(Yosi Sergant, Courtesy ArtByMags Flickr/Creative Commons)

When Glenn Beck, et al, got Van Jones to resign as an Obama administration adviser for seemingly no good reason, we were disappointed. When Glenn Beck, et al, got Yosi Sergant demoted in his position at the National Endowment for the Arts for participating on a conference call encouraging artists to participate in a project called “United We Serve,” it seemed ludicrous. But when the Huffington Post tells us that Beck compared an arts campaign to “propaganda efforts similar to those used by Nazi Germany,” that started bordering on dangerous.

But now, it’s clear that this is all far worse than just two people Beck disagrees with getting the boot. On his Twitter feed on September 3rd, Beck posted this unnerving post: “WATCH DOGS: FIND EVERYTHING YOU CAN ON CASS SUNSTEIN, MARK LLOYD AND CAROL BROWNER. Do not link before burning to disc.” Oh, don’t believe me? Look:

I think the “Do not link” part is Beck telling his followers to save any information they come across – in case it gets taken off the internet as a preventative measure. It’s infuriating merely how calculated his hate is. Anyhow, as the Washington Independent points out, these three are “respectively, the nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer of the FCC, and the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. Browner was also administrator of the EPA for all eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency.”

At this point, there is no way to characterize this other than a witch hunt. This is no longer mere politics – as we all know, but Democrats and Republicans might oppose a single nomination or appointment on issues unrelated to the position itself (Daschle, Miers, Richardson, Bork), but this is the first time since, oh, let’s say McCarthy, that someone this powerful (and, yes, Glenn Beck is obviously extremely powerful) is simply casting out a net and seeing what can be caught. The fact that he’s singled out three individuals is even more frightening. Maybe “witch hunt” isn’t even the right word. It’s more like witch sniping.

What’s perhaps most infuriating (well, I don’t even know at this point what’s most infuriating) in all this is that Beck is using his bully pulpit, and all the power that comes with it for ratings. As long as people continue to watch Beck to see who he’s going to take down next, he’ll keep doing it. And thus, he’s most likely driven not by any abiding sense in JUSTICE, or even that Van Jones, or Mark Lloyd, or any of them are BAD AMERICANS. No. He’s doing this because he gets paid. It’s maddening to see someone who claims to be such a patriot putting Fox News ahead of what ostensibly is the good of the country.