Is John Stossel More Dangerous Than Glenn Beck?

In May this year, a prominent commentator on Fox News called for the repeal of the section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that bans discrimination in places of public accommodation. "Private businesses ought to discriminate... it should be their right to be racist," he said.

Fox News has a longstanding policy of giving race-baiters a soapbox, but the fascinating thing about this particular bit of vile nonsense is that even other figureheads at the channel like Bill O'Reilly, Charles Krauthammer and Steve Brown -- each known for their own ignorant worldviews -- voiced disgust at the suggestion that racial discrimination ought to be a right granted to businesses.

And perhaps most interesting is the fact that this affront to the hard-fought civil rights movement was uttered not by hysterical, completely bonkers Glenn Beck -- from whom we have all come to expect such outrageous statements. Instead, it came from none other than John Stossel, the mustachioed reporter familiar to most TV-viewing Americans, and who recently joined Rupert Murdoch's right-wing propaganda network after leaving ABC News late last year.

Stossel has come a long way from his local consumer reporter days in 1970s New York City. Considered a solid consumer advocate back then, he worked his way to a job at ABC News. But somehow, along the way, during long stints at stalwarts like "Good Morning America" and "20/20", he became much too ideological for a mainstream network like ABC.

His last decade at ABC News even included a relatively rare on-air apology for a story he reported on organic produce. Stossel had cited pesticide tests that were never done to debunk the benefits to eating organic foods. "I am deeply sorry I misled you," Stossel said to his viewers, before undermining the apology by stating that his general thesis was still correct.

Stossel now hosts an eponymous show on Fox Business dedicated to spouting his staunchly libertarian ideology, and appears regularly on Fox News' shows as a commentator. He is something of an anomaly for the conservative channel, because while he can make racist statements as well as the rest of them, he couches his particular brand of hate in his passion for libertarianism. So his calls for the "right to be racist" come alongside his support for ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and legalizing all drugs, prostitution, abortion and assisted suicide.

Has Fox News identified a new form of fury to monetize? It would appear so; and they picked the right man.

Stossel has become something of a Tea Party hero (he has an effigy of Barney Frank hanging above his sofa), has long been one of the most popular speakers on the conservative lecture circuit, and his syndicated column is increasingly popular. According to Rick Newcomb, the CEO of Creators Syndicate, which publishes Michelle Malkin and Chuck Norris, Stossel's column was the most requested to appear in local newspapers by users on Creators' Web site over a period of three months this year.

Among the requests Creators received is this note from a woman in Pensacola, Fla.: "[John Stossel] stands up for the average person, the one who is just trying to live a decent life without being frustrated at every turn by endless, overbearing government interference."

"I think he hits a nerve," says Newcomb, who self-identifies as a libertarian and suggested the column idea to Stossel.

Indeed, like Creators, Fox has cleverly honed in on an audience cohort that doesn't completely identify with the weepy, conspiratorial entertainment offered by Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. Fox's two latest hires -- Stossel and fellow-libertarian blowhard Andrew Napolitano, who hosts "Freedom Watch" on Fox Business -- show that the network recognizes the difference between its conservative and libertarian audiences. With the rise of the Tea Party, whose loose framework of ideas is centered around anger at an out-of-control government and its runaway spending, libertarianism stands to rake in money and ratings for Fox.