Matt Taibbi and Imus Wonder What Glenn Beck Will Do Next

After his attempt to play the cancer card with Rolling Stone Magazine's Matt Taibbi failed, Imus asked his guest about his most recent piece, which focused on the Republicans' failed battle against President Obama's proposed budget.

"The buzz in Washington is that no one has ever seen a more incompetent handling of a budget debate," said Taibbi.

Determined to rid themselves of their reputation as "the party of no," the Republican leadership, consisting of Reps. John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan, released an alternative "shadow" budget that contained no numbers or specific plans.

"It was like in college when the professor tells you a paper has to be 20 pages double-spaced, and you triple-space it and make the font enormous," Taibbi said, adding that the font was large enough for the legally blind to have read with ease.

As for the "tea parties" thrown in various cities yesterday to protest tax increases, Taibbi thought they were more of a calculated media campaign than anything else.

"Suddenly the leaders of the Republican Party are Glenn Beck, Chuck Norris, Michelle Bachmann, and Michelle Malkin," Taibbi said, prompting Imus to make the point that "it just doesn't get any better" than FOX News's nut job du jour Glenn Beck.

Taibbi recalled buying a psychopathology textbook in high school that featured case studies of various personalities spiraling out of control. "He is the entire textbook," Taibbi said about Beck. "It's fantastic. It's been a joy to watch."

Both Imus and Taibbi appreciate Beck's willingness to "fly his freak flag" on national television. "He's in a zone!" Taibbi added. "Have you ever seen basketball players who just cannot miss no matter how far they're shooting from? That's where he is right now."

Imus wondered how far Beck's lunacy will take him. Yesterday Beck addressed a crowd protesting taxes at the Alamo, which Neil Cavuto referred to as Beck's "Evita moment." A few weeks earlier, Beck threw fake gasoline on someone on his show and then demonically lit a match, but decided (heroically?) at the last minute to blow it out.

Taibbi thinks Beck is heading "in the direction of some kind of David Blaine act, where he does a whole show from inside a shark tank, covered in barbecue sauce."

The problem, Imus concluded, is outdoing the previous stunt.

"They've got to keep upping the ante," said Imus. "They say, 'We blew that match out—next time, let's not blow it out!'"

-Julie Kanfer