06-21-2009, 10:29 AM
Transcript of interview with the author;
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/26808/?ck=1">http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 6808/?ck=1</a><!-- m -->
Glenn Beck: Author of 'The Letter'
[Insider] Audio Available:
June 18, 2009 - 22:01 ET
Related Links
Sign the petition: An open letter to our nation's leadership
The petition site is currently having issues with the large amounts of traffic this issue has generated. If you encounter a problem attempting to access the petition please try again later.
GLENN: Yesterday, yesterday I read a letter from a woman named Janet Contreras. Janet, is that how you say your last name, Contreras?
CALLER: Contreras.
GLENN: Contreras. When did you write this letter?
CALLER: The night before I e mailed it to you. I was trying to reach Patrick Beck which I have been able to do since then.
GLENN: Who's Patrick Beck?
CALLER: He's the gentleman that you had on the show who's also from Arizona that's organizing the march to Washington, D.C.
GLENN: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I can put did you ever get in touch with him?
CALLER: I was able to, yes.
Glenn Beck's Common Sense
Now available in book stores nationwide...
GLENN: Okay, good. It is an absolutely amazing letter and I read it yesterday on the air and I'm going to open the show on television tonight so all the Fox viewers will see it as well tonight.
CALLER: That's great.
GLENN: You were a Democrat?
CALLER: I was, all my adult life. I was a Democrat all my adult life, and during this last election Obama and Hillary just made me so angry, I could not stay registered a Democrat. But John McCain made me angry, too. And now I don't know what I am other than angry. I don't know what I am.
GLENN: Here's what you are. You are an American. That's great. You know what, I find myself in exactly the same position, Janet, that I'm angry because I actually care. And reading your letter, it sounds like you do, too. And I thought that we all just kind of had an understanding that we would vote for you and you would tell us what you were going to do and, you know, there were going to be some problems and we're not going to do some of the stuff, but you had the good of the country at heart.
CALLER: Exactly.
GLENN: And now you find out that the ones you voted for Democrats, I voted for Republicans, we both find out they don't actually mean a damn word they say.
CALLER: No. And it's extremely frustrating because now I have to put my life on hold and do the job that we hired them to do. If you had a store and you hired a manager and you just walked away and let the manager mind the store because you thought that you had trained the manager to run the store the way you wanted it run and you come back to find out the manager has just let everything go to pot and your store is just in shambles, whose fault is that? I mean, you walked away from the store. It makes me very angry. We hired them to do a job and they failed us miserably.
GLENN: Yeah, but you know what
CALLER: At the same time we've stood by. We were not minding the store.
GLENN: God bless you for saying that, Janet. This is the thing that I think a lot of people because there are so many groups of people and especially those in the media and in Washington that still want to make this about politics.
CALLER: Exactly.
GLENN: This is about betrayal quite honestly.
CALLER: Uh huh.
GLENN: And we are the ones that betrayed our founders. We're the ones that betrayed those who died on beaches.
CALLER: Right.
GLENN: We're the ones who said we got so lazy.
CALLER: Yes.
GLENN: They warned us. Our founders warned us over and over and over again, when you become complacent, when the government is no longer afraid of you, well, then you're in deep, deep trouble. We saw it coming. All through the Nineties we said, oh, well, you know what, character doesn't matter. When we said character doesn't matter, we gave them that's like going to the store manager and us saying, one of the other store people saying, "You know what, he's embezzling from you, I'm sure he's embezzling from you" and saying, "I'm not sure if that's true. Look, he's a little slippery on a few things, but I'm sure..." and the other guy's saying, looking at you, the manager, looking at you while you say to the other, "Hey, back off him, okay? He's a little slippery on a few things." As soon as you say that to somebody, you give them permission to be slippery on all things.
CALLER: Yeah, I agree.
GLENN: And that's what happened. That's what happened.
CALLER: Well, I don't want this. I don't want this fight, Glenn. I don't have the time or the energy or the financial resources for it, but that no longer matters. It no longer matters that I'm able or that I want this fight. I have to take it on. It's not a matter of choice anymore, which is why I wrote the letter.
GLENN: Janet, you have gosh, you just make my heart, you just make my heart so full because this is what I I don't remember the occasion but I remember I was on the air and somebody saying, you know, why are you talking about the financial stuff? You're just talking everybody down and you're talking the economy down and you're just trying to scare everybody. And I remember passionately with tears in my eyes saying, "I don't want to be this person. I don't want to say these things, but I have to." And to hear you say that, I know exactly what you mean and I'm hearing it more and more.
CALLER: No, I would rather mow my lawn and wash my car and play with my grandchildren.
GLENN: Who wouldn't.
CALLER: But I can't now. I cannot every minute of my spare time now has to be devoted to getting these guys out of office.
GLENN: Janet, how long did it take you to write that letter?
CALLER: Probably two hours. Because you go back and you tweak and you
GLENN: Have you ever written anything before?
CALLER: Yeah, a few things but I mean, not published things but, yes.
GLENN: May I, may I make a prediction. Your letter, in the next 72 hours, will be a letter that is circulated through a good portion of this country on the Internet. I have a feeling your letter may become a rallying cry.
CALLER: I hope so.
GLENN: I think it will.
CALLER: Because when I tried to e mail it to our representatives and our senators, most of my e mail was blocked, not in their district; they're not interested. But you know what? I don't care if I'm in their district. I'm coming for them, too.
GLENN: Janet, I know for a fact that the White House watches my program. I know that the halls of congress, I've talked to enough people in congress and the Senate that they watch, and those who are on the receiving end of our investigations or our opinions, they watch more than those who are not. Your letter is going to be heard today in Washington and we're putting a petition together with your letter in the free e mail newsletter today. So that goes to about a million people alone there, and I'm going to ask them to please pass it on to all of their friends and let's just watch what happens in the next, in the next week.
CALLER: That would be great. The other part of this is the invisible people who can and do represent my views need to come out of the shadows.
GLENN: To stand up.
CALLER: I don't know who they are. They're going to get washed away with the rest of them if they don't have the courage to stand up.
GLENN: Janet, I love you. If you missed her letter, tonight on Fox at 5:00.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/26808/?ck=1">http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articl ... 6808/?ck=1</a><!-- m -->
Glenn Beck: Author of 'The Letter'
[Insider] Audio Available:
June 18, 2009 - 22:01 ET
Related Links
Sign the petition: An open letter to our nation's leadership
The petition site is currently having issues with the large amounts of traffic this issue has generated. If you encounter a problem attempting to access the petition please try again later.
GLENN: Yesterday, yesterday I read a letter from a woman named Janet Contreras. Janet, is that how you say your last name, Contreras?
CALLER: Contreras.
GLENN: Contreras. When did you write this letter?
CALLER: The night before I e mailed it to you. I was trying to reach Patrick Beck which I have been able to do since then.
GLENN: Who's Patrick Beck?
CALLER: He's the gentleman that you had on the show who's also from Arizona that's organizing the march to Washington, D.C.
GLENN: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I can put did you ever get in touch with him?
CALLER: I was able to, yes.
Glenn Beck's Common Sense
Now available in book stores nationwide...
GLENN: Okay, good. It is an absolutely amazing letter and I read it yesterday on the air and I'm going to open the show on television tonight so all the Fox viewers will see it as well tonight.
CALLER: That's great.
GLENN: You were a Democrat?
CALLER: I was, all my adult life. I was a Democrat all my adult life, and during this last election Obama and Hillary just made me so angry, I could not stay registered a Democrat. But John McCain made me angry, too. And now I don't know what I am other than angry. I don't know what I am.
GLENN: Here's what you are. You are an American. That's great. You know what, I find myself in exactly the same position, Janet, that I'm angry because I actually care. And reading your letter, it sounds like you do, too. And I thought that we all just kind of had an understanding that we would vote for you and you would tell us what you were going to do and, you know, there were going to be some problems and we're not going to do some of the stuff, but you had the good of the country at heart.
CALLER: Exactly.
GLENN: And now you find out that the ones you voted for Democrats, I voted for Republicans, we both find out they don't actually mean a damn word they say.
CALLER: No. And it's extremely frustrating because now I have to put my life on hold and do the job that we hired them to do. If you had a store and you hired a manager and you just walked away and let the manager mind the store because you thought that you had trained the manager to run the store the way you wanted it run and you come back to find out the manager has just let everything go to pot and your store is just in shambles, whose fault is that? I mean, you walked away from the store. It makes me very angry. We hired them to do a job and they failed us miserably.
GLENN: Yeah, but you know what
CALLER: At the same time we've stood by. We were not minding the store.
GLENN: God bless you for saying that, Janet. This is the thing that I think a lot of people because there are so many groups of people and especially those in the media and in Washington that still want to make this about politics.
CALLER: Exactly.
GLENN: This is about betrayal quite honestly.
CALLER: Uh huh.
GLENN: And we are the ones that betrayed our founders. We're the ones that betrayed those who died on beaches.
CALLER: Right.
GLENN: We're the ones who said we got so lazy.
CALLER: Yes.
GLENN: They warned us. Our founders warned us over and over and over again, when you become complacent, when the government is no longer afraid of you, well, then you're in deep, deep trouble. We saw it coming. All through the Nineties we said, oh, well, you know what, character doesn't matter. When we said character doesn't matter, we gave them that's like going to the store manager and us saying, one of the other store people saying, "You know what, he's embezzling from you, I'm sure he's embezzling from you" and saying, "I'm not sure if that's true. Look, he's a little slippery on a few things, but I'm sure..." and the other guy's saying, looking at you, the manager, looking at you while you say to the other, "Hey, back off him, okay? He's a little slippery on a few things." As soon as you say that to somebody, you give them permission to be slippery on all things.
CALLER: Yeah, I agree.
GLENN: And that's what happened. That's what happened.
CALLER: Well, I don't want this. I don't want this fight, Glenn. I don't have the time or the energy or the financial resources for it, but that no longer matters. It no longer matters that I'm able or that I want this fight. I have to take it on. It's not a matter of choice anymore, which is why I wrote the letter.
GLENN: Janet, you have gosh, you just make my heart, you just make my heart so full because this is what I I don't remember the occasion but I remember I was on the air and somebody saying, you know, why are you talking about the financial stuff? You're just talking everybody down and you're talking the economy down and you're just trying to scare everybody. And I remember passionately with tears in my eyes saying, "I don't want to be this person. I don't want to say these things, but I have to." And to hear you say that, I know exactly what you mean and I'm hearing it more and more.
CALLER: No, I would rather mow my lawn and wash my car and play with my grandchildren.
GLENN: Who wouldn't.
CALLER: But I can't now. I cannot every minute of my spare time now has to be devoted to getting these guys out of office.
GLENN: Janet, how long did it take you to write that letter?
CALLER: Probably two hours. Because you go back and you tweak and you
GLENN: Have you ever written anything before?
CALLER: Yeah, a few things but I mean, not published things but, yes.
GLENN: May I, may I make a prediction. Your letter, in the next 72 hours, will be a letter that is circulated through a good portion of this country on the Internet. I have a feeling your letter may become a rallying cry.
CALLER: I hope so.
GLENN: I think it will.
CALLER: Because when I tried to e mail it to our representatives and our senators, most of my e mail was blocked, not in their district; they're not interested. But you know what? I don't care if I'm in their district. I'm coming for them, too.
GLENN: Janet, I know for a fact that the White House watches my program. I know that the halls of congress, I've talked to enough people in congress and the Senate that they watch, and those who are on the receiving end of our investigations or our opinions, they watch more than those who are not. Your letter is going to be heard today in Washington and we're putting a petition together with your letter in the free e mail newsletter today. So that goes to about a million people alone there, and I'm going to ask them to please pass it on to all of their friends and let's just watch what happens in the next, in the next week.
CALLER: That would be great. The other part of this is the invisible people who can and do represent my views need to come out of the shadows.
GLENN: To stand up.
CALLER: I don't know who they are. They're going to get washed away with the rest of them if they don't have the courage to stand up.
GLENN: Janet, I love you. If you missed her letter, tonight on Fox at 5:00.