THE LOW POST: The End of the World

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"Now where was I? Oh right, our complete annihilation at the hands of fundamentalist Arabs. I was thinking about this on August 22nd, and some very smart people -- even smarter than me -- thought it was very possible that Iran or one of those other merry pranksters in the Middle East could have made a big move and vaporized every one of us. But August 22nd has passed, and that hasn't happened. Yet . . . Hezbollah could push the "Launch" button while I'm enjoying some chips and dip and watching that cantankerous House on TV. Maybe it won't happen, but you never know. And by 'won't happen,' I mean the Hezbollah/launch part, not the chips and dip part. Me, some French onion and a bag of Ruffles is so happening."
-- Glenn Beck, anchor, CNN Headline News

It's hard to imagine anything that better encapsulates the spirit of life in America under George W. Bush than prime-time CNN pseudo-prophet Glenn Beck's recent warning about the end of the world. A dire warning about Armageddon, strategically issued during election season, that includes -- a plug for Ruffles!

Beck is the new hotness in the world of O'Reilly-Hannity-esque shrieking TV windbags; a former drug addict who is a late convert to Mormonism, Beck's shtick is that he's a conservative but not a Republican, allowing him to claim a kind of objectivity while he does things like fantasize about murdering Michael Moore and call Nick Berg's dad Michael a "scumbag." His TV come-on is part comic, part carnival barker, and one if his favorite themes is End Times -- he's a strong believer in the literal second coming of Jesus and, between cornball jokes, never wastes any opportunity to remind his audience that the end is nigh.

Coupled with the horrifying on-air persona of Headline's eight-chinned Court TV exile Nancy Grace, who gives periodic angry news updates during Beck's program (Grace was apoplectic when John Mark Karr was allowed to wear regular clothes on his flight to Colorado), Beck's 7 p.m. slot on Headline has to be one of the weirdest news programs in American history.