Actually....

Steve Benen wonders if Roger Ailes is picking the wrong analogy by comparing Fox News -- and Glenn Beck's program more specifically -- to the Alamo. Aside from all the general silliness of the comparison, Ailes and Beck nevertheless represent the exact variety of pathetic, martyr-driven nationalism that has enshrined the battle of the Alamo as the first skirmish in a crusade for yeoman liberty. Indeed, early historians of the battle liked to compare it to the Battle of Thermopylae, which -- short of a few yawps of "Sparta!" -- would distinguish them as wingnuts avant le lettre. I suppose if Ayn Rand had written her tedious novels in the early 19th century, the Americans in Texas would have been vowing to "go John Galt" rather than submit to the Mexican government's taxation and anti-slavery policies.

Roger Ailes and Glenn Beck are no more committed to "liberty" than the hundreds of Texans who died, stupidly holed up in a decaying old mission building, 172 173 years ago today. Glenn Beck is essentially a cable-news version of the Rapture Index, so it's appropriate that either he or his boss (or both) fancy themselves as the heirs to whatever they happen to believe the Alamo represents. As for the rest of us, I think it's safe to say that Ozzy Osbourne had the right idea.

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