If you haven't seen Paddy Chayefsky's great 1976 film "Network" at all or in a while, give it a look and marvel at what seemed far-fetched at the time and what today appears almost tame.

We're talking about the movie with the landmark fictional character Howard Beale, a TV network anchor who loses his mind and is kept on the air anyway, whipping himself into a frenzy and urging viewers to scream, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Did anyone say, hello, Glenn Beck?

Here's a man who has risen to a position of national influence on Fox News, after being a nobody at CNN Headline News and toiling in relative obscurity for years on a variety of morning zoo-like radio programs.

I commend your attention to the cover story in Time magazine for far more insight on the man and his game.

To me, Beck has become Rush Limbaugh mixed with Bill O'Reilly on steroids.

Glenn Beck is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. ... as long as he's on conservative-leaning Fox News. When he wears out his welcome (or figuratively sets himself on fire, as MSNBC conservative commentator Joe Scarborough predicts), Beck will find another microphone and maybe even a different ideological platform.

If Paddy Chayefsky were still alive, Beck would be a wonderful, over-the-top character who could only exist in his next novel or screenplay.