November 11, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Glenn Beck, the Fox News host, is taking aim at George Soros, the billionaire known for his support of liberal causes, with a pair of video segments that seek to discredit Mr. Soros’s philanthropy.
In a segment that aired Tuesday on Mr. Beck’s talk show, the conservative commentator portrayed Mr. Soros as the man responsible for national currency devaluation and America’s economic collapse and says he has been working in secret to overthrow the U.S. government.
Mr. Beck also ties Mr. Soros to financing and inciting revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and the former Czechoslovakia. “So what is his target now?” asks the narrator in the video segment. “Us. America.”
That portrayal is causing a lot of criticism and fact checking. Several of these revolutions had the effect of ousting communist dictators from power, writes Oliver Willis of Media Matters for America, a nonprofit that monitors information reported by conservative media organizations. One effort, the ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine, was a nonviolent response to what many considered to be a fraudulent election.
He also takes Mr. Beck to task for ignoring Mr. Soros’s role “funding anti-Communist dissidents like Poland’s Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union.”
The Open Society Institute, which Mr. Soros established, on Wednesday released a short biographical video of the 80-year-old philanthropist. Justin Elliott, a reporter for the Web site Salon.com, notes that the video’s reach pales in comparison to the more than 2 million viewers who regularly tune in to Mr. Beck’s show.
In introducing the segment on Mr. Soros, Mr. Beck said it was the first in a two-part series and encouraged his viewers to record both programs.
“There’s a lot of meat here that I need you to do your own homework on and learn the truth yourself,” Mr. Beck said.
Here is a segment from Mr. Beck’s Tuesday program, followed by the Open Society Institute video featuring Mr. Soros.
