Glenn Beck is NOT "Fair and Balanced" Re President Obama

Why doesn't Glenn Beck hang us around President Obama's neck? Because it appears that Beck is determined to slime President Obama regardless of the facts. Just as during the campaign, opponents could not find anything ON Obama, so they hung Reverend Wright around his neck. Now Beck is doing the same thing with the radical past of Van Jones. Yet we believe Beck's case is illogical and verges on the edge of paranoia in the service of partisan politics. Here is our case.

The Center for Environment, Commerce & Energy is boldly capitalistic in our world view. We love democracy, small government, low taxes, gun freedom, a balanced energy mix, fur and the marketplace. We support the police and favor the death penalty, particularly for cop killers. All of the aforementioned enhance our environment. We are a conservative environmental group. Go figure. Yet not a peep from Beck.

We believe President Obama reflects our views. President Obama did not take over the car companies. They came to him begging for relief. President Obama did not take over Wall Street. They came to him begging for relief. President Bush admitted to abandoning his core marketplace principles in initiating the TARP. If President Obama had not used government to avert a depression, Beck would be blaming the president for not acting. Conservatives might talk a big game [see President Bush] when it comes to marketplace purity, but they blink in the face of the market 'taking her medicine.' We do wish that America had the backbone to stomach pain in order to pull out of a failed marketplace, but marketeers should not 'game the market' and put the federal government in a position of having no choice but to 'bail them out.' Americans go crazy over high gasoline prices. Does Beck think Americans will 'tolerate' a depression without the government doing something? George Bush sure didn't think so.

On environment and energy, President Obama seems to be pretty market oriented to us. Cap and Trade is a market approach to emissions reductions that were supported by Republicans in the passage of the Clean Air Act Acid Rain Program and the failed Bush Clear Skies Initiative. We supported the Clear Skies Initiative. Senator James Inhofe led the cap and trade Clear Skies Initiative in the Senate. The recent $8 billion in nuclear power plant loan guarantees was a Bush administration initiative. President Obama has proposed expanding on it by adding an additional $36 billion to the $18.5 billion authorized under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Center was a Special Guest of The White House in the signing of that legislation in Albuquerque, New Mexico in August 2005. President Obama favors expanded offshore oil and gas drilling. Well we disagree with him on that. We also disagree with his decision to close Yucca Mountain as the national repository for nuclear waste. But that's about all we disagree with the president on in terms of energy and environmental policies. We have more examples.

Glenn Beck seems to be slanting things in one direction on the president. If he is unwilling or unable to set the record straight, he should give us the opportunity to do so.