Glenn Beck denounced the NPR report I criticized last night as “a hatchet piece” on his syndicated radio show this morning and claimed his comments were taken out of context. The NPR story suggested Beck was criticizing Limbaugh without explaining his own controversial statements — and now Beck is alleging that it did so under false pretenses. As I said, David Folkenflik is usually an excellent reporter, so I’m reserving judgment.

The transcript below is transcribed from archived audio of this morning’s program on Beck’s website (Real audio; subscription required). It begins with Beck describing a conversation with a staff member:

“[A]nother article just broke.” I said, “What’s the other article?” “Apparently NPR has done an article with you taking down Rush Limbaugh.” And I said, “Wow! Really? I don’t remember doing an interview with NPR where I took down Rush Limbaugh.” “Yeah, that’s the way they shaped the story.”

Now I’m going to give you the history of this one, and then I’m going to give you the story. And you just tell me if this sounds like anything anybody in their right mind would ever do. It starts with a conservative doing an interview with NPR! Does that sound like anything anybody in their right mind would ever do? This is 100 percent my fault and, quite honestly, Rush Limbaugh’s fault as well because he did an interview with them as well. But I’m assuming they lied to Rush Limbaugh as much as they lied to me.

After recounting a previous experience with NPR, Beck describes his meeting with staff about the recent interview:

I get back to the office… So I go in and there’s like this team of PR people. And I walk in and I’m like, “Guys – NPR. Are you out of your mind?” They all start “No, no, Glenn, we know this reporter”… “No, we have it on the highest assurances that this is not going to be a hatchet piece.” I said, “Really? National Public Radio told you that, huh?” “Yes, not going to be a hatchet piece.” “What is the piece going to be on?” “Well, it’s going to be on talk radio.” “And you don’t think that’s going to be a hatchet piece?” “No, it’s not.” “Ok, alright, I think I pay you guys too much money. In fact, I think I should be paying you zero if you really don’t think that would be a hatchet job.” And then I got this speech. “Glenn, look, I have a relationship with these people and they wouldn’t burn us.”

…So I do it. Well, because of that relationship, that individual was exactly right. They didn’t burn me; they burned Rush Limbaugh instead and used me as the tool to do it. I was the fire that burned Rush Limbaugh… So I wrote Rush a letter last night, said, “Rush, uh uh. Didn’t say this. Not about you, brother. Nothing to do with you.”

…[Rush and I are] co-workers for the love of pete. Now, according to NPR, we’re rivals. That’s weird because I precede him on the same network. We work for the same company. We’re on hundreds of the same stations.

…[after reading from the NPR story] This is supposed to be about talk radio, I thought. When I was doing the interview, it was about talk radio. This seems to be “building bipartisanship, not Limbaugh’s problem.” This is a hatchet piece on Rush Limbaugh. This has nothing to do — I spent half the interview talking about people on the left and Air America. I talked about how people are being divided not because they actually believe it — and in fact I said good things about Limbaugh and Franken because they actually believe these things.

…Now listen to this. This is where Glenn becomes the hatchet man. “Limbaugh says — listen carefully – ‘I’m just using humor to make a point.’” Now do I agree or disagree with that? This is where context matters. Do I agree or disagree with using humor to make a point? I was shocked last night to find out I not only disagree, I vehemently disagree. “But rival conservative talk show host Glenn Beck says such severe rhetoric only drives people apart,” which is weird, because there’s no quotation marks around that, which is very strange. Quote, “I truly believe it’s going to be the death of us. It’s going to be the death of us, the death of our country, if we don’t stop dividing ourselves like this. It’s just not right.”

Wait a minute – what’s not right? Dividing ourselves, or using humor to make a point? I’m not sure. I know when I was talking in the interview about that point it wasn’t about Rush Limbaugh. It was about politicians separating us. It was about politicians using people to separate people. I believe in that same quote I quoted George Washington. I can guarantee that I didn’t quote Rush Limbaugh. I can guarantee that Rush Limbaugh’s statement that “I’m just using humor to make a point” was never even mentioned.” Because if it would have been mentioned, I would have said, “Well, I agree with that. That’s the soul of our show.”