On his radio show today, Glenn Beck revealed the inspiration behind his new Huffington knockoff site, The Blaze.
According to Beck, The Blaze is named after an 18th Century daily publication issued by a pudgy, cross-eyed Calvinist preacher named George Whitefield, arguably the founder of the American evangelical movement.
The modern iteration of Calvinism, by the way, is the basis for Christian Reconstructionism, a seriously disturbing effort to replace the Constitution with biblical theocratic law. Oh, and it's worth mentioning that Whitefield was staunchly pro-slavery. In fact, when slavery was outlawed in Georgia, Whitefield successfully lobbied to have it reinstated in 1751, arguing that it was crucial to the economy. He's good people. Inspirational!
Does all of this sound familiar?
And so we get Glenn Beck's The Blaze.
Adding... No. I didn't Photoshop the drawing of Whitefield.
Clarification... In response to a couple of emails -- this is NOT a joke post. Whitefield is real, he was really cross-eyed, he was really a Calvinist slavery supporter, that's an actual drawing of him, and Beck insists that The Blaze is inspired by Whitefield's daily pamphlets.