Don’t Tease The Panther

Filed in National by on June 12, 2010

A review of Glenn Beck’s new novel by Media Matters, The Overton Window rocketed through Twitter yesterday. The book sounds hilariously awful and is very similar to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.

The opening lines of Glenn Beck’s yet-to-be-released novel, The Overton Window, read as follows: “Most people think about age and experience in terms of years, but it’s really only moments that define us.”

In a quirk of convenience, this line also describes the best way to deconstruct The Overton Window, a copy of which Media Matters obtained and read — nay, devoured — with great relish. As we slogged through its many plot holes, ridiculous narrative devices, and long-winded limited-government sermonizing passed off as dialogue, we singled out ten moments that define The Overton Window as the truly and remarkably awful novel that it is.

First, a quick summation of the plot, such as it is. The protagonist, Noah Gardner, works for an impossibly powerful public relations firm in Manhattan that has been the driving force behind pretty much every political and cultural movement of the 20th century. Their latest and grandest scheme is the culmination of a lengthy plot to change the United States into some sort of ill-defined progressive plutocracy, and the catalyst for this change is a nuclear explosion that will occur outside the home-state office of “the current U.S. Senate majority leader,” which happens to be at the same address as Harry Reid’s Las Vegas offices. The nuclear attack is to be blamed on the Founders Keepers, a Tea Party-like group — led by Noah’s love interest, Molly Ross — that is working to foil the plot.

1. Rule number one is: “Don’t tease the panther”

Noah and Molly find themselves in bed together early in the book after a harrowing experience at a Founders’ Keepers rally. They agree to sleep in bed together because Molly is too scared to sleep at home, but Molly insists that nothing sexual will take place. Noah agrees, on the condition that she “not do anything sexy.” She presses her cold feet against his legs, and Noah responds:

“Suit yourself, lady. I’m telling you right now, you made the rules, but you’re playing with fire here. I’ve got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don’t tease the panther.”

There’s much, much more at the link. In Beck’s book we learn the following: how caterers help superspies, Bill Clinton & flat taxes are a real turn-on, and quoting Star Wars can get you out of trouble. As they say read the whole thing!

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (9)

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  1. jason330 says:

    Founders Keepers…?

    What a great unintentional reveal of Beck’s political philosophy in two words. Through hard work (being born white and middle class in America in the 1900’s) Beck, acquired the skills (race baiting, lowest common denominator shock jocking) to climb to the top of the economic heap ($38 million in income last year).

    No wonder his dream organization “Founders Keepers” is a paronomasia of “Finders Keepers.”

    …losers weepers…bitches.

  2. jason330 says:

    Reading on…

    Naturally Beck thinks caterers are communist. Everywhere he goes brown skinned caterers are handing him things. More often than not they are looking at him with that slightly accusatory look as he takes his 9th Zakuski off their tray and shoves it into his Zakuski hole. And when they are not handing him something, they are whisking things away from the scene. Things like cocktail glasses, every one plastered with Beck’s DNA.

    Where do these glasses go? ACORN’s secret DNA lab, of course.

  3. pandora says:

    Glenn Beck achieves the unimaginable: He makes Rand’s writing look like literature.

  4. delacrat says:

    Do we have to give Beck’s latest discharge more publicity than it’s already getting ?

  5. When you say that the book “sounds hilariously awful,” are you really basing your opinion of the book on an obviously biased review? Whether one agrees with Glenn Beck’s political views or not, he is a good writer, and the plot sounds both interesting and plausible.

    If I criticized the works and writing ability of every author whose opinion I disagree with, my bookshelf would be empty indeed. For that matter, I usually read books for myself before smearing them.

  6. delacrat says:

    Chris,

    Explain why “Don’t tease the panther” is “interesting” to you.

  7. Jason330 says:

    chris – Don’t.

  8. skippertee says:

    People who buy this book,watch his program,agree with his far-out paranoid fantasies should be knighted into the “Official Order of Illuminated Beckerheads”.
    The induction ceremonies are,of course,secret,but rumor has it that elaborate presentations of kazoos,decoder rings and lobotomies[when required]are involved.