What Local Op-Ed So Disturbed Demand for Legal Action

What Local Op-Ed So Disturbed Glenn Beck That He’s Discussing Legal Action?

The Salt Lake Tribune published an opinion piece on July 27 by an “art historian and educator” named Alexandra Karl that has some members of Glenn Beck’s staff so disgusted that they say they’d be happy if he took legal action.

Titled “Karl: Glenn Beck’s Nazi Exhibit,” the op-ed is both riddled with factual inaccuracies and filled with horrific implications about Beck’s character.

“Beyond plain unadulterated stupidity,” is how Beck’s co-host Pat Gray described it on radio Tuesday. “That’s character assassination and defamation territory.”

The opinion piece begins by getting the name and location of Beck’s “Man in the Moon” event wrong (it has been updated to correct the location as of this article’s writing, but not the name), before claiming certain items at the “Independence Through History” museum Beck created for the event came from his “personal collection,” though he doesn’t actually own them.

But far more offensive was the implication, Gray said, that Beck is a “Nazi sympathizer.”

The op-ed says of the museum:

To start, I can’t help wondering what prompted Beck to collect such macabre objects and include them among his personal belongings. What are the virtues of owning Göring’s love letters, Hitler’s signature or a few drops of his blood?

Surely, harboring such items adheres to a personality cult and suggests a sympathizer rather than a critic. The very presence of these objects begs the question: How does this material survive?

More than 70 old, most of the detritus of Germany’s Nationalsozialisten was destroyed after the war and continue to be banned to this day. The survival of such “memorabilia” can only be achieved with help from Nazi sympathizers wishing to pass on the torch.  [Emphasis added]

Beck and his co-hosts pointed out that the purpose of displaying such items is to remember history to ensure it doesn’t repeat itself, though they excused what they described as a “progressive” art historian for failing to grasp that concept.

Gray also noted that it’s unlikely that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would praise a Nazi sympathizer as “fearless in defending Israel,” or that he would win the Defender of Israel award.