Update: No, seriously, is Glenn Beck for real with this?

"What's the deal with airline food?"

Over the past few months, quite a few observers of right-wing nutjobs have been having some fun with Fox News host Glenn Beck, whose ranting and raving has taken on an increasingly deranged tone. Just this past week, for example, he simulated dousing someone with gasoline to make a point about how Barack Obama may as well just light the "common man" on fire rather than subject us all to his policy. People on the left had a good laugh.

But perhaps now we're learning that the joke was on us all along:

Glenn Beck, Fox News Channel's latest sensation, is taking a comedy show on the road for six live performances over six days during the first week of June.

Beck calls his act a "poor man's Seinfeld" and intends to mix topical humor with his modern-day reimagining of Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense."

Huh. Doe this mean his "comedy routine" is basically just the rants from his show, like some uber-right-wing Dennis Miller? When he does things like, say, dousing someone with pretend gasoline, is he going for a laugh? Or is he a subversive satirist? Is his show, then, a very convincing parody of right-wing crazies, like Stephen Colbert's, but more straight-faced? We'll go out on a limb and say the latter is not too likely. Instead, we're guessing he thinks that the reactions he gets from lefties are what's really "funny," thus making him the cable news equivalent of an internet troll. Or maybe not. We're honestly kind of curious, here.

(H/T The Stranger)