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Glenn Beck

Is Windfall Profits Tax a Good Idea?

Aired May 06, 2008 - 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, should the government regulate excessive profits while big oil makes big bucks? Solutions that pretty much equal socialism. That`s one bright idea, courtesy of Congress.

Plus, Michelle Obama lowers the bar. Revealing comments from Barack`s wife which would make every voter want to give his candidacy a second look.

And Stephen King pulls a John Kerry. I`ll give you the words of our king of horror about the men and women in uniform.

All this and more tonight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Well, hello, America.

It`s a good, good thing I`m all hyped up on Benadryl or I think I`d never be able to get through the news today, because it`s insane.

Last night I told you how some in our government and some who want to be our president think we should have a windfall profits tax. Wow. What`s that? That sounds good. Last night I thought it was about as Orwellian as you could possibly get. You know, Big Brother punishing you for being successful. Turns out, oh no, it gets much worse.

Today, the Democrats on the hill met with economists as they begin to put together a plan to save our economy. Oh, yes. These are the clowns to do it. Part of the brain trust is Pennsylvania Congressman Paul Kanjorski. He is proposing -- and I ain`t making this up -- the formation of a reasonable profits board. This is to determine if energy companies earnings exceed a rational threshold. OK.

Here`s "The Point" tonight. A reasonable profits board would turn us into -- I`m not sure, communist Russia? Putin`s Russia? And here`s how I got there.

Go ahead. You can call me the crazy conservative on TV, listen to the clown again. Too bad the facts speak for themselves. But first, let me get to the opinion. All right. Let me get the opinion out of the way.

I`m a businessman and when it comes to profits, oh, let me twirl my mustache. I don`t want them to be reasonable. Do you want your profits to be reasonable? As long as it`s legal, as long as it`s ethical, I want the profits as big as I can get them. I want it, and you should, too. That`s called capitalism, and it`s at the heart of our economy. It`s the expression of our basic freedoms. Doesn`t mean you screw everybody to get the buck, but come on.

No man, especially a politician, should tell anyone how successful they can be. What if the government tried to tell you the reasonable number of children you should have or whether your chosen faith was reasonable? God gave me free will. Founding Fathers guaranteed my freedom of choice. End of story. Those are the facts.

Well, actually, here`s some more. If I tell an oil company that they can only earn so much profit, what do you think happens? They`re going to limit their effort. People are going to stop investing in their company. They`re going to divert their attention. They`re going to stop exploration.

How do I know this? Because we already tried this in the 1980s and, according to the Congressional Research Service, domestic oil production decreased by 6 percent and dependence on foreign oil increased by 16 percent. We`re all suffering right now under that legacy from Congress.

Why should companies invest the billions to explore for more oil when Congress will only strangle the return on that investment? Unless you want $5 or $10 gallon gas, you better hope the oil companies are thinking about where they can -- they should drill underneath my door mat. They should be looking for oil everywhere, including ANWR and every place else.

Secondly, what about the other industries? I mean, other industries with huge profit margins that exceed big oil? Information technology, grain production, railroads, tobacco, steel, professional sports, hedge fund managers and even Hollywood. They earn a lot more than oil does.

I know it`s politically convenient to hate the fat cat oil companies, but it`s un-American to gouge only them. Some that say oil is different, because we can`t live without oil. We can live without Hollywood, and I`d like to try. But why not say that about cars? Why not say that about food or houses? We need all of those, as well. Should we decide how reasonable their profits should be? Of course not.

So America, here`s what you need to know. Reasonable? Reasonable is in the eye of the beholder. And when it comes to the marketplace, government should take its eyes and put them elsewhere. Remember, nations in the old eastern block failed under communism and socialist economies. And then they were reborn with the introduction of free markets.

How come we`re going the other direction? You know what? If companies are willing to invest and take big risks, even oil companies, they should be allowed and encouraged to reap big rewards.

Jonah Goldberg is the editor for the "National Review" online and author of the "New York Times" best-seller, "Liberal Fascism"; and Yaron Brook is the executive director and president of the Ayn Rand Institute.

Yaron, let me start with you. Newspapers, Google, Microsoft, they all make 20 percent profit. Twenty percent is their margin of profit. Big oil is only 8 -- well, I think it`s like 8.6 percent. Why aren`t we going after Microsoft?

YARON BROOK, PRESIDENT, AYN RAND INSTITUTE: We should be encouraging the oil companies to make more money then, if that`s the case. I mean, that`s what America is about. That`s the idea of capitalism. Make as much money as you can and now we want to -- now we want to penalize their motivation.

All these start-ups in Silicon Valley make huge amounts of money when they`re successful, much more money than the oil companies. And we want to penalize them and their investors. We want to penalize shareholders. This is immoral and an economical travesty. Just absurd.

BECK: All right. So Jonah, but they would say that oil is essential. We have to have oil. But what about food, Jonah?

JONAH GOLDBERG, AUTHOR, "LIBERAL FASCISM": Yes. I agree with both of you guys entirely. The idea of a windfall profits tax is essentially a pinata of asininity. And you can bash it from almost any angle, and it will reap some reward.

When they say they want to tax windfall profits, what they want to do is, in effect, tax the rate of return on investments of pension fund and blue-collar workers in oil companies. They`re the ones that are going to be paying the price. It`s going to drive the price of oil up.

And you`re right. The idea of a windfall profit is entirely in the eye of the beholder. We only call it windfall profits, profits that other people make. Not profits that we made.

BECK: Jonah, wouldn`t it also drive the price of the stock down? Because, I mean, who`s going to invest in a company that -- where your profits are capped?

GOLDBERG: Right. It`s either going to push stock prices down or push the price of oil up.

BECK: Most likely both.

GOLDBERG: It`s going to do almost everything contrary to what it`s allegedly supposed to do except for this somehow metaphorical idea to punish big oil companies.

BECK: Why punish them? They`re running the economy. The economy is run on oil. Let`s encourage them to go get more.

GOLDBERG: Absolutely.

BECK: Yaron, the government -- the premise if I understand this right, is the government says we know better. I`m going to take the profits and I want -- this is what Hillary Clinton says. I`m going to invest it in new research. Aren`t these the same people that have brought us the food shortage through ethanol?

BROOK: Absolutely. I mean, the worst thing that could have happened to alternative energy is the government to get involved. Let`s remember, oil ultimately is an alternative energy. It`s an alternative to whale oil. It`s -- electricity was an alternative to kerosene.

I mean, a market for those alternative energy when it`s economically feasible to do so. If they really care about oil prices, what they should be allowing is drilling in ANWR, drilling off the coast of California, drilling in your living room, drilling off the coast of Florida.

Let these companies explore for oil. That`s what they`re there for and they have the incentive to do it and capital to do it because they made so much money.

BECK: Yaron, we`re looking at -- Goldman Sachs said today $150 a barrel, $200 a barrel oil in the future, in the next six to 24 months. That is going to be -- that will hammer this economy. I don`t know how you survive $200 a barrel oil.

This is the kind of stuff that I`ve been afraid of for a while coming from these clowns in Washington. But Ayn Rand wrote about it in "Atlas Shrugged." I said on the TV show last night, when`s the last time you picked up Ayn Rand? I happened to read it again. Thank God I highlighted it last time...

BROOK: Good.

BECK: ... because it`s like a billion pages. But it`s -- all this stuff is there. What does she say, if you would follow her thinking, is next? What`s the next step from this?

BROOK: Well, I think -- I think we`re moving towards a situation where the politicians increasingly feel like they have to get involved in the economy. They seem to want to control, to regulate.

This is the first recession in a long time. We`re coming out of the recession. We`re going to see more and more, bigger and bigger government and more regulations. And ultimately, this leads to state-ism. This leads to more and more loss of our freedoms, a loss of our individual rights. What this country is really all about.

But read "Atlas Shrugged," because it`s right in there. I mean, this board for unreasonable profits, it could have been picked right out of the pages.

BECK: Oh yes.

GOLDBERG: One other point about the planning thing. You know, ten years ago, Bill Clinton vetoed the effort to drill for oil on ANWR.

BECK: I know.

GOLDBERG: And one of the criticisms back then was, "Well, it takes ten years to get that oil online.

BECK: Yes.

GOLDBERG: Here we are.

BECK: Do it now. Doesn`t it? Hang on just a second. Jonah, stand by, because we`re coming back with Rosie O`Donnell. She`s -- she`s better than ever. And it`s time to find out what she thinks of Reverend Wright. Who`s asking her this question? She`s got the answer, though. We`ll join -- be joined with Jonah Goldberg again in a second.

Then, a deeper look into Senator Barack Obama. Who is this guy? The man, not the politician. Today we`re going to look at one of his closest confidants, his wife Michelle. You will not believe what she said in North Carolina last night. She`s going to influence the man who could be our next president. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Part of the American dream is reaching for the brass ring, extending yourself, working hard. I hate that part of the dream. Getting a piece or maybe even five pieces of the pie.

Apparently, some of the people -- some people in politics don`t see it quite that way. Some surprising comments from Michelle Obama, which suggests she`d like to lower the bar. Wait until you hear what she said last night in North Carolina. We`ll take a look at the woman behind the man who just may be our next president in tonight`s "Real Story."

But first, if you`re looking for proof that God exists, let me remind you that Rosie O`Donnell is no longer on daytime TV. All right. You need more. She does pop up from time to time. We just have to remind ourself that, you know, she is a raving lunatic, and we reminded yesterday she was on "The Today Show." She claimed that many have confused her passion for rage. Much in the same way they have with Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

She says that Obama`s spiritual leader makes a lot of sense to her. Watch the crazy train fly off the track.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSIE O`DONNELL, COMEDIAN: I was not as offended as the people in the polls that I read. I looked at him, and frankly, it made sense to me. I totally understood what he was saying.

KATHY LEE GIFFORD, SINGER: Which part made sense to you? That we introduced AIDS into the black community?

O`DONNELL: You know what it`s like to pull one quote out of context. He was comparing it to when the government did give syphilis to black Americans for 40 years. What he was saying is in his history, in his genetic memory, he knows what it`s like for the government to infect his own people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: In his genetic memory. Hmm.

First of all, Rosie has it wrong yet again. I mean, the issue of race continues to be an issue in this campaign season. I want to bring "National Review" editor and writer of "Liberal Fascism," Jonah Goldberg, back with us.

I mean, she`s wrong. This is -- the government never infected anyone with anything. Right or wrong, Jonah?

GOLDBERG: Yes, at least in regards to Tuskegee. I mean, if you want to talk about blankets given out to Indians, there`s some controversy about that. But...

BECK: We talk to Ward Churchill on that one.

GOLDBERG: Yes. But I mean, even there it`s sort of a -- a topic for another day. But no. On Rosie, I mean, look, you`re right. The first thing you have to remember is that she`s not smart enough to be a spell checker at an M&M factory. But moving beyond that, people do listen to us.

BECK: "These are all `W`s`!"

GOLDBERG: "And these are funny looking `Z`s`." And the second thing is, you`re right. In the Tuskegee thing, the government never gave anybody -- infected anybody with syphilis.

BECK: Right. Not like it makes it better, but what they did was they held back -- they said they were treating them, and they weren`t treating them. They wanted to use them as a -- as a control group.

GOLDBERG: Well, yes. And no. The problem is in 1930s when it started and into the 1940s, there really was no good treatment for latent stage syphilis. So it wasn`t like they had a great option around. There was only -- until the `50s when you could make an argument about they should have given them penicillin. There was an argument about whether that was safe. So in fact it`s very complicated.

But the idea that somehow the Tuskegee thing, whether it`s in your genetic memory or not -- I don`t know what the hell that means. If a conservative referred to black people`s genetic memory, there would be...

BECK: Oh, my God.

Help me out on this, because I don`t understand. These liberals who are the most paranoid about the government, that the government is manufacturing AIDS, also want the largest government.

The more I distrust my government, the smaller I want it to be. The more I want to make sure that my Second Amendment rights are intact. These guys don`t trust the government at all and, yet, they want to get rid of the Second Amendment, and they want to make the government as big as they can get.

GOLDBERG: Right. Well, this is the internal contradiction not only of black liberalism or black left-wing politics, but also, you know, I have to say, you know, in full fairness, about Jewish liberalism.

I mean, Jews have internalized the lessons of the Holocaust so that, you know, the overriding political impulse is never again, which is perfectly understandable. But they then translate that into making it as big and as powerful a government as possible that has no natural limits as defined in, say the Bill or Rights or anything like that.

And you have the same thing with a lot of black Americans. If you really fundamentally believe that all it takes for government to become incredibly evil and dangerous is to elect Republicans into office, then what you want to do is you want to set up a situation -- the system in such a way so that, even if Republicans are in office, they can`t do anything terrible to you, which means shrinking the power of government, limiting government as much as possible. But this seems to elude so many people on the left.

BECK: And you know what it is? It`s -- it`s kind of -- I think I even read it in your book. The idea with Mussolini. As long as it`s a good benevolent dictator, a dictator is fine. Where I don`t think a dictator is a good idea. Because they`re always followed by a really bad one.

GOLDBERG: Well, it`s the same thing we were talking about in an earlier segment, about you know, the government setting up a panel. We`re talking about reasonable profits and unreasonable profits. Who is to say that the next guy gets in power, might not want to point it at Hollywood or authors or newspapers or whoever? The whole point is not to give government that power in the first place.

BECK: I`ve got to tell you, the whole idea of newspapers and Hollywood, I`ll all down with that.

Thanks, Jonah. I appreciate it.

Coming up, I`ll be speaking to a man who has seen the future of the airline industry. He name is David Neeleman. How is he going to change the way we fly, next?

And some might suggest having a woman or an African-American as president actually raises the bar. That`s a good thing. Why does Michelle Obama say that we`re lowering the bar? Why does she want to lower it? Find out in tonight`s "Real Story."

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: If you could start any kind of business in the world right now, what would it be? I think the last one I would start would be an airline. Just saying. With jet fuel prices up over 400 percent in the last 10 years, you can barely let pay for a plane to taxi to the gate, let alone fly across the country.

But David Neeleman -- he is the founder of JetBlue Airlines -- doesn`t seem to mind the challenge. He is always a leader in the airline industry.

David, you`re not -- you`re going to announce the name here of your new airline, but it`s not even in America. You`re not -- you didn`t build an airline in America.

DAVID NEELEMAN, FOUNDER, JETBLUE AIRLINES: Can`t build one here now.

BECK: Really?

NEELEMAN: I would call it an overdeveloped market.

BECK: Right. Did any of this have to do with moving to -- to Brazil and starting an airline in Brazil? Does any of it have to do with Brazil is looking to the future and we seem to be mired in the past?

NEELEMAN: Well, I think Brazil is -- it`s an amazing thing what Brazil`s done with its ethanol business. And it`s been blessed with this amazing land that grows sugar cane.

BECK: Right.

NEELEMAN: And it`s, you know, with all the problems with corn ethanol in the United States, sugar ethanol is completely different and so, yes. But it also has created -- this boom for Brazil has created maybe another 20 or 30 or 40 million people that have -- that have credit cards for the first time in the last two years.

BECK: Right.

NEELEMAN: And they`re -- it`s an emerging market where people are coming into the marketplace for the first time ever. A hundred and fifty million people in Brazil travel by bus 14, 18 hours. And only 42 million travel by plane.

So, you know, our job -- and fares are 60 percent higher in Brazil in absolute terms than they are here in the United States.

BECK: Wow.

NEELEMAN: So the question is, can we go down there even with high fuel prices? Can we go down there and get some of these people out of buses, get people traveling by air? It`s a really exciting prospect.

BECK: You`re the guy who put the bullet-proof door on the cockpit. You`re the guy who put the television in the back of the seat. You did the e-ticket thing. You`re letting people kind of help design this airline.

What are the new -- what is this one? What futuristic thing have you brought to this airline?

NEELEMAN: Well, you know, right now we put up a Web site, VoceEscolhe, which means in Portuguese, "you choose." And we let people give us ideas for names, and we have people vote on the names.

And then the next thing we`re going to do is come out with paint jobs on the airplanes and let people look at those and give us input. Uniforms. Give us ideas of new things they want to see inside the cabin.

You know, I think we have about 150,000 people now that are registered on this site that come to us that talk to it. You know, we`re trying to win their hearts and minds by saying this is going to be your airline. It`s not just ours. It`s going to be together we`re going to create that`s really something special here in Brazil.

BECK: And is the attitude the same? Have you created the same attitude as you did with JetBlue with the employees?

NEELEMAN: Same thing. We`re going to have -- we`re going to have the nicest people ever. And it`s not so hard in Brazil. People are really nice down there. But we`re on the search for, you know, even better -- really nice person or just a nice person. So we`re finding a lot of really nice people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK (voice-over): OK. Here it is. What a weird coincidence. The name of the new airline is Azul. Azul means "blue" in Portuguese. And they happen to be jets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Thanks, David. Back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, welcome to "The Real Story."

On yesterday`s program we started a discussion, then we ran out of time, about this presidential nomination process that just -- it just doesn`t seem like it`s going to end ever, does it? I told you last night I think we should treat this more like a court trial.

I mean, what would happen if the candidates actually had to provide actual evidence to back up some of their crazy statements? What would happen if we could call character witnesses to testify?

I don`t know. Let me hear from your mom for a second.

And most importantly, what would happen if candidates had to convince America beyond a reasonable doubt that they had the right character, they had the right judgment and the right heart to be our president?

Yes. Yes, I know. We`d never have a president of the United States if that were the case. But "The Real Story" is almost every single one of them would fail for good reason.

Tonight, I want to focus specifically on Barack Obama and his wife. I mean, you already know about his relationship with the reverend. But I think the key to understanding him is his wife.

Is the relationship with his pastor just an isolated error in judgment by him? Or is it a pattern? I said before, I don`t fault anybody for making bad decisions because, oh, yes, lots of them. But at some point your choices have to stop being called mistakes and start being called a direction, who you are.

Stephen Hayes is a senior writer at "The Weekly Standard" and author of "Cheney: The Untold Story of America`s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President."

Steve...

STEPHEN HAYES, SR. WRITER, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Hey, Glenn.

BECK: ... I want you to take me through some of these comments. The first one from Michelle Obama comes from a speech -- I have three pieces of a speech she gave last night. And I find them disturbing.

Here`s the first one. She said last night, "I`m not supposed to be here. I`m a statistical oddity. As a black girl raised on the south side of Chicago, I wasn`t supposed to go to Princeton. I wasn`t supposed to go to Harvard Law School because they said it would be too hard for me. And I`m certainly not supposed to be standing here with a chance to become the next first lady of the United States of America."

Well, that all sounds positive until you put it in context, where she was talking about -- and we`ll get into it later -- where they`re trying to steal this election. She looks at her accomplishments and somehow or another she did it in spite of America. Or despite America.

HAYES: Right, which is exactly the key point. I mean, I think if you just isolate and put a bracket around what you just read that Michelle Obama said, it sounds perfectly reasonable and, in fact, it corresponds quite closely with the kind of campaign that her husband running for months.

BECK: Correct.

HAYES: You know, up until Iowa and New Hampshire, when things started to -- when his rhetoric started to change. He was the candidate of hope. He was constantly talking about the kind of America that I think we all wanted to live in. Since then, though, I think as the Democratic campaign became more heated...

BECK: Right.

HAYES: ... he struck a different tone, and especially she has struck a different tone.

BECK: OK. So, you know, because I could say the same thing. Here in America, I`m not supposed to be here.

I`m a kid who grew up in a bakery. You know? My dad probably never made more than $25,000, $30,000 a year.

He bought his first new car, I don`t know, eight years ago. He`s 80 now, which is probably a bad idea for me buying him a car, but that`s a different story.

The same thing could be said, but she goes into her speech into this one. She then says, "This little 10-year-old girl" that she was talking to in this beauty shop started to cry. She "knows what`s at stake. She knows she`s already five steps behind. She knows that her hopes for college are already dwindling. She feels the veil of impossibility, and it is suffocating her."

Since when does America look to a leader to talk to us about the veil of impossibility?

HAYES: It`s an extraordinary comment if you take it literally. I mean, what does she mean by this little girl`s hopes are dwindling? In what sense is a 10-year-old girl, regardless of race, in what sense is a 10-year-old`s girl`s hopes dwindling today in America in 2008?

It`s simply not the case. And I think it`s that kind of rhetoric that has the potential to bet Michelle Obama and obviously her husband in real trouble, because most Americans simply don`t see the country that way.

And it`s -- you know, you can go back and there are not a lot of successful candidates who run a campaign, in effect, against America, in a certain respect. I`m not saying Barack Obama`s unpatriotic. Lord knows we don`t want to make those kinds of charges, just to clarify.

BECK: Oh, come on. I mean, look, they clearly -- and, you know, I think the key to understanding Barack Obama, you have to understand his wife.

If you know what she wrote in her thesis, if you know what her church stands for, I mean, it is an experience -- I`m trying to remember the exact quote in their mission statement. But it is that they -- they are hearkening back to the mother continent...

HAYES: Right.

BECK: ... of Africa. I mean, this is the mother continent. She was born here.

You look at some of these statement that we have dismissed. In fact, if we can bring up in her own stump speeches, she said these. And I`ve dismissed these in the past.

"For the first time in my adult lifetime, I`m really proud of my country -- not feeling so along in my frustration and disappointment."

Taken alone, you can say, OK, maybe she misspoke there.

The second one is, "The truth is... someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."

That`s Marxism. I don`t know how we write that one off.

And the last one that a lot of people dismissed was a theme when she was giving the speeches in South Carolina and Wisconsin. She said, "We`re a country that is just downright mean."

This isn`t us, is it?

HAYES: No. I mean, that is -- some of that is breathtaking in its scope and in its condemnation of America. And I think one of the reasons that this won`t work is because, by and large, people don`t believe that about the country they live in.

Even when you have, as we have now, 80 percent of the country saying - - answering pollsters and saying that our America seems to be on the wrong track, that doesn`t mean that people are starting to question sort of America`s fundamental ideals. And I don`t think that, you know, when you have somebody saying America is just downright mean, fundamentally people don`t believe that.

BECK: Right. This is really from the same ilk as Rosie O`Donnell and Barbra Streisand and all of these liberal elites that, you know, they say they love the country, and maybe they do, but they don`t understand the country the same way as we have traditionally understood it as a fundamentally good place that makes mistakes from time to time, but is really a good place that offers unlimited opportunity when the government gets out of the way.

HAYES: Right. And we don`t know to what extent Barack Obama believes the same thing his wife does, although I think you are right. I mean, I think, certainly, he is -- his wife is a key to understanding him.

BECK: Are you married, Steve?

HAYES: I am married.

BECK: Yes. You`re going to -- you`re not going to tell me on national television that your wife doesn`t -- no, I won`t put you in that position. Come on, your wife calls all the shots. You know it.

HAYES: Of course not. My wife is wonderful.

BECK: OK.

Let me give you the last thing from the speech, because I think this is a setup for what`s coming.

The summer of 1968, she says last night in a speech, "We have learned that we`re still living in a time and in a nation where the bar is set. They tell you all you need to do is do these things and you get to the bar. You`re working, you`re struggling, you get right to that bar. You`re reaching out for the bar, and then what happens? They raise the bar, keep it just out of reach, and that`s what`s happening in this race."

She is setting up that they`re taking it away from my husband. They keep moving the bar.

Right or wrong?

HAYES: Well, it`s interesting. I mean, I think as -- if you look at the context of the other things she`s said as sort of social commentary on the United States, I think it`s wrong. I mean, I think most people believe it`s wrong.

If you isolate it though and you look at it in the particular context in which we`re talking about now, this campaign primary with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in North Carolina and Indiana, you have the Clintons potentially were threatening to -- make rumblings about seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida, replaying the game in a sense, changing the rules.

So I wondered if there wasn`t a little bit of particular political mischief...

BECK: Oh.

HAYES: ... being at work in that statement.

BECK: Oh, yes. This is -- I mean, this is -- I mean, I think this is the case that you`re stealing it from me. And it`s -- and that`s about to rear its ugly head.

Stephen, thanks a lot. That`s "The Real Story" tonight.

HAYES: Great to be here.

BECK: If you`re tired of watching Barack and Hillary Clinton campaign about everything, except the issues that you care about, I have got good news for you. I`m coming to a city near you with my comedy political tour.

I`m not serious about any of the solutions. It`s Beck `08: Unelectable. Get your tickets today. Head over to glennbeck.com.

Tickets went on sale yesterday. Good seats are still available. We`re in a city near you. Check it out now and grab your tickets online.

We`ll be back in just a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Well, with the focus on food and energy, we don`t really hear much about the war in Iraq anymore, and even less about the war in Afghanistan. The reality is our brave men and women are continuing to fight and die there, and it`s a charge being led by our elite U.S. Special Forces.

These guys are truly amazing.

Now, we`re being told the Taliban fighters are using advanced deadly tactics. Our enemy has advanced, they`re sending us a wakeup call, one that we really can`t afford to ignore.

And to help us understand the extent of the problem, we have Master Sergeant Brandon O`Connor, a Special Forces medic who has just received the distinguished Service Cross for Valor for his work in Afghanistan, and Major Sheffield Ford III, former Special Forces detachment commander.

Major, let me start with you. Take me back to June, 2006.

There were hundreds of Taliban -- and I believe we had nine Green Berets. We had 48 Afghanis that were helping us. I think a total of 19 Americans were there, or 17 Americans.

What happened?

MAJ. SHEFFIELD FORD, FMR. U.S. SPECIAL FORCES ODA COMMANDER: Well, it`s a pretty long story. We went in to secure an area and help restore order and allow the villagers to come back in. And in the midst of doing so, we ran into a large group of Taliban that were setting in for attempting to set up points around Kandahar City in order for the Taliban to try to retake the city.

BECK: And, you had -- I mean, things got so bad, you had a Muslim translator with you, and they actually were going to kill the U.S. soldiers to save them?

SHEFFIELD: Yes, Jacob. He was one of the interpreters, one of six. And there was times when he even shielded the body of one of our wounded with his body in order to protect him from gunfire from the enemy.

And he was so close in the fighting, sometimes three to five meters, that he was yelling back and forth at the Taliban while they were trying to shoot at each other. And with the help of an Afghan lieutenant, maneuvered on and killed Taliban personnel that were trying to capture or kill them.

BECK: Master Sergeant, you took your body armor off and you went out and you crawled in the field to try to save a couple of U.S. soldiers. Tell me about that.

MAJ. SERGEANT BRANDON O`CONNOR, U.S. SPECIAL FORCES: Well, Mr. Beck, it was just a -- I kind of look at it as a what needed to be done. I looked at the terrain that lay between myself and my wounded fellow comrades, and saw the necessity to use the terrain to my advantage.

Unfortunately, the girth of my body armor prevented me to get low enough to do that, at least safely. So it was kind of a necessity in my mind. The lower they aimed their machine guns, the lower I needed to get.

BECK: I have to tell you guys, every time -- every time I meet somebody from our military, I am just blown away by the honor and integrity and the courage that you show. You really truly give so many of us hope in America that brighter days are still way ahead of us.

Tell me what we need to know about the Taliban. They have changed -- their weapons have changed? Their tactics are changed? What`s happened? What do we need to know?

SHEFFIELD: Well, the enemy that we ran into was an enemy that had the ability to shoot, move and communicate. They had leadership, they had command and control, and they had the ability to resupply while they were fighting.

This was something that we are not used to seeing at that time. Since then, there have been other instances where the Taliban has shown the ability to do so. However, the great American soldiers over there are fighting hard and are using our own tactics in order to put the Taliban down so that we can restore order to Afghanistan.

BECK: Gentlemen, I want you to know that while we may not talk about it all the time, we are -- our hearts and minds are with you every step of the way. I know my family prays for you on our knees every night.

We appreciate your service to our country, and I thank you very much for spending time with us tonight.

SHEFFIELD: Thank you.

BECK: All right. Time now for "The Real America," brought to you by CSX.

I`ve got to warn you, we`re going to talk about some more Army people and Stephen King would be upset.

Tonight, Robbie Doughty. He signed up for the Army at 17 years old. He had plans to make service his career, but all of those plans changed on July 8, 2004, when Robbie`s Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SGT. ROBBIE DOUGHTY, U.S. ARMY: The bomb basically took my right leg above the knee and my left leg below the knee. I didn`t lose my legs at that point, but the shrapnel damage to them would, you know, later cause them to be amputated during surgery.

BECK (voice over): Staff Sergeant Robert Doughty had to deal with having both of his legs being amputated. And for many people, something like that would send them into a deep depression, but not Robbie.

DOUGHTY: I did have a couple of bad days, but a lot of that stemmed from not knowing what I could do. You know, just as soon as I saw, you know, guys with physical therapy room with their running legs on, and I was like, well, I can still do that stuff.

You know? There was no bad feelings at all after that.

BECK: Robbie`s recovery was nothing short of incredible. The average time of rehab for his injury is 12 to 18 months, but Robbie`s was five months. It was that spirit and determination that inspired the head of Little Caesars Pizza to offer Robbie a franchise, free and clear.

DAVID SCIRVANO, PRESIDENT, LITTLE CAESAR ENTERPRISES: It originally started with our founder, Mike Ilitch. He read an article in a newspaper about a soldier, Robbie Doughty, who was injured in the war in Iraq. After he read about him, he saw in Robbie perseverance, some great attributes that would make him a leader.

DOUGHTY: It just kind of blew me away because it was just one of those opportunities of a lifetime where, you know, they read a story about me and they just saw my positive attitude from it and, you know, basically wanted to reward me for it.

BECK: So in 2007, Robbie opened the door to his Little Caesars store and a new life as an entrepreneur.

DOUGHTY: Are you supposed to be coming in tonight, too?

BECK: And just two months ago, he opened a second.

DOUGHTY: I thought, hey, here`s my chance to be my own boss, work with a food that I love and, you know, just start a new life for myself.

BECK: Based on Robbie`s success, Little Caesars has decided to start a special franchise program for veterans. Their hope, to inspire others the way Robbie inspired them.

SCIRVANO: For all veterans, we offer a $10,000 benefit to come join Little Caesars as a franchisee, and for injured veterans, which was really the true intent of the program, we offer a benefit up to $68,000. This is really about the veterans and the people who serve.

DOUGHTY: And it just -- you know, it changed our lives right there. We went from, you know, being a soldier in the Army to owning our own business. And I mean, we couldn`t be happier.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: That`s the way America should be.

As of today, there are 30 veterans taking advantage of the Little Caesars veterans franchise program. Call and order a pizza tonight and thank them for that.

To see more stories just like this one, click on CNN.com/glenn and look for "The Real America" section.

Tonight`s "Real America" sponsored by CSX. It is how tomorrow moves.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: Let me take you in the Mr. Peabody way back machine.

Remember way back to 2004? I know, I was 12. You remember the guy who lost to George W. Bush, and how everybody said, oh, he might run for president again? And then this happened...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don`t, you get stuck in Iraq.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Hmm. Still funny.

He called it a botched joke, but apparently many in the military didn`t like the insinuation that the members of the military were dummies.

Really? Who would have thought that?

Well, it looks like somebody has been plagiarizing his material. Now Stephen King at the Library of Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN KING, AUTHOR: I don`t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is that if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don`t, then you got the Army, Iraq. I don`t know. Something like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: It`s important to note that this wasn`t meant as an insult to troops. It`s just the way that Stephen King and all the elites like him think.

You know, you only go into the military when you can`t do anything else. I mean, you must be poor or really stupid.

I mean, it`s something you can do if you can`t get a job at a hedge fund or at an McDonald`s where the little people eat. Or, you know, maybe you just can`t get a job writing books about giant, stupid spiders, like at the end of "It."

I hated that ending.

I decided to leave a message today for my friend Marcus Luttrell -- you know, the slow Navy SEAL hero and the best-selling author of "Lone Survivor." I wanted to get his comments about Stephen King, but I couldn`t get him on the phone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCUS LUTTRELL, AUTHOR: Hey, this is Marcus. Can`t get to my phone right now. Leave a message and I`ll get back to you when I can.

BECK: Marcus, I don`t know if you heard about the comment from Stephen King, but I wanted to talk to you about it. I know I`m speaking slowly, but you apparently are a slow learner.

So call me. That`s something you do on the telephone. Telephone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I know he was sitting in his kitchen saying, God, is that you?

Amazingly, the video of Stephen King comes from the Library of Congress. I just hope he realizes that the knowledge contained in the Library of Congress is there because of sacrifices of heroic soldiers that chose to give their lives defending this country.

From New York, goodnight, America.

END