Throngs of Glenn Beck fans greet their ’savior’ in Tampa

By Stephen C. Webster
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 -- 8:06 pm
Share on Facebook Stumble This!

glennbeckfakecrying3 Throngs of Glenn Beck fans greet their savior in TampaHave you ever seen an impromptu parade for an animated right-wing personality? Want to?

That's precisely the scene which emerged ahead of Glenn Beck's book signing in Tampa Bay, Florida on Saturday. As up to 1,000 fans gathered at a Tampa Bay Borders Books to see the Fox News host, a parade of vehicles began circling the parking lot, adorned with signs bearing vague right-wing slogans, the drivers blaring their horns.

"I don't want to say he's our savior, but he's pretty close," said Bob Antoinette, a Beck fan who spoke with MyFox Tampa Bay. "I don't think he's on target. I think he's on bullseye."

"When we drove through and I saw [the line] was wrapped around the block, I mean, it's ... It's a little humbling," Beck said.

Another of Beck's fans suggested that President Barack Obama "wasn't vetted" and that Congress is using emergency powers to push all legislation through. (They are not.)

Story continues below...

Beck enthusaist Patty Blackburn added: "We don't like the White House at this point. We're taking our country back."

Beck's solution to progressive America: "He will hold conventions on education issues, the first at the University of Central Florida in March," The St. Petersburg Times reported. "He plans to develop a 100-year plan for America, and he will publish a book with action steps called The Plan."

"I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand," he said before claiming that Americans "need to start thinking like the Chinese."

Speaking to the SPT, Flor Rodriguez, a 71-year-old Cuban-American, claimed that she has been watching Beck's show and growing increasingly fearful that President Obama is doing to America what Fidel Castro did to Cuba.

"For the young people of this country, I'm very afraid," she said. "I never thought I'd see this happening here." Her sign read, "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention," according to the report.

(To those paying attention to media aside from Beck, the right-wing talker is well known for frequently perpetuating false and misleading claims about the Obama administration, among his many other targets.)

The signing went smoothly until a man began yelling for the crowd to stop watching Fox News, calling their brand of right-wing entertainment "brainwashing." He was quickly escorted out by police.

This video is from MyFox Tampa Bay, broadcast Nov. 21, 2009.

This video is from Media Matters, broadcast Nov. 21, 2009.

David Edwards contributed to this report.

Share this article:
  • Print
  • email
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Story comments are below...

  • Craig
    Obama doesn't even get that kind of reception anymore.
  • seen2much
    If you are still playing left right on any level, you deserve the title "dumbass"...

    For those on the "left", beck and his ilk have successfully distracted you from seeing what is moving around you.

    For those on the "right", beck and his ilk have distracted you from seeing what is moving around you...

    Glenn is nothing more than a more marketable alex jones. Both are just making a buck at the expense of Liberty. They do speak a lot of truth, but with a nefarious and self-serving agenda.

    Liberty is NOT a walk you can fake, not to anybody who is PROPERLY EDUCATED and willing to dig for the truth themselves. Being PROPERLY EDUCATED has NOTHING to do with what sheepskin hangs from your wall, or how many books you read. It has mostly to do about developing your critical thinking skills, applying common sense, and dealing with fallacies of logic. All things that today's standard education does it's LEVEL BEST to burn out of you!!!

    Who butters glenn's bread? Why?
    Who butters alex jonese's biscuits? Why?
    Who butters obamas bread? Why?
    Who butters rahm emanuels bread? Why?
    Who butters keith olbermanns bread? Why?
    Who butters rachel maddows bread? Why?

    Who butters the bread of every pundit? Why?(each one tends to have a matrix of benefactors, some with what only appears to be conflicting interests, as with the names above.)

    "By their deeds you shall know them" -Gerald Celente, Trends Institute.

    "Never ascribe to malice that which is better explained by sheer incompetence." - Napoleon Bonaparte.

    Baa! BAAAAA! Little sheeple, have you any meat to pay the wolves?
  • chip
    Yeah, he's my favorite tea bagger too!
  • blechh
    I think Glenn Beck is laughing, laughing at the fools who actually take him seriously. What a sad, deranged sideshow.
  • starvapor
    Nothing to worry about here.
    Glen is just collecting a large number of human specimens to take aboard his space ship and return to his planet in another dimension.
  • Nicolas
    "Another of Beck's fans suggested that President Barack Obama 'wasn't vetted' and that Congress is using emergency powers to push all legislation through."

    This misquotes the guy who said it. The phrase was "on an emergency basis" — not anything about emergency powers.

    And the guy is right — health care, stimulus, and bailout were all treated as emergencies. The argument from Democrats about rushing things through is that terrible things will happen if we don't act now... Doesn't that constitute an emergency?
  • starvapor
    I read an article which noted that emergency rooms around the country are now becoming overwhelmed with people who still have jobs but no health insurance.
    When there's no more room in emergency rooms for the populace at large and it's getting worse on a daily basis, I'd say that's an emergency. If it isn't, where should we start piling the bodies when capabilities to treat people eventually fail alltogether, on the steps of the Capitol in DC?
  • Satan
    Taking a break from Palin this week Raw? Let me guess, next week will be deidcated to O'Reilly or Coulter, or perhaps Rush. Which irrelevant douchbage do you want to attempt to make relevant next?

    The Nazi's were big on using fear to sway public opinion too. How do we want to downplay endless war this week Raw? Is Beck going to have abig thanksgiving special this week, is that why it's his turn this week?
  • Satan
    Taking a break from Palin this week Raw? Let me guess, next week will be deidcated to O'Reilly or Coulter, or perhaps Rush. Which irrelevant douchbage do you want to attempt to make relevant next?

    The Nazi's were big on using fear to sway public opinion too. How do we want to downplay endless war this week Raw? Is Beck going to have abig thanksgiving special this week, is that why it's his turn this week?
  • Atilla
    They're all Beckerheads!
  • Atilla
    They're all Beckerheads!
  • Atilla
    There all Beckerheads!
  • drorez
    Beck is a racist and a bitch. nuff said...
  • jlainpa
    As time goes on, Beck is becoming nothing more than a vacuous imitation of Cartman on South Park. My sympathies go out to the Cartman family because every now and then Eric seems to come some redeeming personal trait that makes him somewhat lovable. Certainly the same cannot be said of Mr. Beck.
  • deaconelmouse
    And to think that Beck STILL hasn't denied raping and murdering a young girl in 1990.

    When will that girl's family get closure, even if they're fictional?
  • Marc Paul
    Fuck Beck
  • Name
    Shouldn't there have been a doctor on hand to make sure no one went off their meds?
  • jeffersonperrin
    Even coming of political age just prior to Watergate and being very affected by the Nixon reveal of the presidential myth (you know, that our presidents are all "honorable, morally straight and mentaly awake") I never felt any one political party had all of the answers, that either party was always correct or that either party had any moral, intellectual or honorable 'edge' on the other.
    That began to change with the completely unjustified and relentless attacks by the GOP, Republican, Independent Neo Con Religionists on Bill Clinton and became concrete when these same people corrupted the one thing that has made America stand far and above almost any other country on earth; our votes.
    By 2000 there was never going to be, for me, the slightest chance that anyone other than a Democrat would ever get my vote for it was made crystal clear that somehow an entire party was becoming corrupted and that corruption was spreading to the minds of their followers. That the followers have been completely overtaken is evidenced by the popularity of the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. It is further evidenced by the fact that though both of these individuals have-almost daily-been proven liars and a threat to the well being and safety of the President of the United States whose injury or death could lead to the death of America, the fan base grows like black mold. And mold not gotten under control always leads to the total destruction of everything it touches.
  • proudliberal1947
    Confuse, manipulate, Twist and half truths, so what is different from this MORON and the CLOWN and Talking Monkey that was APPOINTED president by the US Supreme Court, it is the same old misrepresented twisted BullSh*t being rehashed by the Racist White Right Media, as a White person I say this FAIRLY given the amount of coverage This Buffoon gets to the MAJOR National REAL Issues.

    The Racist White MSM agnda is to hide behind the veil of entertainment as they DO NOT have any REAL QUALIFIED Reporters or Journalist only Entertainers.


    This clown should be represented by people shownig up in CHICKEN SUITS to represent the Party he represents and the other half can show up in Straight jackets to show what they think of this ANTI AMERICAN Coward (never served in the Military) which is a STRONG come back for anyone fighting this Rcaist Nazi, Fascist, Socialist Hate and Fear Monger.

    What i watch and DO NOT see is the contempt for the MISInformation this piece of Feces puts out there so if they DO NOT condemn it they support it and hiding behind the first Amendement isn't going to help the MSM COWARDS.

    Their support of the Racist, Nazi, Fascist and Socialist views of this Hate Monger menas they support him which menas their FAILURE to REPORT is coming from the very TOP which is very WHITE and VERY threatened.

    If someone put a bullet in his head now I would cheer and celbrate (so nice to fantacise), then I want to know were he is laid out so I can go and SH*T in his mouth so he can carry that through eternity, this is one RACIST HATE MONGER that I would GLADLY give a free pass to for ever took him out he is just White Trailer Trash (probably inbred).
  • starvapor
    A mass gathering of 1000 devolving rapture delusionists.
  • jeffersonperrin
    One knows all one needs know about someone with the answer to these three questions; Did you vote for G. W. Bush? Did you think John McCain made a wise and thoughtful choice in choosing Sarah Palin to be 2nd in line to the Presidency? Do you think Glenn Beck should be given public access to the minds of simpletons who may own guns? A "Yes" to even one of these questions is evidence of a seriously disturbed and quite possibly dangerous individual.
  • GunTotinLiberal
    More people show up for the free health care clinics pormoted by Olbermann
  • RichRunyan
    1,000 ignorant rednecks? We have a lot more then that in Florida. I guess they hadn't received their welfare checks before the signing.
  • damixaustex
    Does Becks 100 year plan include a final solution?
  • This is the rise of the Nazi's, and Glenn Beck is Hitler. "Taking our country back" = getting a Republican president back in there.
  • piltdown
    The parallels are glaringly obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.

    But not to those caught up in it.
  • SharksBreath
    If you voted for Bush twice you can't have your country back. You F'd it up.
  • knot
    I wonder how the throngs of Beck fans will feel when they find out their savior is actually a very talented Canadian character actor by the name of Alfred Peachous playing a role known as 'Glenn Beck'.
    http://alfredpeachous.com
  • scytherius
    1,000 psychotics? that's it? Not quite what one would call a throng.
  • Mooftown
    We're taking our country back?

    It hasn't really changed a lot in the portion of a year since Obama has been president...

    Where were these "patriots" during the atrocities of the bush admin?
  • dennycrane
    Watch out, Thomas Monson, you are going to be replaced by the "beckhead" as prophet of the mormon church. Whooppee!
  • overdoneputaforkinit
    1000 idiots in one place do not represent the mainstream IQ of this country.
  • musk
    LMAO! A hundred year plan?
  • dotherightthing
    Glen Beck is still a dry drunk!
  • cameramandavid
    As to my previous comment... "Hey, he's the schmuck that wore a Nazi uniform on the cover of his book..." the better for his retarded followers to identify him...
  • edwards_com
    As he takes sides always with a heavy dose of theatrics which he has admitted in public as a source of his generous payroll.. He is vary good at getting uneducated & those unable to reason to 'watch' his spew which is just something to fill the gaps between Commercials. Commercials are the only reason any show is on. It's show business bot show art. And Glen Becks plethora is not news.
  • cameramandavid
    Sieg! HEIL!!
  • winski
    Let's make sure we document VERY carefully what Beck says when he pontificates to the other media and any one with a microphone/camera readily available. Beck TAKES NO SIDES and/or ADVOCATES NOTHING!! Absolutely NOTHING. He uses his pundit platform to cajole, prod, push, spin, lie, create and strawman a 'beck vision' of a 1860's place that he believes his followers want as a replacement for their environment today.

    Now remember, Beck has taken no side on any issue and has advocated NOTHING..He has merely suggested...He merely suggested that his followers 'have to decide today' whether or not they will continue down the path they are on with their current 'country'; they have to decide, based on beck's suggestions whether they want a 2074-page Health Care reform package (1st pass) that represents the first change in our system of patches and payoffs, in 65-years since the passage of Medicare. OR, do they want to go back to the small, 'just a few pages' of the original Constitution which advocates NONE (in beck's world) of today's taxes or health care or government systems/support or institutions... And contrary to what Virginia Foxx will say next week, the republicans DID NOT pass Medicare...

    They, his 'followers' have to decide today whether or not their current government is working in their best interest in Blythsville, Arkansas or East Battle Creek, Michigan or Walla-Walla, Washington or whether or not they, Beck followers, should rise up and take their governmental back - by force. He hasn't come straight out and said that his followers have to pick up weapons and take out their local authorities (not just police but Beck-defined local non-relating politicians) but he's close...Give him a few more weeks and it won't be very subtle any more.

    So, what will he be spewing by the time he gets around to not advocating anything in August of next year... You pick...
  • Mooftown
    That is a really long essay you just wrote. Too bad it is worth less than a steaming pile of dog shit. I don't think anybody in the whole world is gonna finish reading it, it starts to smell after the first few sentences. Thanks for the effort though bubs!
  • ragenut2112
    I read it and completely agree. I read yours....a lot of words and no point
blog comments powered by Disqus