Glenn Beck: The Fears of a Clown

Weeping, joking and predicting apocalypse, Fox News star Glenn Beck turns resentment into ratings

Illustration for TIME by Francisco Caceres; Beck: Nicholas Roberts / The New York Times / Redux

On March 23, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled the Obama Administration's toxic-bank-assets plan. The stock markets cheered the news, sending the Dow up 497 points.

This meant one thing: it was time for Glenn Beck to break out the Jenga set.

The new populist superstar of Fox News has made a refrain of predicting that government policies are leading to disaster — dark, ruinous, blood-in-the-streets kind of disaster. Pausing for a 17-minute speech rebutting his critics for calling him "dangerous" and "crazy," he took out the block-tower game. On opposite sides of the...

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