By P.J. Gladnick | January 26, 2011 | 10:56 AM EST

I am not now nor have I ever been Glenn Beck.

Please, please believe me!

I am NOT Glenn Beck!

Such was the tone of the unintentionally hilarious article in The New Republic by contributing editor John McWhorter. Apparently his "thought crime" in the eyes of Jim Sleeper writing in Talking Points Memo was agreeing with Glenn Beck on the social toxicity of Frances Fox Piven:

By Clay Waters | January 25, 2011 | 2:03 PM EST

Fox News host Glenn Beck was targeted by New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter in a Saturday piece in defense of leftist academic Frances Fox Piven, columnist for The Nation magazine and common focus of Beck’s show.

But three prominent conservatives accuse Stelter of downplaying Piven’s inflammatory rhetoric and unfairly blaming Beck for hostile and offensive emails received by Piven, in his Saturday article "Glenn Beck’s Focus Gives a Professor Notoriety." (By quoting her accurately?)

On his daily radio and television shows, Glenn Beck has elevated once-obscure conservative thinkers onto best-seller lists. Recently, he has elevated a 78-year-old liberal academic to celebrity of a different sort, in a way that some say is endangering her life.