Glenn Beck's teary-eyed silent monologue: 'My vocal chords [sic] are paralyzed'

Conservative talker and professional conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck announced Monday that he has temporarily lost his voice. On his web-only The Blaze TV broadcast Monday, he delivered the news over dramatic string music with the help of handwritten flash cards.

"Doctors told me Friday," he said by way of the flash cards. "My vocal chords [sic] are paralyzed."

The condition, he said, is temporary and reversible, but the loss of his voice has apparently got Beck thinking about his role in society. In his silent monologue, he expanded upon his remarks from the Talkers Magazine convention on Thursday, in which he apologized for being so "divisive" and only wishes he could go back and state his truth in a less plangent way that wouldn't have set people "at each other's throats."

Losing his voice, said Beck, "got me thinking. What's left for me to say? If today was the last day you had a voice, what would you say? 'I love you?' 'I miss you?'"

Tears began to leak from the erstwhile Fox News personality's eyes as he continued, "I've been on air since 1979," and by his estimate, he has said approximately 89 million words.

"How many have been of value?" he asked. "Or positive? Or made a difference?"

"I have changed a lot since the 90s," he said. "Lately, I have changed even more." He says he is no longer like his "old" self and now wants only to "HEAL, HELP, LIFT UP" and "LOVE" people.

"Our country is in dire trouble," he continued. "Both parties are corrupt."

"If today was the last day I could speak," he said, "I would choose my words carefully. What makes America great? Her people. They are GOOD. Republican, Democrat, Independent."

"We all make mistakes and GROW," he wrote. "It's what makes us NOBLE, the courage to change and admit I was wrong."

The man who Forbes magazine ranks as one of the most highly paid celebrities in the world appears to be attempting to rehabilitate his image. This comes just as he enters negotiations with cable providers and satellite networks in hopes that they will pick up The Blaze TV as one of their official networks. (Dish Network and Optimum TV already carry Beck's network.)

The big cable companies are understandably nervous about picking up a property with Beck's history and media baggage. He became a liability at the Fox News Channel as his ever-escalating rhetoric against the Obama administration cost him viewers and advertisers.

The scope and breadth of the damage one personality can do to an entire media model is evident in the Rush Limbaugh debacle that took place in 2012. When the hotheaded right wing talker attacked Duke University grad student Sandra Fluke, an advertiser backlash followed that has done real economic damage to the talk radio business model, although Limbaugh dismissed the millions of dollars lost as insignificant.

If Beck hopes to take his highly profitable online enterprise to the airwaves, he will have to find a way to assuage network executives' doubts that he is too unstable and too controversial to risk real money on.

Watch the video, embedded via The Blaze TV, below:

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