Louie Gohmert So Mad Al Gore And The Cable Companies Are Conspiring Against Glenn Beck

There are many, many, many reasons to dislike the Comcast-Time Warner merger, but Rep. Louie Gohmert has found one that never would have occurred to us: Comcast has been conspiring to keep Glenn Beck’s network The Blaze out of its cable packages and away from America.

Your Wonkette is generally not in favor of exposing wider audiences to the rants of lunatics, so we would have no problem with Comcast dropping The Blaze into a dark hole from which no light or sound could ever escape. For that matter, we would have no problem with doing the same to Louie Gohmert, who used the occasion of a House Judiciary Committee meeting on the merger on Thursday to raise his theory. Let us gaze upon the wondrous conspiracy-mongering of the Asparagus King of Bumfuck, Texas, and despair.

Al Gore was pushing the sale of Current TV and Glenn Beck, the Blaze, were trying to buy it. And it was reported that Al Jazeera wanted to get their Sharia law push into the United States, and they were willing to pay big bucks regardless of whether they had oil and carbon all over the money. They were willing to pay big dollars but they wouldn't do the deal unless Comcast was willing to keep them in its list of networks provided. So it was reported Comcast agreed, so Al Gore got all that oil and carbon based money. Then, that kept Glenn Beck off the air. Of Comcast.

Let us first note the hilarity of a Texas congressman sneering at someone accepting oil-and-carbon-soaked cash. But mostly we just like Gohmert’s weasel phrases like “Some people have said” and “It was reported.” Louie doesn’t have any evidence that Comcast conspired with Current to get it sold to Al Jazeera and keep Glenn Beck’s media empire from extending its reach while allowing the dirty Ay-rabs to blow their sharia all over America’s face, but he has heard things and stuff that compel him to ask questions.

Louie had a slightly more direct accusation a moment later regarding another unnamed independent network that The Blaze wanted to buy, only some in Comcast feel so strongly about keeping Glenn Beck off the air that the company refused to allow the deal to go forward. It’s unclear why Comcast has any say; does Comcast own the unnamed network? Did Comcast threaten to keep the unidentified network off all its cable packages if it allowed Glenn Beck to buy it?

Louie’s source is an anonymous email from someone who claims to work for the network, so this is obviously unimpeachable information. The Comcast executive who was testifying before the Judiciary Committee, David Cohen, strongly denied Gohmert’s allegation and explained why, if the congressman was talking about the network Cohen thought, Comcast would have had nothing to do with discussions about a sale, or any input on the buyer.

Gohmert then basically accused Cohen of lying to Congress, because he had an email from someone that says otherwise, and besides, doesn’t a cable company actively working to keep conservative voices from reaching a wide television audience during an election year just feel like something a bunch of big-shot East Coast liberal namby-pamby cable executives would do?

[ The Wire ]