Will Bunch at Attytood brings us a story that's so bizarre, at first I thought it was a joke. It isn't. (The fact that anyone will pay the Beckster $10 a month during a depression to get Double-Secret Indoctrinated? That's a joke.)

I wish I could tell you that this is a clever photoshop on my part -- but sadly, no. This is the actual emblem of something called Beck University that was officially announced today by the king of all distorted right-wing media, although judging from the initial info its formal accreditation as one of America's institutions of higher learning may be a few years away (and there's no truth to the rumor that the Pac-10 immediately asked Beck U. to become a member):

From Beck's web site:This July, while others are relaxing poolside, head back to the classroom - from the comfort of your own home. That may sound like an oxymoron but Glenn’s new academic program is only available online.Offered exclusively to Insider Extreme subscribers, Beck University is a unique academic experience bringing together experts in the fields of religion, American history and economics. Through captivating lectures and interactive online discussions, these experts will explore the concepts of Faith, Hope and Charity and show you how they influence America’s past, her present and most importantly her future.

I guess you could call this "the Harvard of right-wing radio universities," in the sense that, well, to my knowledge there aren't any other right-wing radio universities. Unlike Harvard or Yale, where Beck was a half-term (sound familiar?) student in one theology course after his ex-friend Joe Lieberman pulled some strings, Beck U. is strictly a profit deal. Only by paying Glenn Beck Inc. to become an extreme insider($9.95 a month, or $74.95) can you enroll on Beck's pseudo-cyber-campus. How else do you think Beck expects to sell that $4.25 million manse and move into bigger digs?

In addition to the myriad other reasons, one thing that guarantees that Beck U. won't be showing up in the U.S. News and World Report survey anytime soon is that 33 percent of the faculty is a fraud. That would be the Christian-oriented pseudohistorian and Texas schoolbook perverter David Barton, whose sins against knowledge have been chronicled here in the past. Students at Beck U. can also learn economics from a Beck pal, David Buckner, with a mediocre pedigree (he has been an adjunct associate professor not of economics but of psychology and education at Columbia) and also from an actual professor who somehow sneaked in there, LSU's James Stoner.