Glenn Beck denied yesterday that his long history of criticizing the Tides Foundation had anything to do with the alleged targeting of the group by Byron Williams, the anti-government gunman suspected of engaging in a shootout with police in Oakland, California, possibly while he was on his way to targeting Tides and the ACLU.
“I expose the Tides Foundation and show you what it is, and I am now responsible for terrorists attacks?” Beck asked.
As we’ve reported, the fairly obscure Tides Foundation has been brought up several times on Beck’s show, characterized as part of what Beck sees as a conspiracy by President Obama and other left-wing people and organizations to spread socialism.
On his radio show yesterday, Beck said that the media is “now imaging me as a terrorist and a racist,” and has attacked him for “accusing them of being anti-capitalist, far left radicals and indoctrinating children. I stand by each one of those.”
“I am the only one that has mentioned the Tides Foundation,” Beck continued. “So that’s what they’re using. This guy couldn’t have found this out on his own, it had to come from me.”
“America if you don’t think that they will use anything, they will. They absolutely will,” added.
Listen:
h/t MediaMatters.
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.