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Keith Olbermann calls the result “Lonesome Rhodes,” after the character Andy Griffith played in 1957’s “A Face in the Crowd.” Griffith’s Rhodes was a bigoted, profane force of nature, an Arkansas con man whose act won him money, fame and power until he took himself too seriously. Beck isn’t as good an actor as Griffith. He’s not as self-aware as Rhodes was. It’s important that Watson did not become the man on the pedestal until his national flame had dimmed, when he became a hurricane for regional injustice, until his followers actually committed murder for him. Beck”s probably not that strong, either.
