The most recent Time Magazine cover story, “Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America?”, asks us to ponder a question that I believe any rational person with an ear to the American political arena has already answered. The real question then becomes, is it good for rational America to pay any attention?

Glenn Beck has a built a career around being hated. He portrays himself as the underdog, the outcast of the liberal media machine. In truth, though, the mainstream media loves him, and I don't just mean Fox News. Without using Glenn Beck as the grading curve for honesty and ethics in journalism, most mainstream journalists look pretty bad. Before him that responsibility fell on the likes of Rush Limbaugh and his slightly less abrasive cousin, Bill O'Reilly. But after awhile even their rhetoric gets old, and you have to find someone louder, angrier, and quicker to pull the race card out of his bag of tricks.

After his 9/12 rally in D.C. I really started to notice the hype surrounding Glenn Beck, where before I only listened with passing amusement. Like when he said that global warming wasn't just a lie, but the greatest scam in history. Since then he has claimed that Barack Obama "has a deep seated hatred for white people," and that Cash for Clunkers was really just a ploy to gain access to your computer so the government can spy on you.

The problem with giving such madness any sort of scrutiny is, in a way, enabling it to continue. You don't give a lighter to a pyromaniac.

I've read a lot of articles, op-eds, and blogs about Glenn Beck lately, mostly discounting him as as a money-hungry hack pretending to be a newscaster, but most are unfairly dismissive of him. He's nothing if not a force to be reckoned with, a powerful messianic figure aimed to drill into the reserves of social unrest and the fear that the American racial hierarchy is turning upside-down. The angry mobs that crowded the D.C. Mall are proof that at least a few thousand are swallowing everything he has to say, poised and ready to take up arms at his whim.

The comparison made by some to the ranting newscaster with a Messiah complex, Howard Beale, of the prophetic 1976 film “Network” is not unfair. I also believe it wouldn't be insulting to Beck, who seems to have taken his character straight from Beale's play book. The difference between Beck and Beale is, however, that Beale's fears were not unfounded. He was scared that the whole world was becoming a consumer, that television was taking the place of reality, and that there is “an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube!”

Which is what makes Glenn Beck's brand of hysteria that much more dangerous. He's a charismatic, if unbalanced showman, and for those who follow him blindly, he is the Messiah. If we are silent to his ravings, while keeping a watchful eye on his followers, we will do better to extinguish the fire. I just hope those affected by his fear-mongering are done protesting, and go back to sitting idly by the tube. Otherwise, Glenn Beck will not only be bad for America, he will be bad for the world.