Glenn Beck Made Imus Laugh, and Did Not Make Himself Cry

Judging by this morning’s appearance, Glenn Beck’s new novel The Overton Window is hilarious, because Imus did not stop laughing for the entirety of Beck’s interview, which more closely resembled a stand-up comedy routine than a dignified talk about literature.

Having listened to this morning’s show on his way over to the studio today, Beck was armed with ammunition. “I was glad to hear you were talking about some satellite service or something, because that affected three people,” said Beck. “Where the eyelash only affected one.”

Referring to the I-Man’s ongoing eyelash trauma (there’s one stuck in his eye), Beck further ridiculed the host of this program when he said he left his copy of The Overton Window up at “the hacienda.”

“Speak English!” Beck commanded. “What are you, Zorro?”

Frightened that he’d soon be asked to show his papers, Imus politely asked Beck to explain the meaning of the title of his book.

“The Overton Window is the window of opportunities, if you will, that politicians can choose from, and it’s moved by emergencies, or slowly moved through propaganda, or just change,” said Beck, whose Fox News show airs weekdays at 5pm. “If they reach outside the window, which I think Obama did with health care, then they experience Overton’s revenge, which means they get kicked out of office. It depends how far they reach outside the window.”

But Imus much preferred Charles’s explanation, which was, “political expediency.” Imus then offered his own definition, “A theory developed by somebody named Overton.”

Frustrated, Beck, whose book will be a New York Times bestseller no matter what, wondered if Imus could retell the story about the washer and dryer at the Imus Ranch.

“You’re at the Larry King point of your career, aren’t you?” Beck asked. “Where you’ll just say anything. You’re like, ‘What’s your favorite ice cream?’”

Following a few moments of Beck doing Larry King, Imus wondered if his guest would do the impression of George Soros that Fred Imus had raved about. “What am I, your brother’s trained monkey?” Beck said.

Back to the book, Beck began writing The Overton Window, with help from some friends, two years ago. “I got to the point where if I heard people say, ‘We’re America, we’ll survive anything, we always have,’ I was going to blow my head off,” he explained.

The Overton Window features a man who doesn’t believe America is in any danger, and a woman who thinks America is in real trouble. But all Imus could focus on was whether Beck pays the people who actually wrote the book for him.

“They pay me in boots, I get big, rubber rain boots the third week of every month,” he joked, and then had Imus in such stitches that he began to fear the worst: a heart attack.

“It’d be really bad if I killed Don Imus,” Beck speculated. “Although, I would get your studio, which is really quite nice.”

Once he pulled himself together, Imus told Beck he would not read The Overton Window.

“Is it the eyelash?” Beck wondered.

Sure, let’s go with that.

-Julie Kanfer