Projection much?

Oh, this is just hilarious...or it would be if we had a population that was even halfway paying attention and had even a little bit of skepticism about what's shown them on the network news at night.

Here's Dan Abrams from Thursday night. The segment exposing Faux Noise for using footage from 2000 and passing it off as current in an effort to make John McCain appear younger and more in possession of his faculties than he is today is appalling enough. But watch Ben Stein and Glenn Beck having the vapors about the plans for Barack Obama to give his speech at the Democratic National Convention in front of 75,000 people (because that many people want to hear it):

"Authoritarian." "Hitler." Only Republican authoritarians like Stein and Beck could turn charisma and popularity into something dark and ominious and a sign of a new Reich. Funny, these guys didn't utter a peep when George W. Bush, a president who may not have held all of the American people in thrall, but who certainly held the entire Washington press insiders in thrall when he stuffed his flightsuit full of socks and strutted across the deck of an aircraft carrier, said on three separate documented occasions that he'd rather be a dictator. Funny, these guys didn't utter a peep when Ari Fleischer said that people have to watch what they say, watch what they do. Funny, these guys didn't utter a peep while George W. Bush has swept up the mass communications of untold millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything.

Considering how so-called pundits like Beck and Stein have worshipped the projection of manly authority that we've seen in George Bush and Dick Cheney for the past eight years, it seems just a bit disingenuous for them to be screaming "Hitler" because the Democrats are about to put on a spectacle featuring a highly charismatic candidate. It seems just a bit too similar to the way conservatives froth at the mouth at the mere mention of the words "gay marriage." Methinks they protesteth too much.