Glen Beck appeared on the KHOW Peter Boyles show today. The two agreed Pres. Obama may well be planning a Soviet-style media takeover. “I think that this administration has a lot of people in it that would like to model themselves after the revolution in Venezuela,” said Beck.
Boyles seemed to concur with his popular guest. “I saw that this morning,” said Boyles, referring to a quote Obama gave to the Toledo Blade on the declining state of the newspaper business model.
“What I hope is that people start understanding, if you’re getting your newspaper over the Internet, that that’s not free. And there’s got to be a way to find a business model that supports that,” said Obama.
The Blade noted that a number of bills have been introduced in Congress to help the industry.
“Mr. Obama was noncommittal about that legislation, but said: ‘I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them.’ “
That exchange set Beck and Boyles thinking about Venezuela and the Soviet Union.
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BECK: I mean, now we have the President of the United States considering bailing out all the newspapers.
BOYLES: Yeah, I saw that this morning.
BECK: But remember he doesn’t want to own and run the newspapers, but he had to.
BOYLES: Well remember, I think it was John Kerry that initially talked about this. And I said, “You know it has been done before. It is called Izvestia… Pravda. It’s been done.
BECK: Peter, if you listen to his diversity Czar at the FCC, he said it was an important revolution in Venezuela for Hugo Chavez and it was only allowed to happen when he really took control of the media. And I am telling you that I think this administration has a lot of people in it that would like to model themselves after the revolution in Venezuela.
BOYLES: Well the crazy thing is, if you read history, and I know you do, the first thing that is done, in particularly third-world revolutions, is you take control of the radio stations.
