Glenn Beck in 'deliberately funny' shock

Viewers of any Charlie Brooker programme or the Daily Show will be familiar with neo-Con lunatic Glenn Beck, in the news this week for calling Barack Obama a racist on national television.

There must be something in the air as the right certainly seems to be on the offensive these days - check out this odd op piece in The Telegraph, seemingly written by a T-1000, that has the likes of Robin Ince and Tim Minchin drawing rather bemused battle lines.

But back to Beck (pictured) - best known in the UK for the clip of his show in which he comes over so red white and blue he bursts into tears ("I love mah country.... and I fear for it", he famously sobs). Apparently he does that quite often. It's the kind of devisive Yankee oddity that makes the British exchange a collective shifty uncomfortable sideways glance a la Family Guy.

But even weirder was the revelation in the Independent's "Is Glenn Beck too right wing even for Fox News?" that when he's not pedalling the Murdochian agenda across the globe, he "moonlights on the comedy circuit".

What the?!

To Google, which reveals indeed he does. He refers to himself as "a poor man's Seinfeld", and, most disturbing of all, his latest show is a rally cry to "common sense".

*shudder*. Is there anything more worrying than an American Republican insisting their way of the world is common sense?