Glenn Beck CPAC 2010 Speech VIDEO: Republicans Don’t Need A Big Tent
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Bombastic conservative talk show host Glenn Beck closed a three-day conservative conference on Saturday by demanding that Republicans get their own house in order before re-trying their hand at governance.
In a winding speech that touched as much on his personal turmoil as his policies and politics, Beck had the packed auditorium at CPAC captivated from the start. Using hand gestures, multiple impersonations and his infamous chalkboard, he took the usual swipes at Democrats. “Progressivism,” he declared, “is eating the Constitution.” Moreover, it “was designed to eat the Constitution.”
But the nearly hour-long address was spent not bemoaning his ideological foes, but rather demanding purity among his likely allies. If last year’s CPAC keynote speech – delivered by radio host Rush Limbaugh – was defined by urging President Barack Obama to fail, Beck’s stood out for his demand that conservatism succeed.
“Dick Cheney a couple days ago… says it is going to be a good year for conservative ideas,” he declared at one point, wiping the sweat from his brow. “It is going to be a very good year. But it is not enough just to not suck as much as the other side.”
And who, exactly, sucked as much as the other side? Beck didn’t really name names – save for a swipe at one Republican (presumably Sen. John McCain) for admiring another Republican, Teddy Roosevelt — the latter of whom Beck accused of launching the modern progressive movement. But the message was clear: supporting anything that closely resembled the Democratic agenda would no longer fly with the modern GOP.
“I have not heard people in the Republican Party admit yet that they have a problem,” he said. “I haven’t seen the Come-To-Jesus moment from Republicans yet.”
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