Yesterday's Glenn Beck show on Fox News will probably go down as some kind of benchmark for broadcast insanity. The entire hour was devoted to exploring Beck's thesis that America is marching headlong into fascism. I'll have more on that later today.

But the most otherworldly moment came when Beck, near the end, introduced a segment featuring an actor supposedly playing Thomas Paine -- but Paine reading Glenn Beck's words. Um, OK. We've gotten accustomed to the incoherent and bizarre in Beck's shows, so we played along after a bizarre, rambling introduction about Paine being his great-great-grandfather.

The entire rant was disturbing by any reading, especially since it was essentially a call for an uprising against the Obama administration, via next week's "Tea Parties". But there was a really odd note early on:

In an unprecedented moment of citizen response not seen since December 7, 1941, millions of your fellow Americans will bring their anger and determination into the streets.

Eh? Not since Pearl Harbor Day? But really, he's not saying that the Obama stimulus plan is like Pearl Harbor, is he?

Yep:

Your complacency will only aid and abet our national suicide. Remember, they wouldn't dare bomb Pearl Harbor, but they did. They wouldn't dare drive two planes into the World Trade Center, but they did. They wouldn't dare pilot a plane through the most sophisticated air defenses in the world and crash into the Pentagon, but they did. They wouldn't dare pass the largest spending bill in history, in open defiance of the will of the people*, but they did!

OK, I think it's safe to say that Glenn Beck has now jumped an entire mountain of sharks, waterskiing atop a pyramid with Pinky Tuscadero and the gang.

And the craziest thing about this: Beck will find a way to top himself next week.

*[Um, not exactly.]