It's no big surprise to find out that Vladimir Putin's Russia doesn't much appreciate protests against authoritarian regimes. It's more surprising to find American TV talk show host Glenn Beck saying the same thing. And gets twice as weird when both men name Google as a potent force behind the protests currently sweeping the Middle East.

Putin's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin told the Wall Street Journal recently, "Look what they have done in Egypt, those highly placed managers of Google, what manipulations of the energy of the people took place there," referring to Google execs like Wael Ghonim of Egypt.

Beck, meanwhile, has been promoting dark theories about Google's cooperation with the US government. Last week, he told fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly that "there are four or five executives that are also in bed, literally—not literally—but in bed or in the office with the president and working with the White House Google, in their own words, Google, two vice presidents of Google actually helped foment revolution in Egypt, and they're proud of it."

On his own show, Beck later recommended that his viewers not use Google. "May I recommend, if you’re doing your own homework, don’t do a Google search. Seems to me that Google is pretty deeply in bed with the government. Maybe this is explaining why Google is being kicked out of all the other countries? Are they just a shill now for the United States government? Who is [Google exec] Jared Cohen? Is he private citizen or government operative? And isn’t this the second Google guy we’ve found [after Wael Ghonim]? This is the second Google executive now being exposed as an instigator of a revolution. Are you comfortable with the government partnering covertly with media organizations, search engines, and social networking so they can bring change that the Washington elites have designed?"

Who knew that Google was such a force for popular democratic revolutions—and that this was a bad thing?