Glenn Beck Bashes NYT For Implying ‘Old, Frail, Tea-Bagging White People’ Are Violent

The New York Times front page story on the Tea Party movement did not escape Glenn Beck’s attention today. The paper wrote a long feature on the movement (fulfilling, among other things, my prediction of early January that Tea Party stories were the new media parlor game), which did not sit well with Mr. Beck. Enter the pipe! (Video below). Here’ the part of the article that particularly got under Beck’s skin:

Mr. Stewart heard similar concerns from other civil rights activists around the country. They could not help but wonder why the explosion of conservative anger coincided with a series of violent acts by right wing extremists. In the Inland Northwest there had been a puzzling return of racist rhetoric and violence.

Mr. Stewart said it would be unfair to attribute any of these incidents to the Tea Party movement. “We don’t have any evidence they are connected,” he said.

Still, he sees troubling parallels. Branding Mr. Obama a tyrant, Mr. Stewart said, constructs a logic that could be used to rationalize violence. “When people start wearing guns to rallies, what’s the next thing that happens?” Mr. Stewart asked.

Tea Partiers, points out Beck, actually do not have a history of violence. To suggest so is merely inference on the Times‘ part.

“Elementary my dear Watson. Excellent detective work, New York Times! The very same old, frail, tea-bagging white people…the media roundly mocked for being old, frail, white people, are now starting a constitution cartel and are blazing a trail of violence all across America. Oh New York Times, thank you for connecting the dots on this one, because I would have never noticed it. After watching millions and millions of tea party people gather all across the country for the last year — there was nary an arrest or a broken window — it all seemed quiet and peaceful actually to me. But apparently I was wrong!”

Obviously, he is being sarcastic. Also, he’s right. The NYT does make some unsubstantiated leaps in this instance, say what you will about the Tea Party movement, they have not been violent (though, it should also be noted that tea partiers and violence was not actually the focus of the Times‘ “twelve page article”). Video below.

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