WaPo 'On Faith': Glenn Beck Using 'Same Strategy of the Hitler Youth'

Apparently, March 15 was “get Beck” day at the Washington Post. Columnist Howard Kurtz [1] criticized Fox News' Glenn Beck for “dividing” Fox. He pointed out that companies have boycotted the show, and noted all the controversial things that Beck has said. Yes, Beck is wildly successful, “But that growth has come at a price, at least for those at Fox who believe that Beck is beginning to define their brand.”

That same day, Post religion writer and leftist hack Anthony Stevens-Arroyo attacked Glenn Beck on March 15 in a “Catholic in America” entry to the Post's On Faith blog.

“Glenn Beck's anti-Catholic Rants [2],” sprang from Beck's position on the social justice movement in the Catholic Church. Stevens-Arroyo first attempted to discredit Beck and wrote, “Few people are better at making accusations with code words than Glenn Beck, the Fox News celebrity. With his chalkboard logic, Beck creates conspiracies that almost always make him a savior against anything named 'Democrat' or 'Obama.'”

Beck's latest “conspiracy,” according to Stevens-Arroyo, is that he labeled priests who support social justice ministries as being “Communists” and “Fascists.” He also urged Catholics to change parishes and inform Bishops about priests who are practicing social justice ministries.

Stevens-Arroyo wrote, “Forget that his plan to 'rat on' priests is the same strategy of the Hitler Youth and the Polish Communist Party, and just examine the porous logic of his rant.”

He did state that Beck supposedly knew church officials who are against the social justice movement and then pulled that great liberal debate-ender: The McCarthyism Card. “This is the stuff Joe McCarthy pulled. If Beck has the names of prelates who oppose the Magisterium on social justice, let him produce them,” Stevens-Arroyo wrote.

So Stevens-Arroyo is offended at Beck linking church social justice activism to fascism and communism. And in a September article, “Health Care Distortions [3],” he lamented how “Washington suffers from bitter cultural and ideological wars that depend upon distortion, hatred, and downright lies to energize a radical base, whether extreme right or left.” But why should that keep him from dropping the McCarthy bomb on Glenn Beck, or smearing him with comparisons to the Hitler Youth?

Stevens-Arroyo is little more than your garden-variety liberal Democrat who uses his position as the Post's arbiter of things “Catholic in America” to push lefty causes. While reporting about Senator Ted Kennedy's [4] funeral in September he bizarrely said “most Catholic” part of the mass was when Kennedy's grandchildren asked for universal health care.

He's also an ideologue happy to engage in the worst sort of moral equivalency. In December Stevens-Arroyo [5] actually compared Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hassan to General Patton and World War I hero Alvin York. “What does this mass murderer have in common with two American heroes, in Stevens-Arroyo's view?” NewsBusters asked at the time. “All three recited what he labeled 'bad prayers.'”

Maybe Stevens-Arroyo should listen to his own advice. “ … I think those inclined to vote left need to hear sermons inclined to the right and vice-versa. In other words, we need to see both sides of the question before forming judgment.” How ironic.

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