GLENN BECK: “I PLAYED A ROLE … IN HELPING TEAR THE COUNTRY APART”

It was what the Huffington Post headlined as “an astonishing admission” — a mea culpa from Glenn Beck about his tenure on Fox News as one of its highest-rated commentators. While remarking during an interview with Megyn Kelly that he had had “an awful lot of fun” while hosting his program, he also conceded that “I made an awful lot of mistakes” and expressed regret that he had not been “more uniting in my language.” In fact, he remarked, “I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart and it’s not who we are.” He went on: “I didn’t realize how really fragile the people were. I thought we were kind of more in it together and now I look back and realize, if we could’ve talked about the uniting principles instead of just the problems, I think I would look back more fondly.” The liberal Daily Beast website editorialized that Beck’s remarks amounted to a “too little, too late” apology. “Beck preyed on and profited from his audience’s fears, many of which he planted himself,” it said. “And now that the country is practically ripping at the seams politically, he wonders if his language was perhaps a bit too divisive.”