... will be measured by the rebelliousness it incites among anti-government extremists"

So if Bill Ayers tries to blow up the Pentagon again would that be a success or failure? I remember when it was not only cool to rebel but the media fawned over the rebellious middle-aged former hippies... you know, way back in 2006.

Missy| 6.15.10 @ 8:53PM

Hippies haven't changed a bit--they're still the loud-mouthed, obnoxious boors I remember from my youth.

msfreeh| 6.15.10 @ 10:16PM

to view a partial list of crimes committed by FBI agents over 1500 pages long see
forums.signonsandiego. com/showthread.php?t=59139

to view a partial list of FBI agents arrested for pedophilia see
campusactivism. org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=29

also see
ctka. net/pr500-king.html

Sam| 6.16.10 @ 12:45PM

I thought you NAMBLA loving Progressive freaks loved pedophilia. Normally, you'd give pedophiles a medal.

Oldefarte| 6.16.10 @ 11:24AM

I couldn't access the link to this moron's edititorial, but a tiny fraction of my imagination would only be necessary to guess what same [typical liberal BS] contains. Let me propose a possible solution/theory for all such imbiciles of the liberal persuasion. Since all of their progressive ideas/policies/proposals are based upon THE WEALTHREDISTRIBUTION BY MEANS OF GOVERNMENTAL TAXIATION OF THOSE WITH INCOME/ASSETS IN ORDER TO TRANSFER/GIVE TO THOSE WITHOUT, why not devise a governmental/IRS/taxiation set of laws that say in effect, that if one so wishes to have THEIR [ NOT MINE OR ANY OTHER OBJECTING TAXPAYERS] income that is taxed to eventually PAY FOR/FUND the liberal/wealth redistribution policies of our governments, then all of those objecting to same can simply OPT OUT of paying the individual related taxes needed for same. That way, liberals can spend their own money for immigration reform, universal welfarecare, food stamps, affordable housing through subprime [eventually defaulting mortgages], etc!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oldefarte| 6.16.10 @ 11:29AM

PS, Quin: Did you possibly see where some FBI memos/documents have now been declassified. Some indicated the Kennedys having SEX PARTIES at the Carlyle Hotel in New York [which JFK had a adjorning apartment in same]. Geez, talk about WHORE MONGERING, huh?????

Oldefarte| 6.16.10 @ 12:31PM

PSII: Speaking of same.....

Republicans introduce bill to lift drilling moratorium
By Michael O'Brien - 06/15/10 01:13 PM ET

A pair of House and Senate Republicans introduced legislation Tuesday to end President Barack Obama's six-month ban on offshore drilling starts.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) filed legislation to lift the short-term moratorium on new deepwater offshore drilling that the president put into place following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The legislation comes in response to Gulf Coast lawmakers pushing to lift the moratorium out of concern that the ban, which the White House has said could be lifted before the six months are exhausted, would only exacerbate the negative economic effects of the spill.

"This moratorium threatens to finish what the oil spill started," Vitter said in a statement. "If it stays in place, even for six months, it will be a devastating blow to the economy of Louisiana and other Gulf states."

The Republicans aren't the only one to support lifting the ban, either. Vitter's Louisiana colleague, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D), has also urged the president to lift the moratorium.

Other lawmakers from Gulf states, however, have joined with Obama in a more measured approach, waiting for federal officials and the president's oil spill commission to finish its work on investigating the causes of the spill and ways to prevent future accidents before allowing new drilling starts.

Olson argued that stalled drilling could adversely affect the oil industry in Gulf states for perhaps a decade if the moratorium is allowed to persist.

"Industry experts indicate losses of millions of dollars per day and have explored moving operations overseas," he said. "It would take a minimum of 5-10 years to get production back to normal operations should these rigs leave."