The file cabinet interviews the cat.
Yesterday, on his radio show, Glenn Beck announced that he had conducted an email exchange with Sarah Palin regarding the public response to Jared Lee Loughner. Props to Ben al-Fowlkes for the link. “Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer,” Beck said he wrote. “I know you are feeling the same heat, if not much more on this. I want you to know you have my full support.” One hopes, for Palin’s sake, that he is already lying at this point, and that she does not have to field creepy emails from Glenn Beck every Monday morning. Regardless, Beck claims that two things happened next. First, he recommended that Palin hire some bodyguards or something, “because an attempt on you could bring the Republic down.”*
As Emily Post reminds us, you should always conclude any letter of support by speculating on what would happen if the person you’re writing to were assassinated. Second, the response he claims to have gotten from Palin is so baffling, so obstinate in its thwarting of sense, that it is the subject of today’s Close Reading.