Bill Kristol, the man who is wrong about everything, in the world, consistently, thinks that this is the right strategy. Or, at least, he thinks that the entire speech was Barack Obama admitting that George Bush and Bill Kristol were right about everything and Michael Moore is fat. Maybe?

It seems a little weird, to us, that a blog post on the most important foreign policy issue of the day, written for "the Foreign Policy Initiative," opens with a Michael Moore quote, in order to make fun of Michael Moore, but we are not respected conservative thinker Bill Kristol, so what do we know?

Anyway. Bill Kristol thinks an Afghanistan troop surge is a good idea so basically this will be Vietnam 2. (3? 4?)

So: we got teased yesterday and this morning with two great pieces on Glenn Beck talking in his strange, voodoo-esque language on whatever way he plans to molest and exploit the minds of whoever will lend him an open ear to aim his ideological piss into. The first was the aforementioned Politico note, which quoted Beck teasing his big ideas on his show. But this was fun! Remember that scary 9/12 Project that was presumed to have gone away because only crazy people listened to crazy people and hey, there can't be that many crazy people who are that organized. We call those cults, and there are lots of them, sure. But they don't represent any kind of frightening majority. Because crazy people need crazy leaders with power and a platform and there aren't really any of those out there as completely insane as the 9/12ers are, right?

Christine Drawdy, a Florida event promoter involved in the tea party and 9/12 movements who is listed as the travel coordinator for the 2010 march, said the permit for the march is in the name of The 9.12 Project's administrator, Yvonne Donnelly. Though Drawdy stressed that Beck "is not the leader of" the 912 movement, she added "all he has to do is say something, and they'll jump."

And by 'jump,' she means, kill people.

Brian Stetler at the New York Times also talked to Beck before today. Stetler's a sizable dude, not someone I imagine can be easily intimidated, nice as he is. Really, he could probably bounce a guy Glenn Beck's size easily.

That said, I imagine he'll be sleeping in the fetal position tonight:

"We'll be looking for ways to get people involved in politics," [Beck] said. "I hear people saying, ‘O.K., now what?' They're calling their representative, but it's time to get more proactive."

Right. So. What was Beck's big plan? He unveiled it today, starting with his website, which is the image you see at the top of this post. One more thing before we get there, though. This video, taken at a Borders yesterday, of Beck teasing out The Plan.

"We're gonna be asking of you some big things." Funny, I've been told the same thing by my bosses, but the first thought that went through my head never involved any kind of civil war and/or revolution.

But hey, Beck: he's just passionate! No way could this entire rollout involve the guy cashing in.

No way could all of this buzz, this entire thing, all of this talk about "community organizing"—taking The Dirty Word of President Barack Obama's past and platform, and putting it to their own new, awesome, terrible uses—no way could Beck be leading his flock into spending some cash.

Funny, then, that they found out that The Plan was for them to spend more money on Glenn Beck, The Brand. Observe his two key points from the manifesto written on his website:

- I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.

- All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding.

Kinda sounds like a cross between Avon and the Left Behind series, right? Except with scarier salespeople who have drier hands.

Yeah, Glenn Beck's got a plan: for the next 100 years, he's gonna keep writing books and making TV shows, and his fans are going to keep buying into both of them. It's kind of genius. His entire multimedia empire is predicated on one, long, 100-year plot arc: that the main character will make viewers'/listeners'/readers' lives better so long as they're with him every step of the way. The man will make references to revolution, to change, to bringing everything back to a fundamental state. The beautiful irony he has to see and embrace—in order for this to have worked as long as it has—is that the only real movement he'll be making is into better cars and larger houses. The kinds that are far away from the rabid zombies who salivate at every vague allusion to blood and violence Mama Bird spits out like discarded pieces of chewing gum for them to suck every last grain of sweet flavor out of. The kind, if provoked, and unleashed, are as much as a threat to anybody as they are to him. A "random act of violence" is never really that random, is it? Especially when the word "radical" gets thrown around over, and over, and over.

More than anything, this guy is a threat to the proliferation of rational thought. Beck knows that there're people in the world who listen to this kind of nonsense without processing it any way but through their emotions, because they're tired, hungry, scared, or angry, and maybe, sometimes, rightfully so. Then again, so are most of us! But when you have an asshole like Beck running the con, one thing leads to another, and shit like this happens. Believe me, nothing would bring me more joy than to watch Glenn Beck get the Downfall-meme treatment after his empire of exploitative bullshit comes crumbling down under the weight of the inevitable rise of the truth: that this man is a crook, a fraud, a shyster, and a very skilled, sophisticated con artist. But who wants it to get that far?

Glenn Beck does have one up on Hitler in terms of likability: a decent Kermit impersonation. I'm pretty sure nobody with such an affection for Muppets can possibly be capable of anything too terrible.

Then again, evil, as we're all aware, is a scary, subversive force, and comes in all forms, at all times, with little to no discretion. Beware.

[Top image via Glenn Beck's website. Bottom image via Bert Is Evil.]

Balloon Juice's John Cole needs to stop reading Twitter—as do we all—because he finds things like this there:

Now that's a story. If Obama has lost the backing of the man who spent a full year and $346 million trying to prevent him from becoming president, then how can he govern?

And this:

It's an intriguing theory. We're skeptical, but since Kurtz is paid considerable sums by the Post and CNN for his deep knowledge and impeccable instincts when it comes to analyzing the media business, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

It was during his radio program, so sadly there is no video of Glenn clutching his abdomen, vomiting, and finally collapsing in pain.

Beck is expected to make a full recovery, after his appendix was removed at "an undisclosed hospital."

Let's hope things go better than they did the last time he went to the hospital, when he had to wait for 40 minutes in the emergency room! This was back when he was with CNN, so he blamed the health care industry instead of secret Maoist-ACORN Lizard People.

In Limbaugh's WSJ piece, entitled "The Race Card, Football and Me" he writes: "My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?"

What are his racial views exactly? Media Matters documented 28 separate occasions where Limbaugh used racially charged language. They didn't go the Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Michael Wilbon route, picking quotes out of thin air, they did the research and the results are pretty damning.

In this clip Rush calls Obama an "angry black guy"

Here he says "[I]n Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering"

There are 26 other clips that don't exactly portray Rush as someone who does not see race. Quite the contrary. Rush seems obsessed with race. Turns out his critics weren't exactly off the mark, they just choose the wrong quotes.

That strikes us as something of a demotion—Holmes appeared frequently on CNN's air, especially during the election, and also has been a regular guest as a right-wing talking head for Bill Maher. Now it looks like she's trying to get out of the punditry game and refashion herself as a newsreader—she's filling in this week and next as an anchor on ABC News Now, ABC News' (mostly failed) attempt to create a 24-hour news network online. No one's watching, but at least she doesn't have to defend all those foaming-at-the-mouth teabaggers who hate her because she's black, right? Must be a relief. We expect Ed Rollins to show up as a CBS News intern any day.

An ABC News spokeswoman insists that Holmes is only "reading the news and debriefing correspondents in the field" as a freelancer in a one-off gig, but it sounds like a tryout to us. If indeed it is, it should come as no surprise that ABC News would move an avowed political partisan and right-wing operative into a purported news slot, because it seemed to work OK for George Stephanopoulos.

Holmes was still listed as a contributor on CNN's website today when asked a CNN spokeswoman about the new gig; the spokeswoman confirmed that Holmes is no longer with the network.

Sure, it was for a good cause, but the fact that Olbermann believed that an hour-long monologue worthy of Fidel Castro was something that people wanted or needed to see, and that his bosses actually let him get away with it, brought to mind Ben Affleck's flawless SNL caricature of Olbermann's mammoth self-regard. It seemed at times last night that he actually took some pointers from Affleck's performance — Olbermann's ego is expansive enough to take such jabs as loving tribute, and incorporate them into his self-image like some ravenous blob that from a sci-fi movie. Watch them both below, and you be the judge.

If you really want to change the course of the health care debate and change minds, Keith—hell, if you even just want to inform people about the world around them, like your sainted Edward R. Murrow, now and again—try pointing the camera at something other than yourself. And let us know when you conquer death.

Ben Affleck doing Keith Olbermann:

Keith Olbermann unwittingly doing Ben Affleck doing Keith Olbermann:

The lovable-despite-a-career-of-publishing-unforgivably-wrong-things editor-cum-blogger notes a recent study on the effects of love on the brain versus sex. But his own two-person focus group came to a different conclusion:

I recall one marathon twelve-hour session of passion many years ago now. It was only afterwards that I realized I had barely had a single trace of an analytic thought for the longest period I could then remember. I was never happier. As I finally collapsed into my lover's arms with the final orgasm that drained every last drop of desire or need from my body and soul, I understood for the first time why the French call coming "le petit mort".

Yes. Well. Sullivan just recently went back home to DC after his usual summer in Provincetown, and his adorable dog is getting very old. So maybe he is a bit distracted or depressed right now! But still, we have to ask: twelve hours? Didn't you get... sleepy? Would we be out of line to wonder if perhaps certain questionably legal substances were involved? Possibly a stimulant known to cause alertness, euphoria, and increased sexual appetite for up to 12 hours?

Now that he's admitted to fucking the oppressive "ordeal of consciousness" away, Andrew Sullivan is officially the Peaches of Pundits.

The Post has launched a reality-show-style contest seeking out a columnist for the paper to anoint as "America's Next Great Pundit," because "pundit" no longer means "person who expounds from knowledge and experience" but instead means "category of celebrity, like glorified hooker or bug-eater."

Here's your chance to put your opinions to the test — and win the opportunity to write a weekly column and a launching pad for your opinionating career!

Start making your case.
Use the entry form to send us a short opinion essay (400 words or less) pegged to a topic in the news and an additional paragraph (100 words or less) on yourself and why you should win. Entries will be judged on the basis of style, intelligence and freshness of argument, but not on whether Post editors agree or disagree with your point of view. Entry deadline: Oct. 21, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Then get ready for the great debate.
Beginning on or about Oct. 30, ten prospective pundits will get to compete for the title of America's Next Great Pundit, facing off in challenges that test the skills a modern pundit must possess. They'll have to write on deadline, hold their own on video and field questions from Post readers. (Contestants won't have to quit their day jobs, but they should be prepared to put in about eight hours a week for three weeks.) After each round, a panel of Post personalities will offer kudos and catcalls, and reader votes will help to determine who gets another chance at a byline and who has to shut down their laptop.

Eyes on the prize.
The ultimate winner will get the opportunity to write a weekly column that may appear in the print and/or online editions of The Washington Post, paid at a rate of $200 per column, for a total of 13 weeks and $2,600. Our Opinions lineup includes a dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, regulars on the national political talk shows and some of the most influential players inside the Beltway. We'll set our promising pundit on a path to become the next byline in demand, the talking head every show wants to book, the voice that helps the country figure out what's really going on.

THE VOICE THAT HELPS THE COUNTRY FIGURE OUT WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON. Somewhere, in America, a sad blog commenter knows WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON. The Post certainly doesn't. But they're going to find that person by way of the internet, test their knowledge of WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON by putting them through challenges to find out if they have the "skills a modern pundit must possess," such as how to make videos of themselves, and then pay them $200 per column to tell us what's REALLY GOING ON. Give these people a bailout. Their continued operation is crucial to the survival of our democracy.

In Sunday's Parade magazine, Bill O'Reilly writes a long, glowing tribute headlined "What President Obama Can Teach America's Kids." It's not like a sarcastic "he can teach the kids to be a secret radical communist" thing either.

"Barack Obama, a youngster in Hawaii without his parents around, has toughed it out and become one of history's great stories, no matter what happens going forward," he writes at the end. "What he has achieved in his 48 years is simply astounding. Consider the odds. The United States is a nation of more than 300 million citizens. Only one person is currently the Commander in Chief. That man had no fatherly guidance, is of mixed race, and had no family connections to guide him into the world of national politics. That adds up to one simple truth that every American child should be told: 'If Barack Obama can become the President of the United States, then whatever dream you may have can happen in your life.'"

Now most of this inspiring life story and only-in-America stuff was covered by almost everyone else back in January, and none of it is even remotely controversial or scandalous, but admiring a man you disagree with is not a very popular concept in the partisan media.

Of course Bill has always held himself to be more independent than true-blue GOP water carriers (even when that is patent bullshit), and he has generally shown no desire to be thought of as a right-wing talk radio shock jock, but his self-declared independence rarely stops him from whole-heartedly embracing the arguments and language of Republican talking points on nearly every issue. (He's still going after GE and abortion doctors, obviously.)

But: Obama did his show. Obama showed him that courtesy, and Bill didn't end up being one of the leaders of the right-wing media revolt against the president.

Let this be a lesson to Democrats: doing O'Reilly may grant him unwarranted legitimacy, but it'll shut him up, too. If you're nice enough to him he'll write a long column about how pretty you are and how much he wants to kiss you and stuff.

We'll monitor the usual channels for outraged conservative blogger responses to this bit of turncoatery.

Well, simple say TV talking heads: just imagine if there was an Olympic sport in which Elvis, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and Mozart duked it out with nuclear weapons. Maybe that would be a bigger deal than what's going on at the Staples Center.

General Growth Properties filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, which is notable because it's one of the nation's largest mall operators, with 200 malls in 44 states—the Times called the company's failure "one of the biggest commercial real estate collapses in United States history."

It's also notable because Friedman's wife, Ann Bucksbaum Friedman, is an heir to the family that founded GGP, and her family still owns about a quarter of the company. Two years ago, a quarter of GGP was worth more than $4 billion. Today it's worth less than an olive tree. Friedman does OK—incomprehensibly so—with his books and speaking gigs, so he's got a little breathing room. Still, it's got to hurt when your spouse's family loses $4 billion.

Here's what Friedman had to say about his family's business back in 2000:

My relatives are in the mall business, where everyone is worried about all the stories of the high-tech age, just around the corner, when you will be able to do all your shopping online from your Palm Pilot, and your refrigerator will automatically order more milk via the Web when its high-tech sensors indicate you're low. I jokingly suggested to the shopping center folks that they run an ad that would say: "Imagine a world in which you will be able to go to just one place, walk from shop to shop, and see, touch, feel or try on anything you like, and then buy it right there and take it home with you — without worrying about your credit card number being stolen, or how U.P.S. will deliver it, or how you will ship it back if it doesn't fit. Imagine such a world! It's also just around the corner — right now. It's called a mall."

Man that guy's a genius. GGP should have hired him as a marketing consultant. We were kind of excited to see what Friedman might have to say about his relatives' business latest challenge, but the Times' said he was "off" yesterday.

The Times catalogued GGP's woes last week, but they didn't mention Friedman's connection.

Halperin is a well-compensated idiot. Here's what he said on MSNBC in January on why Barack Obama is an abject failure and exactly like George Bush:

This is a really bad sign for Barack Obama to try to change Washington.... He needs bipartisan solutions. They went for it and they came up with zero.... [This] does not bode well for a future that is supposed to be post-partisan... [Obama] could have gone for centrist compromises. You can say to your own party, "Sorry, some of you liberals aren't going to like it, but I am going to change this legislation radically to get a big centrist majority rather than an all-Democratic vote." He chose not to do that, that's the exact path that George Bush took for most of his presidency with disastrous consequences for bipartisanship and solving big problems.

But now Obama is dominating, because that's what it seems like now, so why not blast it from the rooftops as HALPERIN'S TAKE because people seem to listen to him?

Halperin's vapid weather-vane reversal spells doom for Obama, though, because as David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager who is known to concern himself with real things in the actual world as opposed to the contours of Mark Halperin's ego, used to say on the trail: "If Politico and Halperin say we're winning, we're losing."

Mr. President: You are now losing.