Beck and Imus Debate Over Whose Ailment is Worse

Glenn Beck is the one going blind (really, he is), but it was Imus who couldn’t read this morning, declaring the name of Beck’s recent bestselling novel to be “The Wolverton Mountain,” instead of its actual title, The Overton Window.

This negative beginning to their chat pervaded the entire ten minutes that the newly bespectacled Beck spent chatting with the I-Man, who insisted he wasn’t looking at Beck’s macular dystrophy as a source of amusement.

“Why did you use the phrase ‘looking at?’” Beck wondered. “You think it’s funny that you can look at things, and I soon won’t be able to?”

Having recently been told that he could pretty much go blind at anytime, Beck submitted an idea to Imus. “We should do a show together,” he said. “You could drop dead of cancer, or I can go blind. We’ll take bets.”

But Imus suspected this whole macular dystrophy thing was a clever ploy to increase the ratings of the Fox News show Glenn Beck. “There’s nothing better than a good ratings scam of going blind,” said Beck. “It’s working well for you with that cancer thing.”

Putting the insult game to rest (albeit momentarily), Beck informed Imus that the desire by a Muslim group to build a mosque near Ground Zero is eerily reminiscent of something called the Cordoba Project in Spain.

“They took one of the big churches, and they’ve turned it into the third largest mosque in the world,” said Beck. “What do you think the Islamic world thinks our World Trade Center was? The church of America, the church of the almighty dollar, the church of capitalism. This is just a coincidence that they want to do this?”

Scarily, Imus agreed with Beck, whose recent appearance on The O’Reilly Factor upset the I-Man’s fragile ego. “You were terrific,” Imus told his guest. “And I’d rather you didn’t do that. Just be good on our show, and yours, of course.”

Next Saturday, Glenn will appear somewhere else—at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to speak at what he coined The Restoring Honor Rally, an event he devised that will celebrate America by honoring its heroes, its heritage, and its future.

As for what some are calling the unfortunate coincidence that the date of the event—August 28—is the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the same location, Beck thinks this its an appropriate twist of fate.

“Whites don’t own Abraham Lincoln, blacks don’t own Martin Luther King,” he said. “Those are American icons, and American ideas, and we should just talk about character. And that really is what this event is about: honor and character.”

Neither of which were on display when Imus, after he thanked Beck for stopping by, wondered if he needed somebody to guide him out of the studio.

Undeterred, Beck shot back, “You need anybody to buy a coffin for you?”

-Julie Kanfer