Glenn Beck says that America under the Obama administration is like "the damn Planet of the Apes." You know, the movie where monkeys are in charge. How interesting! Whatever could he have meant by that statement?

Last week, Glenn Beck had a typically informative, entertaining show about how the Democrats are going to enforce mandatory white-baby abortions, or whatever. At some point, Beck threw himself into conniptions watching President Obama speak, and said: "Did I slip through a worm hole in the middle of the night and this looks like America? It's like the damn planet of the apes."

Now, obviously Beck wasn't trying to race-bait his viewers by comparing the U.S. under a black president to a science fiction movie about an earth controlled by monkeys, despite the longstanding racist trope of comparing people of African descent to monkeys. So what was he trying to say? Perhaps something like:

  • America is like Planet of the Apes because, much like Ape City, the U.S. a stratified society with high degrees of specialization.
  • America is like Planet of the Apes because we, like the apes, are curious about our ancestry and the history of the planet.
  • America is like Planet of the Apes because in some sense, we've all just crash-landed here after a spaceship journey.
  • America is like Planet of the Apes, because we too have a "Forbidden Zone": Talking honestly about our feelings towards our parents.
  • America is like Planet of the Apes because we just aren't taking good enough care of the Statue of Liberty.
  • America is like Planet of the Apes, insofar as high gas prices have forced many people to resort to horseback transportation.
  • America is like Planet of the Apes, in the sense that both apes and humans live in America.
  • America is like Planet of the Apes because both contain the letter "a."

Or maybe he meant something else? Who knows! One thing about Glenn Beck is, there are always so many shades of meaning and subtlety. Can't wait to see what movie he'll compare the U.S. to this week—Black Snake Moan, maybe? Only in the sense that the U.S., like Christina Ricci, is very good-looking!!

(By the way, after his Planet of the Apes comment, Beck started ranting about crime in four American cities: Oakland, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Newark. What comes to mind when you think of those four cities? Their Democratic mayors and councils, of course! Not the fact that they're all majority-black cities. You racist.)