Glenn Beck: Advertisers object to his racist rants

President Obama is a racist, with a deep-seated hatred for white people.

Glenn Beck, 28th July 2009

As readers will know, Militant Ginger is no great fan of Glenn Beck - the vile right-wing demagogue who rants on Fox News.

Fortunately, it seems like this offensive little troll is finally getting his comeuppance. After spouting the snap-fire line above, outraged advertisers are dropping support for Beck's show like wildfire.

"We do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show hosts," a spokesman from Clorox said, directing that their commercials not be aired during Beck's show. Caremark and Sprint similarly abandoned Beck.

"We support vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect millions of Americans, but we expect it to be informed, inclusive and respectful," CVS Caremark explained.

The campaign to eliminate Beck's sponsors is being orchestrated by ColorofChange.org, a left-wing, African-American group that cites a progressive attitude towards race relations in America. A counter-campaign, Support Glenn Beck, has cropped up to defend Beck's so-called 'freedom of speech' by appealing to advertisers not to abandon him.

But freedom of speech really isn't the issue here. Unlike the fate of former inopportune pundits - like Don Imus, who was fired for calling the Rutger's women's basketball team 'nappy-headed hos' - Glenn Beck's not finding himself a victim of censorship.

He hasn't been fired, or censored. He's merely received a very clear message that what he stands for - vile, ignorant, racist drivel - is very different from the image that companies like Clorox, Sprint and Caremark want to be associated with.

For Beck himself, it's not all bad news. Still pulling in almost 2.4 million viewers, he's very unlikely to be fired - especially since most of the advertisers are merely shifting their advertising to different time slots, not abandoning Fox News entirely (with the admirable exception of UPS.)

So Fox isn't taking much of a financial hit over this scandal.

But it does mean that Glenn Beck's television program finally has a caliber of advertisers appropriate to his audience - like a company hawking penis-enlargement pills and an ambulance-chasing firm of personal attorneys.