Former Fox News Host Rips Glenn Beck, Kicks Fox

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And they say a woman scorned can be merciless.  Eric Burns once served as the host of Fox News Watch.  It's reasonable to assume he won't be working there again any time soon.  In a December 2 Huffington Post article, "If I Still Worked at Fox News...," he describes it as "the right-wing partial-news-but-mostly-opinion network."

A great deal of his bile, however, is directed at Glenn Beck:

Actually, Beck is a problem of taste as well as ethics. He laughs and cries; he pouts and giggles; he makes funny faces and grins like a cartoon character; he makes earnest faces yet insists he is a clown; he cavorts like a victim of St. Vitus's Dance. His means of communicating are, in other words, so wide-ranging as to suggest derangement as much as versatility.

He is Huey Long without the political office.

He is Father Coughlin without the dour expression.

He is John Birch without the Society.

He is an embarrassment to all true conservatives, men and women who believe sincerely, thoughtfully and sensibly that the role of government in American life should be limited.

Of course, Beck does not call himself a conservative; he is, rather, a libertarian, which may be defined as a conservative-squared, a person who wants the feds to collect no money in taxes, spend no money on programs, but make available all services that the libertarian deems necessary for his own convenience and safety.

Along the way, Burns gets in a few jabs at Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and even MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.  He praises CNN's Campbell Brown, who "every night. . . stages an exhibition. . . of honorable pugnacity."  He admires Jane Hall, who left Fox "for other reasons as well, but Beck was a particular source of embarrassment to her."

Burns ponders if, were he still at Fox, he would have been as principled as Hall.  He concludes he'd have kept taking a check from the network, but would be "searching avidly for other employment."

Fortunately for Eric, he never faced that dilemma.  He was fired by Fox News almost two years ago, a fact overlooked in his piece.

Want some sour grapes with that whine, Eric?