April Fools

Yes, I rather ignored April Fool's Day this year. I'm not much good at the pranking - I hit my pinnacle the year I attached a TVGuide pic of Richard Dean Anderson to a photo of a San Diego sidewalk using glitter nail polish and still managed to convince all my friends I'd actually met him - despite the fact he would've been 9 feet tall if that had been a real-life photo. And he had a little bit of glitter coming out of his head. It's sad how easy it is to snooker folks.

Cujo359 had a rather different take on the day. Instead of fooling people, he went looking for fools. He didn't have to search for long:

Of course, Glenn Beck is a fool any time of year, but since today is so special, why not take a look at his latest foolishness? The first comes courtesy of Think Progress:

For almost a year, Glenn Beck has been warning with increasing panic that America is headed toward socialism. Tonight, he issued a correction: “They” are are not marching the United States toward socialism, Beck explained, but actually fascism:

It all adds up to me, having to admit that I was wrong. Our government is not marching down the road towards communism or socialism. … But now I have to tell you that they’re not marching us that direction. They’re marching us to a non-violent fascism. Or to put it another way, they’re marching us to 1984. Big Brother. … Like it or not, fascism is on the rise.

Though Beck claimed he didn’t mean “Adolf Hitler kind of fascism” and that he was talking about “fascism with a happy face,” he illustrated his point with more than a minute’s worth of Nazi footage, played dramatically on the full screen behind him.

Glenn Beck: I was wrong. We’re Not Marching To Socialism, We’re Marching Toward Fascism

Of course, Beck isn't the first damn fool to redefine fascism so he can invent new ways to insult liberals, but this strikes me as a particularly pathetic example of that pathetic rhetorical strategy. Boiled down to its gooey essence, his argument is:

That kind of socialism that I made up so I could call Democratic fiscal policy socialist? I was wrong, it's really more like this kind of fascism I just made up.

That's one of the most apt shorters I've ever seen. And don't forget to visit that last link - you'll be glad you did.

Glenn Beck is one of those people I used to believe only existed on pirate radio stations and street corners near mental institutions. Yet this buffoon has a show on Fox.

I think that's all we'll ever need to know about the quality of the Faux News Channel.

Continuing a tradition I began last year, here's a couple of the clever April Fools posts I came across:

Evolving Thoughts managed to punk a few folks by cleverly posting his prank on March 31st.

Panda's Thumb explored the merger of AIG with AIG. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

Alas, I didn't have much time to really dig for clever gems. If you unearthed some, let me know in the comments, por favor.