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Beck Explains His Criticism of 'Progressive' Gingrich (Plus the Truth About His Views on the Tea Party)

UPDATE: Scroll down for clips from Beck's Monday night GBTV program.

You may have watched Glenn Beck's widely-viewed interview with Newt Gingrich last week.

It got a lot of attention.

Beck has addressed his concerns about Gingrich's positions a number of times in the last week.

He did so during a wide-ranging and thoughtful Friday night interview on Judge Andrew Napolitano's program on the Fox Business Channel.

Beck, who considers many of Gingrich's views to be "progressive" in nature, raised this rhetorical point:

"If you have a big government progressive, or a big government progressive in Obama… ask yourself this, Tea Party: is it about Obama's race? Because that's what it appears to be to me. If you're against him but you're for [Newt Gingrich], it must be about race. I mean, what else is it? It's the policies that matter."

This question triggered a frenzy of reaction among Beck critics who made this out to be full-blown indictment of Tea Party activists.

Beck, however, had fully explained his views on the radio last week -- including his clear argument that the Tea Party is clearly not racist.

Here's how he explained it on his radio program this morning:

 

And more careful listeners are not buying the new spin:

Every regular listener of Glenn's knows better. I've been listening to Glenn for over 10 years. Glenn was making the point that TEA Partiers that now support Gingrich may as well have been supporting President Obama over the past 3 years because the two have similar, big-government-producing philosophies and policies.

Since the TEA Party has championed a smaller government over the past 3 years, how can they now be supporting a big-government progressive such as Gingrich? Who is just like Obama...who is a progressive...which is what Gingrich is...just like Obama. So, if the TEA Party likes Gingrich, but doesn't like Obama, because the two are so similar, the only obvious difference between the two is their race.

Silly? Yes.

Potent? Yes.

Effective? Yes.

The vast majority of Glenn's regular listeners understand completely what Glenn was saying. The only people that are going to have trouble understanding this are the people who are not regular listeners.

Read more here.

Beck also addressed his criticisms of Gingrich, and the criticism he's taking, during an interview this morning with GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.  In this clip Beck also plays the audio from his program last week where he noted that the Tea Party is NOT racist:

 

 

You can read a partial transcript here.

Gingrich has been confronted about Beck's "progressive" criticisms.  He was asked about it the charge during an interview with a New Hampshire radio station:

“What do you say to that sort of claim?” (Paul) Westcott wanted to know.

Gingrich’s initial reaction? Laughter.

“Well, I don’t know,” he continued. “I mean, depends on what standard you’re using. You know, the fact is that I balanced the budget for consecutive four years. And we did so well cutting taxes and increasing employment. So people went back to work, they left welfare, they left food stamps, they left unemployment, the left Medicaid. Who else has a record of that level of achievement?”

 

 

During the radio program, Beck indicated he will address these issues in great detail on his GBTV show at 5pm Monday evening.

UPDATE: Beck did address these issues at length on the Monday evening GBTV program.

Here is part one:

Two see parts two and three click here.

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