Glenn Beck’s Wet Hot Israeli Summer

By Adina Rosenthal Glenn Beck is making quite a splash in the Jewish state this summer. This August, Beck will host “Restoring Courage,” a three-part event that Beck’s website describes as “an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that Israel does not stand alone.” The first event will be for American Christians “to get the Christian community in America to wake up and start standing up .” The second will be more explicitly political in nature, purportedly including Senator Joe Lieberman, GOP presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Herman Cain, and two other presidential candidates yet to be revealed. The final August 24 event that, according to the Jerusalem Post, “would be attended by more than 30 American national political figures, 70 international politicians and citizen delegations from 100 countries around the world, including Bahrain” will be...

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At Sanity Rally, Sense Through Satire

By Symi Rom-Rymer In the weeks leading up to last Saturday’s Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, the media world was practically falling over itself trying to analyze, explain, and dissect the event before it even happened.  Pundits were asking each other, what it will it mean for the midterm elections, what did it mean about the state of centrist politics, is Jon Stewart preparing for a political campaign, will it draw more crowds than Glenn Beck’s Rally to Restore Honor, and most importantly, will it be a success?  Today, having almost fully recovered from being crushed morning ‘til night by 214,000 of my closest friends, I can unequivocally answer, I don’t know, I don’t know, I certainly hope so, and it seems that way.  As for the rally’s success, the answer is...

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Haikus: The New Political Medium

By Michelle Albert Political haikus Skewer talking heads to roast Pass barbecue sauce If you need an outlet for politically-based anger, want to flex your poetic muscles or just need a laugh, Haik U Glenn Beck could be the answer. The blog, supported by Jewish Funds for Justice and spearheaded by Mik Moore (co-founder of the 2008 Great Schlep), posts reader-submitted haikus in response to what they consider a particularly irksome quote by Beck, a conservative pundit with his own Fox Network television show. Jewish Funds for Justice, according to its website, is a public foundation that aims to combat causes of "domestic, economic and social injustice." The foundation started Haik U Glenn Beck with Moore to stress their idea that social justice can be used to bring people of all faiths and ideologies together and to refute Beck's belief that...

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