Dan Riehl (who watches Glenn Beck about as much as I do) criticizes the movement in the MSM and the liberal blogosphere to marginalize and eliminate Glenn Beck:

It appears to be We must marginalize and eliminate Glenn Beck Day in the media and liberal blogosphere. That's unsurprising, given a Tea Party movement that precedes Beck's timely and now somewhat prominent role in a broader effort meant to push back against the Federal Government.

The reality is said government now seems all but out of control in its current desire to grow and usurp individual liberty and the freedom to choose. Add in the 9/12 protests Beck did have a major role in, the incredible sales figures for Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny, which has nothing directly to do with Glenn Beck, and clearly someone senses there is trouble at hand and they need to lash out at someone if they can. However, they could run Glenn Beck off the air tomorrow and not much would change. Check that, it would probably only get worse for them.

If you strike him down, he will only . . . well, you know the rest.

It's a line from a movie I saw when I was in my 20s, of course. But it's totally appropriate.

If I were running "The Left," I would not even attempt to "strike Glenn Beck down." Instead, I would embrace him as the new, de facto leader of "The Right," and I would henceforth drop the ridiculous, sexual-freedom-phobic "teabagger" expression and start calling the Tea Parties "The Glenn Beck Tea Party Movement" in the hope of sowing division in their ranks. Whenever Tea Parties are mentioned, always insert Glenn Beck as a modifier, and whenever Glenn Beck is mentioned, always add his new "title" -- "Leader of the Tea Party Movement." (Sure, it's an absolute lie, but absolute lies repeated enough become absolute truths.) And this would put Glenn Beck in the position of either denying being the Leader, or embracing the title.

Of course, it might not work, but it's a better strategy than attacking Beck and imagining he'll wither away and die. The biggest problem the left has with the Tea Parties is that they are too horizontal.

The goal here would be to verticalize, verticalize, verticalize.

You can't chop off a head that isn't there.

But fortunately, I'm not running the left, and they never listen to me. Every time I make one of these practical, "here's what I would do" suggestions, the left ignores it -- which is precisely why I'm making it. A good thing, too. No matter how annoyed I get from time to time at certain people on the right (mainly the Sex and Drug War types), they're only annoyances, because they mainly offer gratuitous moral advice, and while they might want to tell people what to do, they generally don't seek government power to do it. The left not only wants to tell people what to do, they mean to have it enforced. Ultimately at gunpoint.

So I'm glad I'm not running "The Left." You couldn't pay me enough, because I couldn't live with myself.

Of course, what if the left is thinking ahead? What if they're following the Star Wars strategy and deliberately trying to strike Glenn Beck down in the hope of building him up and making him stronger -- precisely along the lines of "If you marginalize me, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine"? If that would that end up verticalizing the Tea Party Movement, then there's really no downside for the left in continuing to marginalizing, is there?

Looking at the long run (and I do mean long run, as we're barely half a year into Barack Obama's first term) I don't think it will matter much either way. Because, if they think they can grow a head on a vertical movement and then cut it off, they are doomed to disappointment. A horizontal movement might grow a head here, and a head there, but if they are cut off, it will always be able to grow new ones.

Sounds like scifi or even the Book of Revelation, but it has solid grounding in ancient mythology.

So go ahead, and marginalize. Go ahead and verticalize. If you strike off one head, more will appear!

The left may be many things, but they are not Hercules.

MORE: To illustrate the idea that the more they demonize the heads, the more heads there are to demonize, I found this little gem: