Editor's note: The following includes portions of a Glenn Beck show transcript, rewritten in parts by Luis Carrasco. The actual transcript can be found here

It’s hard to imagine that someone like Glenn Beck, who has brought his own brand of crazy aboard the border-bashing bandwagon, actually believes half of what he says. Maybe it’s best to think he is yet another name on the list of cynical newsmen who know a meal ticket when they see it.

Most people who live on the border would probably have a hard time imagining the area described on Beck’s Nov. 8 show. The border, if we are to believe the CNN host and his guests, is a war zone. In Beck’s version of the border no one is safe, the federal government doesn’t care, and Texas sheriffs are alone in a fight for the very survival of America.

Call me crazy, but judging from past statements I wouldn’t let Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West request overtime pay for his deputies to babysit my cat, let alone count on him to protect the United States from trained assassins who apparently live next door to regular people.

Trained assassins, you ask. That’s right. Sheriff West said the Zetas, who are, to be fair, trained assassins, may be living next to you. To hear the sheriff tell it, they may be borrowing your garden sheers as we speak, probably so they can chop someone’s hand off.

But the sheriff doesn’t bother me that much; neither does the congressman nor the filmmaker Beck had on his show that night. What troubles me the most is Beck himself, and the hyperbole, exaggeration, misrepresentation and, some would say, shading of the truth, that he engaged in.

Again, let’s be clear. Is there violence along the border? Yes. Is there corruption in Mexico? Yes. Are the cartels bloodthirsty criminal enterprises? Yes. Are people being killed in Juárez? Yes. Do the Zetas literally feed people to the lions? Maybe.

I couldn’t for the life of me think of doing a straight column on this subject. Optimally these guys should be ignored, allowed to preach to the choir in their merry lying way in their Fox News ghetto (admittedly, a very large ghetto), but this guy’s on CNN for Pete’s sake.

Granted, it’s Headline News, but it’s still CNN.

So the question is what to do. Below I rewrote parts of the transcript from the Nov. 8 show, but I’ll be honest and say I don’t think I was very successful. It’s hard to make fun of someone when what he is actually saying is so outrageous and stupid.

It’s sad when the Stephen Colbert persona, a parody of guys like Beck, is less of a cartoon than the real deal. Anyway, on to the “comedy.”

***

Border Crisis? “True” Stories from the Border

Aired November 8, 2007 - 19:00:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): America’s border crisis. Rape, drugs, kidnapping, even murder. It is beginning to look a lot more like a border war.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are afraid of Mexicans. Ever seen what menudo’s made of? Those people will eat anything, including our children.

BECK: We’ll also take you into the heart of the chaos and talk to the people on the front lines.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Left a little booby trap there. Some sort of flaming bag of poo. Anything to slow us down and speed them along.

BECK: These are the stories that you’ll see nowhere else. Stories some in our government hope you don’t see. It’s a special hour on our nation’s border crisis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Hello, America.

In the next hour I’m going to show you a side of the border that you probably haven’t seen. In fact, not even the people living on the border have seen it.

Frightening, true stories of brutal attacks, shocking levels of violence, eyewitness accounts from people just trying to protect everyday Americans in what I consider to be an escalating war on the border.

Some of these images I can’t show you, because our lawyers are still figuring out which ones we can show, which ones we’d be sued for. I just left a meeting just a couple minutes ago where I saw five heads laying down on a floor of a nightclub just on the other side of our border.

You may have seen that picture months ago in the Diario de El Paso but clearly our lawyers don’t have what it takes inside their legal briefs to let me show it to you. Instead they suggested I describe it to you in graphic and horrific detail. Or maybe it was our marketing department who suggested that, I’m not sure, and, frankly, I don’t care to be sure.

Anderson Cooper can deny his sexuality all he wants, but not even he can deny what I consider to be an escalating war on the border.

Joining us tonight is Texas Congressman Ted Poe and Newspaper Tree columnist Luis Carrasco.

BECK: First, Luis, I understand you live on the border yet are blind to the kidnapping, the beheading, the terror spilling into our country. Let me ask you, are you for real?

LUIS CARRASCO, TRAITOR: Actually Glenn, I used to live on the border, now I live in Tennessee.

BECK: Ran for your life, eh?

LUIS: Not really, no. Tell you the truth I miss it a lot.

BECK: Well that’s just crazy… Congressman, how many times do people have to be kidnapped from the United States before Congress does something, before the media wakes up and says, “My gosh, look what’s going on here”?

LUIS: Kidnapped?

BECK: El nap-o de kid-o, comprende? Now let the congressman answer.

REP. TED POE (R), TEXAS: Well, it seems to me that Washington, D.C., is in blissful ignorance of what’s taking place, especially on the southern border, regarding the violence that takes place, the murders, the kidnappings, the drugs being brought into this country.

Go to the Texas-Mexico border if you don’t believe how violent it is. And I’ve been down there a dozen times. I was raped several times while I was down there, once I was even murdered. I invite my fellow members of Congress to go. Many of them will go for the sodomy. A lot more will refuse to go.

BECK: Congressman, I have to tell you, and you know this to be true, we have -- in fact, I had a guy last night talk to me on a conference call last night. I begged the guy to come on. I said, “I’ll protect your identity. I’ll disguise your voice. I’ll have Nancy Grace blow you. Nobody will see your face.” He’s an insider that knows what’s going on.

He said, “Glenn, I’ll be fired by the government if they ever find out I am giving any kind of information. They don’t want this stuff out.” And he said, “Quite honestly, call me when you can get me Greta van Susteren.”

We have people that want to talk out -- speak out, but they’re afraid. Afraid and choosy.

POE: Well, they are afraid. They’re afraid of not only the drug cartels and the violence, but border agents have talked to me, and they’re also afraid of being able to tell the truth.

BECK: OK. Here’s what I’m afraid of, Luis. I’m afraid that we are -- we are turning into Mexico, where everybody is corrupt, where the whole system is corrupt. You got chickens -- corrupt chickens -- running around all over the place while dirty barefoot children wearing lucha libre masks try to sell chiclets to the tourists while they pick their pockets so their poppa can keep drinking down at the cantina.

LUIS: That’s a gross generalization Glenn, not all of them sell chiclets.

BECK: We’ll be back in just a second. Congressman, thank you very much. Chris, Luis, you stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: I want to speak directly to anybody who’s living on the border right now, anybody in the media, anybody who is in homeland security. I’ve put -- I’ve made an e-mail address. It is Tips@GlennBeck.com. A lot of people are afraid to tell the story. A lot of people are freaking out.

You have a story to tell. I will protect your identity. Believe me, I will tell your story. I am sick and tired of losing my country and no one willing to stand up for it. If that’s you, if you’re willing just to tell us what you know, we’ll tell your story. Go to Tips@GlennBeck.com.

LUIS: I’m glad you’re making this e-mail available Glenn. I too am tired of losing my country to nuts like you. I hope you get stories from real people who live on the real border; they may not be the “real” stories you’re looking for but maybe they’ll open your eyes to something besides scaring people to get ratings.

BECK: Let me show you another video. This is video of a family, what appears to be a family, coming across. Chris, can you tell me what this video is?

BURGARD: You bet. This is -- these -- they were apprehended in Nogales. And what happens is when the kids come across it ties up the Border Patrol units for about 45 minutes while they do paperwork.

BECK: OK. These kids here. These are all kids.

BURGARD: It was a family unit from about halfway down to Mexico. And what happens is then, while they’re filling out the paperwork like this agent’s doing there, there were nine other hits along the border. They used these guys as a decoy.

LUIS: “Hits”? What do you mean hits? What are you telling people? This is ridiculous.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

***

Reader Mail

DJ writes:

I'm always amused and somewhat provoked by Mr. Carrasco's overly-idealistic college Youth Club Marxist rantings, and now he's gone and openly admitted to his Red-flagged Hammer and Sickle lining. Pinko, indeed.

Hell, next he'll admit that he's got a Che Guevara tattoo, as most young Latino leftist seem to be completely enchanted by that child murderer and his short lifetime of hatred and failure.

Yet, despite his bold admissions of adherence to a discredited and completely unworkable political and social philosophy, there is in today's offering a glint of a rational and reasonable mind in there, looking to break through the dogma. "...but as always, the truth lies somewhere in between" Words to live by, if you ask me, Luis!

Cheers, DJ

Wow. I mean, wow.

I hope DJ knows that I write most of my columns with tongue planted firmly in cheek (unlike Beck, who probably writes his stuff with thumb planted firmly in butt) and that I hardly consider myself a pinko.

If asking for decency and understanding are Youth Club Marxist material then I was grossly misinformed during my orientation for which clubs to join on campus. I DO love money and exploiting the proletariat, though, so maybe it’s OK I joined the pep squad, instead.

If DJ believes in reason and balance, then he and I are more similar than he gives me credit for. I don’t even like Che Guevara and his “short lifetime of hatred and failure.” I prefer Castro and his long lifetime of being an ass.

Cheers, indeed.