Tucker Territory

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Glenn Beck’s Headline News ratings are in the rubbish bin, but I would have thought that at least 200,000 people across the country were falling asleep — or succumbing to demon rum — in front of the TV before his show begins. Or do people actually have to be conscious for their viewership to count? I’m no expert on these things, but it seems to me that your average cable-access show would earn a larger audience than this. After all, it appears that Beck is just as crazy as the guy whose anti-Masonic rants sustained me through many a difficult night in grad school. Here’s what Beck offers on his “Perfect Storm” page, which collates stories about the various apocalyptic perils facing America:

We are at a crucial time in not only our nation’s history, but also in the history of the entire Western world. There are powerful forces at work that, when looked at individually, are still quite serious but each seems somewhat manageable. However, when we examine these events and the possibility that they could happen collectively, well–then my friend, we’re facing something I like to call The Perfect Storm . . . .

Remember that scene [in A Beautiful Mind] where Russell Crowe has pasted up a number of newspaper stories and is making associations and drawing connections between them by running strings from one story to the next, and then that story to another, and so on? You could easily do the same with the stories here. It’s not a great leap to see a certain synchronicity between them.

You read that correctly — Glenn Beck believes schizophrenia is a methodology. I must admit that this makes me just a little more eager to actually watch his show now.