On his CNN Headline News show last night, Glenn Beck hosted Sam Antonio, a national spokesperson for the John Birch Society, to discuss various “conspiracy theories” about immigration and border security, including the idea that “the Mexican government” has “a hold on our enforcement of laws here in America.” Beck told Antonio that he used to think the Society members were “a bunch of nuts,” but that they are now “starting to make more and more sense” to him. Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/07/BeckBirch.320.240.flv]
As Salon’s Alex Koppelman notes, the group’s founder, Robert Welch, once accused Dwight Eisenhower of being “a dedicated conscious agent of the communist conspiracy.” The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed the John Birch Society as a group that “advocates or adheres to extreme antigovernment doctrines.”