By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

Conservative political commentator Glenn Beck rejected WWE's invitation to appear on Monday's Raw. The official statement, published Friday night at TheBlaze.com, reads: “Unfortunately I am currently booked doing anything else.”

This follows a hard push from WWE on Friday to get Beck to appear at Raw from Dallas, where Beck resides. WWE wanted Beck to be involved in their program involving the "anti-immigration" heels Jack Swagger and Zeb Colter.

Prior to Beck's response, WWE released a new video from Swagger and Colter rebutting Beck's recent criticisms of WWE programming, including Beck accusing WWE of "making a villain out of the Tea Party."

The heel duo "breaks character" mid-way through the video to deliver a corporate, propaganda message about WWE programming. The idea is to promote WWE content as fictional television, like a prime-time TV drama. Colter identifies himself as Wayne Keown and Jack Swagger identifies himself as Jake Hager.

After Keown delivers the message about WWE's storyline being designed to illicit a crowd response for the protagonist, Alberto Del Rio, and the antagonists, Colter and Swagger, the video snaps back into promo mode to "show how it's done."

One of the central themes is Keown attempting to take Beck's comment aimed at WWE, the company, that it's "stupid wrestling," and turn it into a claim that Beck called WWE's audience stupid, which flashes back to WWE's "Stand Up For WWE" propaganda campaign in 2010.



After releasing the "breaking character" video, WWE released a two-minute version that delivers the same message to Beck, but does not have Colter and Swagger "break character.



Meanwhile, WWE has yet to formally address Hager's arrest Tuesday night following the Smackdown taping, where Hager allegedly sped, drove under the influence, and possessed marijuana.

[ Video 1 URL: http://youtu.be/u9_RcD6WMmM . Video 2 URL: http://youtu.be/MfHJjS_o0Co ]

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