Glenn Beck's Robin Hood hypocrisy

On the June 7 edition of his radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, Beck likened the state of our political discourse to a burning house. He griped that no one is “talking about anything that's real,” and are instead leaving the house to burn while talking about the movie Robin Hood. Listen:

BECK: We're not talking about anything that's real. I'm trying to think of an example in life, but I feel like our house is burning down and we're arguing what color we're going to paint the living room when we put the fire out. What do you say we put the fire out first, guys?

Except, I don't even think it's that connected. It's like our house is burning down, we're all standing in the living room, some people are shouting “let's get out of here! Call the fire department! Put the fire out!” And others are like, “so what do you wanna do, do you want to go to a movie?” “Oh yeah, did you see Robin Hood, I hear that was pretty good.' 'Oh I don't like the Russell Crowe guy.” What is that? I don't even feel like we're having real conversations anymore.

Beck, of course, implies that he is part of the group rallying to save the burning building. In reality, he is the one distracting everyone with talk of Russell Crowe and Robin Hood. On the June 1 edition of The Glenn Beck Show, Beck took the time to describe the plot of the movie and the “parallels” between America and 12th century England.

From the June 1 Glenn Beck Show (via Nexis):

BECK: I've never seen a good “Robin Hood” movie and I heard, if he thinks about this, I liked this movie. This is pre-Robin Hood story. It's time when Richard the Lionheart died after bankrupting his country.

Then his brother, the new king comes along. He doesn't care. He's fallen into an alliance with enemies of his own country. And that alliance is turning everybody in England against each other. OK?

I thought -- whoa, there is no parallels here, huh? It's a best version of the story I've seen. Long story short, towards the end -- I'm not going to wreck anything -- he turns into Robin Hood. OK, I wrecked it.

At one point, the King of France who was, you know, working on dividing the whole country, he's sailing over and landing his soldiers on the beaches of Great Britain. In the time that he launched the ship, and arrived over to Great Britain, Robin Hood had brought his people of England together as one. And the king of France is on the ship and he releases all the soldiers and everybody else, and they're all just slaughtered on the beach.

And the king feels he's been misled and he knows he's going to lose. So, at this point, he says, send the signal. Turn the ships around. Because he knows soldiers can't win against the united England. He then says this: This doesn't look like a country that is fighting against itself. We'll have to return another day.

Later in the program, Beck again returned to Robin Hood, talking about the “great speech” he gave that “united” his people, and asking whether Americans could be similarly united:

BECK: In the movie “Robin Hood,” I told you about a few minutes ago, Robin Hood got up and he gave a great speech to the people of England. He said you got to ignite on a few ideas, that men have a right to be free, that a man's home is his castle, that we have a right to our own labor and the fruits of our own labor. You have a right to a fair trial and face your accuser.

Well, that's what united those people. And I thought -- those are good. That'll unite us.

But does it anymore? In America, we originally united on those same principles. Then we added some more. We're free to express ourselves -- and so is the press. We're free to worship according to the dictates of our own conscious. We're free to take risks and use our own initiative to become more successful, or fail, and then pick ourselves up and try again.

Apparently Beck forgot that he is the one who brought up Robin Hood in the first place. A week ago, detailing the plot of Robin Hoodwas perfectly within the realm of “real conversations” for Beck. While it's heartening to know that he has had this change of heart, Beck's hypocrisy on Robin Hood makes it hard to believe that in the future he will spare us from his tangents on topics like Hollywood's latest blockbusters.