In a passionate and politically-charged post on his blog, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert wrote that Glenn Beck is a "zealot" who makes "daily insinuations" that President Obama is a secret Muslim and that Sarah Palin uses "Mein Kampf" tactics and "coded words" on Twitter.
"One buried motive for the attacks on Park51 is exploitation of the insane belief of 20% of Americans that President Obama is a Muslim," wrote Ebert in the Aug. 19 blog post. "Zealots like Glenn Beck, with his almost daily insinuations about the Muslim grandfather Obama never knew and the father he met only once, are encouraging this mistaken belief."
Ebert also slammed Sarah Palin, writing that "her tweets are mine fields of coded words; for her, 'patriot' is defined as, 'those who agree with me.' When she says 'Americans,' it is not inclusive."
The film critic posted a screen shot of two of Palin's recent Tweets that defended radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger for using racial slurs on the air. "These two [Tweets] must have been carefully composed in advance to be tweeted within 60 seconds of each other," Ebert speculated, noting that "by using the evocative word 'shackles' [Palin] associates Dr. Laura's use of the N-word with the suffering of slaves."
But then Ebert took an even more bizarre turn, writing that "By implying Dr. Laura was silenced by 'Constitutional obstructionists,' [Palin] employs the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that 'no one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.'"
Ebert also called out Fox News, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh for "distorting" the Bill of Rights "as an everyday practice."
However, in the same paragraph Ebert had a few kind words for Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. "[T]o his credit, [O'Reilly] doesn't indulge in this," the film critic wrote.
