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Glenn Beck
Who`s Really to Blame for 9/11?; Self-Proclaimed Pedophile Released; Hillary Says Troop Surge is Working
Aired August 22, 2007 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, a long suppressed CIA report on the failures of 9/11 comes to light. Not surprising, there`s plenty of blame to go around. Well, with the exception, apparently, of this guy. What`s up with that?
Plus, an avowed pedophile back on the streets. Why was Jack McClellan released and what happens next?
And the literacy of the left. A new poll reveals conservatives don`t reach as much as liberals. Oh, really?
All this, and more, coming up, next.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: Well, hello, America.
Everybody seems to be talking about this newly declassified report on the 9/11 attacks. Really? George Tenet, the CIA, and our old friend Bill Clinton. Well, finally, America, the truth can be told.
Here`s the point tonight.
After almost six years, we definitely know, 100 percent, without a doubt, and absolutely positively who is the one man responsible for the September 11 attacks? And here`s how I got there.
As many as 60 officers in the CIA have seen cables indicating that two al Qaeda operatives had the necessary documents to enter the United States. They could go anywhere, anytime they liked. Nice work, George Tenet. But no, it is.
And remember the greatest hit between FOX`s Chris Wallace and former President Clinton as to why Clinton didn`t connect more of the dots pre- 9/11?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it`s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who said I didn`t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden.
All of President Bush`s neocons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say who I didn`t do enough, said I did too much. Same people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BECK: Well, you can get as cranky as you like, Bill, but there`s no denying that the bad guys got badder while you were in the White House. Yes. The new report makes it crystal clear.
So tonight, America, here is what you finally need to know about 9/11. The blame for the 9/11 attacks rests squarely on the shoulders of one man: Osama bin Laden. Thank you. That`s right.
It`s not George Tenet. It`s not Michael Hayden. It`s not Bill Clinton. It`s not George Bush. Of course, the CIA is at fault for never developing a comprehensive strategy to confront the threat from al Qaeda. Yes, no fan of Bill Clinton or what he and his pals did in the eight years in office.
But here`s the thing. I don`t hold them responsible for the attacks of September 11. And neither should you or any other right-thinking American. Anybody who makes you believe otherwise is repeating the sins of the past and putting America in an even greater danger.
The attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden. The blood of 3,000 innocent Americans is on his hands, and his hands alone. If we allow politicians to distract us from that fact with their partisan bull crap, we play right into the hands of the terrorists.
Once again, every second we spend fighting with each other is one second we don`t spend fighting them. And we don`t have a lot of seconds to spare.
Our national security depends on a huge number of intelligence agencies working together, communicating effectively, and understanding that we`re all on the same team. The CIA has spent the last two years trying to prevent this report from going public.
Well, that`s wasted time. While we`re all shuffling papers and arguing the fine points of who did and who didn`t do what, al Qaeda and their network is getting stronger in the Middle East, in Great Britain, and here at home.
Unless we stop rehashing the past and start learning from the past, we`re doomed to repeat the past. Let`s learn from what went wrong in the years before 9/11.
But let`s use that information to make us stronger, smarter, safer, and not just use it to make us the next party in power. Otherwise, we don`t need to worry about Osama bin Laden, because we will be our own worst enemy.
Michael Scheuer is the former head of the CIA unit for tracking Osama bin Laden.
Where am I wrong here, Michael?
MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CIA AGENT: I think you`re only wrong in the sense, Mr. Beck, that 9/11 happened, and I think no one could have stopped it. It was bin Laden`s plan. It was a wonderful plan, an excellent plan. And it`s hard to interdict.
But the point of the matter is, the intelligence community has to be able to tell the American people it did all it could to prevent the attack. And we couldn`t do that.
BECK: But you know what, Michael? Correct me if I`m wrong. I`m a conservative. I was -- in 1998, I was on the radio at WABC here in New York, and conservatives were calling me and I said, I didn`t even know how to pronounce Osama bin Laden`s name. I think I called him Osama bean Laden or something. And I said, "Read the words of this guy. Clinton is not taking -- is not trumping this up. This guy will kill."
And people were calling out of the woodwork, and I said, "When there are dead bodies and buildings lying in the streets here in New York, will you finally take this guy serious?" Nobody took him seriously back in the `90s.
SCHEUER: Well, no one took him seriously during the 9/11 Commission either, sir.
I think the tragedy of yesterday`s report is that it proves that the 9/11 Commission was entirely a whitewash of what went on before 9/11. And unfortunately, they decided no one was responsible for anything, and that they went ahead and said the intelligence community was responsible, the structure.
And so they bloated it. They made it bigger, and they`ve made it less flexible. And so I think there`s every chance that the 9/11 Commission took America down the wrong path.
BECK: Right. OK. So you`re talking about that. Lets me go back to -- because you`re the architect of rendition. And this is something that you and I talked about a couple of days ago on my radio program, because I read this book called "Ghost Plane". And I didn`t know how I felt about rendition.
You explained how that came about in the Oval Office, and what it was, was nobody wanted to kill al Qaeda. Right?
SCHEUER: Right.
BECK: And so you said, here`s the way to take care of -- here`s the way to break up al Qaeda without being naughty.
SCHEUER: Well, Mr. Clinton and his national security team, sir, wanted to break up al Qaeda cells around the world, and we said, yes, we can do that, but where do you want these people put?
And Mr. Clinton and his boys didn`t want to bring them to the United States, did not want to put them under U.S. law. And so left us to find a way to take them to other countries around the world.
BECK: OK. So the thing I have to learn from this, or I think I hope America learns from it is, OK, nobody took it seriously. They wanted to break up al Qaeda, but nobody wanted to get their hands dirty on it. So they just came up with a bunch of stuff and we played a giant shell game; 9/11 happened.
Now, the question for you, Michael, is, have we changed anything today? Is it different than it was?
SCHEUER: Clearly not, sir. You know, I think Mr. Obama really focused the country on -- by saying that we need to go into Pakistan and find bin Laden. All of the other candidates came back and said, "Oh, no, we`ve delegated the responsibility of protecting Americans to a Pakistani dictator."
BECK: Hang on. Wait a minute. Michael, you want to go under the cover of night and bring a bunch of guys with black all over their face and send them in there in the cover of night and slit his throat and find him, that`s fine.
But what Obama was saying was, fly jets over the border and start bombing. That is a -- Musharraf will be dead and al Qaeda, or the Taliban would have control of nukes. You know it and I know it.
SCHEUER: You know, Glenn, it`s a tough world. If we don`t do something, they`re sitting there quite -- quite securely, quite calmly planning the next attack in the United States.
BECK: But wait a minute. It`s a hard, hard world. You`re a CIA guy. Are you telling me that there is not a time that you use covert activity or you send people in to slit people`s throats?
SCHEUER: That time is long past, sir. When the opportunities arose, we didn`t take them.
BECK: In -- in Pakistan?
SCHEUER: Yes.
BECK: Really? What do you think would be the reaction of Pakistan if we sent people into Pakistan?
SCHEUER: What is going to be the reaction if we -- of the American people if we don`t and we get hit again and lose...?
BECK: You know what? I have to tell you, Michael, look, you and I agree on so very much. My -- my question to you is, aren`t there things that we do -- I mean, this has been the plan the whole time -- there are some things that we do, that you see, and some things we don`t do -- you know, we do in the cover of darkness.
SCHEUER: Yes, sir.
BECK: There is a role for both of those things. While I`m not a fan of Musharraf and I`m not a fan of what`s going on, we have changed our tactic, at least in Iraq. And I believe in Afghanistan.
We used to bring these people in the fold and say, "Hey, let`s bring them part of the solution." They`re not. We`re at least now shooting them in the head.
SCHEUER: Well, that`s a good start, sir. But we`re killing Musharraf anyway. We`re forcing him to be democratic. We`re forcing Mrs. Butar (ph) to come back. We`re concluding nuclear deals with the Indians. We`re killing Musharraf one way or another. We ought to protect Americans.
BECK: OK, let me go back to history. This is about the CIA, you know, and the report came out, and I said, "Let`s learn from history." Who should we be modeling?
If you said, "You know what, America? You should study this one period of time or this one general or one time in our history with war," what would it be, Michael?
SCHEUER: I tend to think that Abraham Lincoln was the best model, to conduct the wars as viciously and as quickly as you can to get it over with. That`s the only mercy in war.
BECK: I have to tell you, I was just in the Oval Office two weeks ago, and there`s a painting -- you know what that painting is, that space in the Oval Office, where it is the one that the president says, "I have to model myself after." It`s Abraham Lincoln.
And I think we`ve -- I think he`s turned a corner. I think he is modeling himself now after Abraham Lincoln.
Michael, thank you very much.
Now if you`ve been a faithful viewer of this program, you may remember August 22, 2006. This is a special day in Glenn Beck land. It was the -- it was a time when we look back and we say, it was Princeton Professor Bernard Lewis theorizing that President Tom was going to step away from his microphones and begin World War III, right?
Luckily for us, August 22, it didn`t happen. We`re all still here. I think. Or so they`d have us believe.
But in memory, you know, we can maybe go back and take a look at what could have been.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): It`s the end of the world, and we all know why. It`s August 22, and we`re all going to die. It`s the end of the world, and we all know why. It`s August 22, and we`re all going to die. We`re all going to die. We`re all going to die. It`s August 22, and we`re all going to die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is GLENN BECK.
BECK: It`s midnight somewhere in the world, but maybe -- you know, maybe we`ll make it to the 23rd.
Self-proclaimed pedophile Jack McClellan, a free man, back on the streets because of a legal technicality. Hello! Let`s close the loopholes and protect our kids.
Plus, Hillary Clinton`s semi-positive comments on the troop surge may have rocked the Democratic Party. But you know what? Maybe she`ll be the only one left with a chair when the music stops because of statements like this. And I`ll explain.
And apparently, conservatives are illiterate. We`re all dum-dum dummies. I`ve got to tell you, I have my script copy spelled out phonetically every night, you know. And if you, you know, don`t know what that means, grab your dictionary. You can look that word up. I don`t know how to spell it. Sound it out phonetically.
We`ll have the story waiting for you when you come back. I know it will be a while.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Coming up, the housing bubble has burst. Thousands of Americans are facing foreclosure, and our Democratic Congress wants to bail them out. Bad idea. I`ll explain why in just a bit.
First, until yesterday, the FBI`s looking to identify these two men in connection with suspicious activity aboard ferries in the Seattle area. While beautiful mountains, waterfront homes whizzing by, these two guys apparently have their cameras focused on less interesting things, like the working parts of a ferry.
With Seattle on a heightened state of alert, there was a brief period of panic today. As a crew was doing a routine security sweep of a ferry, and they found suspicious items in the men`s room.
The boat in the terminal evacuated, bomb squad was brought in. Fortunately, the items turned out to be harmless.
But please, America, please take a look at these men. If you have information on who they are, or where they might be, please, contact the FBI immediately. Kind of creepy if they were, like, sitting next to you right now. You`re like, what, I don`t see a resemblance.
According to "The L.A. Times", which they tell me is kind of a newspaper, self-proclaimed pedophile Jack McClellan has been released back into the general population of L.A.`s freaks and misfits.
The legal eagles over at the L.A. city`s attorney`s office has come to the conclusion that the restraining order that he was arrested for violating was, quote, "procedurally defective."
Only in Los Angeles could they bungle the O.J. investigation and a case where a scum bag like Jack McClellan, who admits to being sexually attracted to little girls, gets caught leering outside a day care center with a camera. I mean, was there a glove that didn`t fit?
I wonder what color the sky is in California for the prosecutors, because you`re living in a different world, Jack. Granted, there are pockets of sanity.
Earlier this month, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Melvin Sandvig issued a sweeping restraining order to keep McClellan away from children. He was barred from coming within ten yards of any child in the state for three years. What happens if he rides a bus?
However, a spokesman for the city`s attorney said that while McClellan did violate that order, there was no additional hearing to give McClellan notice of the more extensive nature of the judge`s order. Usually, the restraining orders are only good for about three weeks, so they had to cut him loose.
Now it seems official: no matter what this guy does, no matter how much fair warning Jack McClellan gives us on his evil thoughts and perverted inclinations, the state of California is going to keep their hands off him until he puts his hands on some unsuspecting child.
You know what? Honestly, I mean this. Between the mud slides, the earthquakes, Hollywood, California, I don`t know how you do it. I really don`t. You scare me.
Wendy Murphy is a former prosecutor and the author of the forthcoming book "And Justice for Some".
Wendy, how did they screw this up?
WENDY MURPHY, AUTHOR, "AND JUSTICE FOR SOME`: Let me clarify one thing. The judge issued two different orders. One was forbidding this guy to come within ten yards of all people under the age of 18 all across the state of California.
BECK: Not even possible, right? The guy couldn`t have ever left his house, which I`m not saying is a bad idea. But you`re constantly violating that.
MURPHY: Of course. And frankly, I never even suggested that sort of thing as a remedy for the folks who were concerned, because I think it`s unconstitutional.
BECK: OK.
MURPHY: But there was another order that only applied to the Santa Clarita area, because that`s where the two parents were from, the ones who filed the request originally. And that`s still alive.
Likewise, the order that I think is unconstitutional is still technically out there, still viable. But I think we`ve heard loud and clear from the city attorney, they don`t have any intention of going after this guy. Both for the procedural reasons you said and also because I think, politically, the city attorney is pandering a bit to his constituents, who think this is a little bit too, you know, harsh on his freedom.
I think we`ve got to find a compromise.
BECK: Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait.
MURPHY: Let me tell you why I think that. The first comment that came out of the city attorney`s office today, the early wire stories basically said what you reported, that it was all this, you know, procedural. We didn`t give him a hearing and so forth.
Later in the day, the city attorney said, "Oh, we think it`s unconstitutionally overbroad." Well, why didn`t that come out the first time?
What does it really mean, Glenn? It means that somebody`s got to get all the folks who care in a room to come up with a narrowly tailored order that actually restrains this guy. Because it isn`t about free speech.
He`s not just doing speech, he`s doing speech plus. Speech plus photographs, speech plus walking near the children. Speech plus teaching all the predators how to hunt down little girls and the joys of raping them. That`s not free speech. That`s actually speech plus action, which is not constitutionally protected in the same way that pure speech is.
BECK: You know what? I have news for you. I think -- honestly, I think George Washington or James Madison or Thomas Jefferson would come up and just slap us across the face if we said this is protected speech. They would slap us. It doesn`t mean that we`re handcuffed to just nincompoops.
I mean, we`ve got to have some common sense here. There`s got to be some way to get a guy who is -- you know what, you look at any religious thought, anywhere from, you know, Sufi, that upon which you gaze upon you become, to Jesus, "as you think so shall it be."
I mean, all of this stuff will tell you, a man`s mind, a man`s thoughts become action. You can`t live in this world.
MURPHY: Well, I`m not going to go that far. I`m not going to go that far, because I think it`s very important, no matter what you`re saying, that you be allowed to say things that are disagreeable, offensive...
BECK: Not -- not when it`s -- look how hot these children are and look where they are.
MURPHY: I agree with you. I agree with you. But here`s the solution, Glenn. And there`s actually a member of the legislature in California, an assemblywoman, I think, who`s already got something written up.
She basically wants to codify what is sort of the stalking endangerment-like law that would actually give prosecutors the responsibility, the duty and the power to go after this guy. That`s pending.
BECK: OK. I`ve got ten seconds, Wendy. Quickly. If somebody goes out and rapes a kid, and they find his web site on their computer, is he held responsible at all?
MURPHY: You know, I`m going to try like hell to go after him if there`s anything I can do about it, if that happens. In the meantime, all parents should do what he`s doing: take his picture, post it all over the neighborhoods, get his name out there. Haunt and stalk him. How`s that for free speech?
BECK: Wendy, thanks a lot.
Coming up, Hillary is taking heat again for -- for her stance on the war, and it`s coming from her own party. Why her thoughts on the troop surge set her apart from the pack.
Plus, foreclosures are up almost 100 percent this year and now Congress wants to bail everybody out so they don`t lose their homes. Sounds good, right? Yes, not so much. You`ll find out in tonight`s "Real Story".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Do not adjust your set, America. Someone in the media is about to give you good news out of Iraq. I am happy to report that the troop surge is working. And that is not just my opinion.
According to the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Carl Levin, President Bush`s plan has yielded, quote, "credible and positive results." He really said that?
Hillary Clinton couldn`t even deny things are improving in Iraq. But then got blasted by her own party for doing so. The bottom line is this: politicians are largely a group of spineless weasels on both sides of the aisle who will change their position based on the latest polls.
The doves in Congress has been betting that America`s antiwar, but it`s not true. When a war is just, Americans are ready, willing and able to fight a good fight. What we`re against is losing.
Dave Glover from KFTK, 97.1 FM in St. Louis.
Dave, and she actually said, and they`re parsing words here. She actually said that the tactics are working, not the surge. Is there a difference?
DAVE GLOVER, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: You know, Glenn, let`s bring it down to the real world and say what everybody else at home is thinking. There are politicians, and there are leaders. And there`s about 99 politicians for every leader.
Not just people running for president, but in your family, in your office, in your church. We all can think of the people in our life, who are the ones that blow with the wind, never want to give bad news, and who are the people who step up and they do what`s right, not what`s popular.
Hillary`s just following her nature. She`s being a politician.
BECK: Do you really think so? I mean...
GLOVER: Yes.
BECK: Wait, wait, wait, wait. When she came out and said the tactics are working, I mean, isn`t the surge a tactic? You know what? When she said that, she knows that`s not going to be popular with her -- with her base.
GLOVER: And I think it`s really an interesting point. I think Hillary is a natural leader, but like George Bush, who is also a natural leader, is falling into, succumbing to the political game. I think she really knows the surge is working, not just a tactic. And she believes that.
But as soon as she says it, and her constituents start screaming and griping, she pulls it back. That`s not -- that`s the mark of a politician, not a leader.
BECK: You know, I was talking a few minutes ago to Michael Scheuer, and he said that we should be watching Abraham Lincoln, we should study Abraham Lincoln.
And `m telling you, you know, you say that George Bush fell into politics. I believe that was true. I think that there is a -- I think there was a huge change that has happened in the last six, eight months with this surge thing.
I think he -- he is modeling himself after Lincoln, and he`s going to unleash these generals and shoot them in the head. You know, I mean, shoot the bad guys in the head, finally.
GLOVER: Let`s hope there`s enough time left in his -- his administration. Lincoln, Washington, FDR, Churchill, people despised these men during the war.
BECK: Oh, yes.
GLOVER: While they were leading, which is the nature of being a leader.
BECK: Sure.
GLOVER: Then history judged them to be -- to be right. And let`s hope that George Bush is one of those men that we`ll be talking about in 50 years and saying, he got it together.
BECK: The average American, because I don`t think -- I don`t think the average American, you know, they`re on these stories. I mean, they`ve already made up their mind. What does the average American say?
GLOVER: I think the average American -- let`s put it in a sports analogy, because we all know sports. The average American is not even going to the Cardinal game. I`m going to root for my team, the way all Americans root for their country to win. No one wants their country to lose or their team to lose.
But if the pitcher comes out tonight throwing underhanded, I will say to the person I`m with, we`re not playing to win. People know that we haven`t been fighting to win.
BECK: OK. Dave, thanks a lot.
Up next, why Congress has a billion-dollar mortgage bailout plan that could make things even worse. Don`t miss tonight`s "Real Story" coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: Coming up, political literacy put to the test. Who do you think reads more books, liberals or conservatives like me? Oh, I can`t wait to find out the surprising answer, next.
But first, welcome to the "Real Story." As the health care debate picks up steam, you`re undoubtedly going to continue to see critics like Michael Moore. He`s smart. I`ll bet he writes books and reads them, too. He`s going to cite all kinds of "evidence" showing just how broken our health care system is. In fact, here`s a clip from "Sicko."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL MOORE, FILMMAKER: The United States slipped to number 37 in health care around the world, just slightly ahead of Slovenia. But that`s understandable, because Congress was busy with other matters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: So let me see if I can translate that, because you`re probably a conservative and you`re slow. Republicans are so busy with Iraq that doctors now have to cut the patient`s legs off with a handsaw. Is that about right, Mr. Michael Moore?
There`s one stat in that clip that was accurate. The WHO does rank our health care system 37th best in the world. Panic! America, how could that possibly be? The "Real Story" is, I wish we were ranked a whole lot lower by the WHO, because the WHO cares less about the quality of health care than the distribution of health care. And by distribution, I, of course, do mean socialism.
What Moore and others won`t tell you is that the WHO ranking is garbage for two reasons. First, the study takes the overall life expectancy into account. Now, I`m not sure if you`ve noticed, but the U.S. has a few more fatal car accidents than countries where bikes and rickshaws are the main transportation option. That really doesn`t have anything to do with the quality of our health care, does it? Our homicide rate, also a lot higher than many countries. And while that`s nothing to brag about, it has no relevance on how skilled our doctors are.
The second reason we`re ranked so low on the WHO list is the one I mentioned earlier. The WHO looks at how, quote, "fairly" health care is distributed. But, again, that doesn`t have anything to do with the quality of health care. It`s just a play to make you envy the system in France, a system with huge tax burdens, 40 percent co-pays, long waiting lists, and DMV-style service. Wow, that sounds great. How do I sign up? Oh, I remember, I think I sign up at the voting booth next November.
Michael Tanner is the director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute.
Michael, first of all, the list of the WHO, isn`t that kind of like saying, "Here`s a list of the best cars out there," but the list is compiled by companies that make SUVs and you have to take into account which one has the heaviest curve weight and the worst gas mileage?
MICHAEL TANNER, HEALTH AND WELFARE STUDIES, CATO INSTITUTE: That`s right. You can get any answer you want if you get to set the criteria. And in this study, they got to set criteria, like which countries had the most progressive tax rate. We got knocked down in the United States for having things like health savings accounts. So they actually used a lot of criteria that had nothing to do with health and had a lot to do with the authors` political bias.
BECK: And life expectancy, I mean, I had a Swedish doctor tell me one time, who was a doctor over in Sweden, and said the health care itself is the same over in Sweden as it is here, he said but the quality of life is better here, because you don`t have the long waiting lists and you`re not necessarily in pain waiting for surgery, et cetera, et cetera. Beyond that, you have life expectancy. Explain, if you will, the same health care system, how life expectancy in Utah can be different than the life expectancy in Nevada?
TANNER: Well, that`s right. And I don`t think Utah has a more socialized health care system than Nevada. The fact is, there`s all sorts of outside factors that have nothing to do with health care. They can range from things like whether people smoke or not to how many people are overweight. And they can do things like drug abuse, automobile accidents, homicides. In fact, if you actually take out homicides and accidents from the figures, the United States goes right up to the top of the list in life expectancy.
BECK: And then you have low infant mortality rate. This is a numbers game that, correct me if I`m wrong, we just track things differently than other countries.
TANNER: Well, that`s right. Even the OECD which track these numbers says you shouldn`t use them for cross-country comparisons because the definitions are very different. In many other countries, babies that are born alive in the United States and don`t live very long because they`re of such low birth weight or they have birth defects would simply be listed as a still birth in the other countries. They wouldn`t try to save them. But at any specific birth weight, you`re much more likely to have the baby survive in the United States than in other countries.
BECK: And this is the one stat that drives me out of my mind: 45 million people without health insurance here in America. Everybody, Republicans and Democrats, quote it. How is it wrong?
TANNER: Well, first of all, about a third of those people are actually eligible for government programs. Now, they could go on Medicaid but they just haven`t signed up. And most of the others are uninsured for just a short period of time. It`s a snapshot. It says they`re uninsured today; it doesn`t mean they`ll be uninsured tomorrow or that they were uninsured yesterday. Many people go in and out of the insurance markets. And, sure, we need to fix that, but it doesn`t mean that they`re born without insurance and then die without insurance 70-some-odd years later.
BECK: All right, Michael, thank you very much.
Now, let`s go to home foreclosures. Wow, up 93 percent from last year. The mortgage crisis has gone from Main Street, unfortunately for you and me, right to Pennsylvania Avenue. Once again, the politicians are going to come in and save the day because everybody knows, if something`s broken, the government`s good at fixing things.
So what are they proposing? Well, among other things, Hillary Clinton wants to put $2 billion in federal money -- that`s your money and my money -- into various funds to help homeowners. Oh, she cares about people. Not to be outdone, John Edwards says, "I care about people even more." The champion of the poor and the $400 haircut wants federal bailout plus mandatory restructuring of the terms of many existing home mortgages.
All of that probably sounds appealing, because, I mean, who doesn`t like free money from the government? They`ll just make more. The real story is that what we`re going through right now might be difficult. It may be ugly now. It may be getting a lot, lot worse. But it`s healthy.
One of the Democrats` favorite ideas, besides bailout funds, is to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are the two government-sponsored lenders -- hear those words -- to temporarily take on a lot more mortgages than they`re currently allowed to. Well, what a fantastic idea. So that way, when those loans go bad, we get to shift the burden from the people who actually wrote the loans and took the loans -- you know, the ones who were actually responsible -- and shift that burden right to you and me, people who didn`t have anything to do with them. That sounds great. It will make the $519 billion S&L bailout from the 1980s seem like a picnic.
Look, you know this if you`re a long-time watcher or listener to this program. I`m an alcoholic. I`m a frickin` drunk, OK? You know what? When you have too much to drink, you pay for it the next day, not fun, not pretty. But blackouts and hangovers are the price you pay for the party. And it`s only because of those blackouts and hangovers that I stopped and changed my behavior.
Well, we`ve spent the last years in low-interest-rate happy hour, buying stuff we could never afford, and spending money we shouldn`t have. Now it`s time for the hangover and the blackout. And, you know, while I`m sober today, America, you know, is not really sober. I just wish I wouldn`t have wasted all those great blackouts because I could really use one now to forget about the stupidity that I continue to see out of the pinheads in Washington.
Aaron Task is the editor-at-large of TheStreet.com. Hi, Aaron.
AARON TASK, THESTREET.COM: Hi, Glenn.
BECK: Well, I see you here, and I think to myself, I just have to recap this. The last time you were on with me, I said, "Come on, it`s 14,000 -- this is a bubble. This is bad." And you said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TASK: I do disagree with you, Glenn. I think the market is very strong fundamentally, and it`s a lot different than it was in 1999 and 2000.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Uh-oh.
TASK: Well, it was different. It is different than 1999 and 2000. Back then, everyone was becoming a day-trader and dentists were leaving their practice so they could trade stocks, and that`s what you were hinting at what is happening now, and that`s not what`s going on. I would say that you were right for the wrong reasons.
BECK: OK. All right. Look, not everybody is right, but you -- please tell me that we agree on this, that a bailout is a colossally bad idea.
TASK: It is a bad idea, and I do agree with you that you do need to have these periodic shakeouts in an industry like the mortgage industry where people were just lending money. There was the liar loans, the no- document loans, where people who were not even citizens of this country were getting loans from approved lenders. And that was obviously ridiculous and outrageous and needed to stop. And there needs to be mortgage lenders that go out of business. The problem is, if you just let it all shake out, there`s going to be a lot of people who are going to lose their homes. And that becomes a, quote, unquote, "real economy" problem, instead of a problem for Wall Street.
BECK: You know what? Let me tell you something, Aaron. And if you`re a newsletter subscriber at glennbeck.com, you`ll be able to find this interview I did on the radio today. I talked to the woman who wrote the book "The Forgotten Man." It is tremendous. Have you read it?
TASK: I have not read it. I`ve heard very good things about it.
BECK: It is tremendous. It is the history of the Depression and the New Deal. The Depression was not caused by the stock market crash. It was caused by the government going in and trying to fix things and scaring the bat crap out of business so you couldn`t recover.
TASK: Right, and the Fed also did some dumb things back then.
BECK: Absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: It`s much more complicated than just that. But the point is, when government gets involved, they screw it up. Punish the people through capitalism that screwed this thing up, take the hit and recover from it.
TASK: Well, you are seeing that. I mean, you`re seeing American Home Mortgage go out of business, and Luminen (ph), and New Century, a lot of these other lenders either going out of business or laying off a lot of people. The problem if you`re a politician is that a lot of those people being laid off are your constituents. Others of your constituents are losing their home. And so you`re going to have to do something about it. You can`t just say, "Well, take your punishment."
BECK: Yes, you can. If you care about the country, that`s exactly what you do. Aaron, thank you very much.
TASK: Thank you.
BECK: We`ll talk to you again.
That`s the "Real Story" tonight. If you`d like to read more about this or you found a real story of your own that you`d like to tell us about, please visit glennbeck.com and click on the "Real Story" button. Also, that`s the place where you can sign up for our newsletter at glennbeck.com.
Coming up, why the liberals read more than conservatives. It`s because we`re dumb. Stick around. I`ll tell you about it.
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BECK: There`s this new report out that, you know, that conservatives just don`t read books. They just don`t do it, you know? They`re just looking for bumper stickers. That`s all they`re looking for. "No, we`re too busy reading the Bible. That`s all we read." Which is weird, because the most conservative book ever written seems to be the world`s best- selling book, but that`s a different story.
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BECK: I love these pointless polls. You know, I even love it more when people try to analyze them. So let`s do it together, shall we? Pat Schroeder, she`s the president of the American Association of Publishers and former House Democrat. I didn`t know that one. She thinks she knows exactly why liberals read one whole book more than conservatives every single year.
Quote, "The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple of slogans. No, don`t raise my taxes. No new taxes. It`s pretty hard to write a book saying, `No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes` on every page."
Actually, Pat, it`s really kind of hard to write a new book on how well tax cuts work since it`s pretty much been a foregone conclusion since about 1911. But I also find it pretty comical that this woman could possibly be making the argument that the party of no war for oil, the U.S. out of my uterus, one nation under surveillance -- I love that one -- selected not elected, the left is right, Jesus was a liberal, more trees, less Bushes, actually claiming that conservatives are the ones who live on bumper sticker slogans.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a nationally syndicated columnist. Earl, are conservatives like me just slow readers and dummies?
EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON, POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I wouldn`t say that. As a matter of fact, some of my best friends are conservatives, and at times...
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: Oh, that`s what you always say. Prove your friends, Earl.
HUTCHINSON: There they are. But you know what? We do read books. Now, let`s get to the A.P.-Ipsos survey and let`s get to Miss Pat Schroeder. Pat Schroeder`s a liberal. We know that.
We also know something else, that when you look at the book business in general, now, there might be a little something to it, Glenn, if you think of it this way. When you look at a lot of the books that are written that are on the market today, a lot of them are written by liberal academicians, liberal historians, sociologists, psychologists. And also the book business itself, it`s in your neck of the woods, New York City.
So by definition and also history, a lot of liberals do write books and they do get them published. So I wouldn`t be too surprised to see that there is a liberal constituency, a liberal audience, and, yes, a liberal reading public out there. Now, Glenn, that`s not to say that you`re stupid or dumb and you don`t read books now, we`re not saying that.
(CROSSTALK)
BECK: No, I totally agree with you. I mean, look, here`s, you know, a big-time liberal, and she`s in charge of the biggest book publishing group out there. She`s speaking for them. That`s who she is. And you know what? A lot of the publishers -- believe me, because I`ve met them -- a lot of the publishers are on-fire liberal. There`s not a lot of conservative books that are written. A lot of even the history books are written by flaming on-fire liberals. Why do they want to subject themselves to that?
HUTCHINSON: OK, so that`s the whole point. So, Glenn, you`re actually kind of underscoring what I`m saying. You`re essentially saying that, look, if you`ve got an industry out there, and they pump out a lot of books every year -- I think the last count I saw was over 3 million books that are turned out every year.
Now, if that`s the case -- maybe more than that -- if that`s the case, it`s in New York City. You`ve got a liberal academic writing audience, reading audience out there. Why should it surprise anyone with this study, this survey, and even if Pat Schroeder has an agenda, a hidden agenda to make that point, which she probably does...
BECK: I`m not going to go that far. I don`t think it`s an agenda. I just think people see things differently. I mean, I swear to you, now that I live here in New York, I begin to understand the media a little bit more. I understand everything a little bit more. The people who live on this island, they think that this is America and anything across the river, it`s some far distant land. There are crazy people that live there. I mean, they just see the world differently. I don`t think it`s an agenda.
HUTCHINSON: Well, no, but I was saying because she is a liberal, so oftentimes there is an inference there. And, by the way, I`ve heard commentary and some comments since this study came out, and many people are saying, "Wait a minute, are you saying conservatives are stupider, that they`re dumber because they don`t read books?"
I think probably the better thing to say is this. If we move away for a second from who reads what or who doesn`t read what books, how about just being well-versed? Now, when you really put it that way, I think it`s fair to say that the Glenn Becks, the Earl Ofari Hutchinsons, liberal or conservatives of the world, many of us are pretty darn well-versed, whether we read a book or not.
BECK: Again, once again, everything is always spun for political reasons, and it`s so ridiculous. OK, so liberals read one more book than conservatives do. Here`s the real thing that we should be talking about in this study that there is one out of four Americans that read no books.
HUTCHINSON: No books, right. Now, are they liberal or conservative? See the study didn`t ask that. When I saw that, I wanted to know this. Now, OK, one out of four Americans read no books every year. Are they liberal or are they conservative? It would have been interesting if they had fine-tuned it a little bit more. We might find something.
BECK: You know what? And not even to say that the people who don`t read any books are stupid, they may get their information from the Internet or whatever.
HUTCHINSON: Absolutely they do. The world has changed.
BECK: Absolutely.
HUTCHINSON: The world has changed.
BECK: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We`ll be back in just a minute.
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BECK: Welcome to America, a land filled with people that were so frustrated with the Congress they elected, only 26 approved of their performance, so they voted them out, brought in the Democrats. And now only 18 percent approve, and for good reason. That is the lowest in recorded history, by the way.
Even though the polls show that we`re generally happy people, we can find something to complain about. It`s part of our human condition. But as we approach the election season, politicians are going to try to capitalize on that. They`re going to start to promise solutions to all of our problems from our jobs, to our health, even the weather. You know, as the cycle continues, we`ll all, you know, stand around when they don`t deliver and we`ll say, "Gee, what happened? They promised us."
Luckily some people are rising above their obstacles and taking matters into their own hands and achieving things that, quite honestly, just make me feel worse about myself. Sheila Drummond, she is a 53-year- old amateur golfer. She recently got a hole in one on a par 3 hole. OK, impressive enough, but not television-worthy. You know, but it is impressive, especially since I have the athletic ability of a hamster that`s too lazy to get on the wheel. But it makes me feel even more pathetic when I realize that not only did Sheila get the hole in one in the pouring rain, but she`s also blind.
She has been blind for 26 years, and she`s only been playing golf for 15, meaning that she learned to play golf while blind. Remember that the next time that you slice one into the woods or kill a passing squirrel. Just think about Sheila. According to the United States Blind Golfers Association -- which they tell me really does exist -- it is the first time a totally blind female has ever recorded a hole in one.
Now, another record, while not as impressive, can top not only golf, but even watching golf while blind, in terms of boredom, Les Stewart, apparently not a busy guy, in 1983 completed the achievement of counting from one to one million on his typewriter. Wow, let`s get him signed up for universal health care.
Some people would say that`s not enough to hang your hat on for one lifetime, but he thought that for a while, then he realized, "No, no, I can do more." He decided to count from one to one million again on his typewriter, but this time no numerals. No, he`s going to use words. It took him 16 years to accomplish.
Since his record has been voted the third most bizarre record in history, he`s getting a new level of recognition. And when I use the word "level," I mean, "some." He`s getting some recognition, this program. What an accomplishment.
Don`t forget, you want to know what`s on tomorrow`s program or if you`d like a little more in-depth commentary on the news of the day, sign up for my free daily newsletter at glennbeck.com. From New York, good night, America.
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