At the heart of Glenn Beck's deception is his ability to cry on demand. Alexander Zaitchik at Alternet wrote almost a year ago:
Those who take a single drop of Beck's tears seriously need simply watch recordings of his stage shows. As he paces the stage, Beck switches the tear-ducts on and off like a switch, sometimes as many as six times in a single hour. He even chokes himself up for slick, produced segments like the trailer for the stage show based on his best-selling (and ghostwritten) Christmas novel, The Christmas Sweater.
Remember the scene from Broadcast News in which William Hurt's character deliberately makes himself cry, then cuts his (fake) teary reaction into an interview in order to make it appear as though he's crying in real time while being told a story about date rape? It was a major breach in ethics. But that's Beck. It's all fake, and millions of people are falling for the scam.