Watch the video and I’ll explain…

Hannity didn’t intro the return to broadcasting the way a host normally does (and Beckel was right to point that out), so even though Beckel was reacting emotionally and foolishly – he deserves an apology from Hannity for not being properly warned. Beckel is consistently a hothead and blustery blob, so dont hire him or have him on your show if you dont want that. If you DO want that, then its not fair play to slip back into commercial when you see an argument like that unfolding and you should take responsibility for the bad call.

The other thing that really annoys me is that Beckel was also the only left-of-center dude on the panel, which is typical of the Hannity show. Hannity is a Republican hack that never criticizes the right-wing, ever and his panel for that segment was Libertarian radio show host Neal Boortz and that Republican woman who was arguing with Beckel about the Head Start program. Hannity is the only place on Fox News that actually does what everyone who hates Fox News and doesn’t watch it THINKS the channel does. O’Reilly is a non-partisan traditionalist populist and doesn’t stack the deck like that. In fact, when it’s stacked, it’s almost always against him – with 2 guests he disagree’s with. WTF is Hannity’s problem that he always has to go up 3 against one like that? No wonder Beckel was angry. He was getting gang banged all evening.

I want a world where people constantly have to fear that someone will call them on their bullshit and that if they are unjustifiably mean, irresponsible witha accusations, dishonest or cruel to others – they will suffer reputation destroying return-fire – HOWEVER, I also want to live in a world where people play fair and don’t use someones weaknesses as a means to humiliate them. If Beckel does this all the time, then call him out on it all the time – Don’t call him your friend and then throw him under the bus like that. God damn that pisses me off.

A real host would have given a loud and clear “ON IN 5! STFU” and pointed out the return from break when he hears his guests bickering that close to going Live. Hannity’s excuse that he thought Beckel saw the Producer giving the 3-2-1-GO signs is bullshit. Hannity wanted to have some of the argument spill over to on-air – which I agree is entertaining and is a fine gamble, but he lost that gamble this time when the profanity was uttered and it was at Beckels expense so Hannity should have apologized for it – not tried to weasel his way out of it and NOT get Beckel to apologize.

The correct handling of that situation was to first tell your co-worker that they’ve returned to broadcasting and that that word made it to air and then turn toward the camera, take responsibility for what happens on your show and apologize for the lapse in your host duties and move on. Instead Hannity dwelled on it, letting Beckel squirm as he tried to figure out what was going on and if they were really on live television or not.

I hate everything about this. I hate dirty tricks. I hate an unfair fight. and I hate hate HATE more than anything, an unwarranted public humiliation. The worst non-violent thing you can do to a person is humiliate them. I don’t think that was Hannitys original intent by not telling him to pipe down before returning to the show, but he should have been groveling in his acceptance of guilt for the incident. YES, I understand that it’s every individuals responsibility to know whats up and pay attention themselves – or better yet – to not be an emotional dick and tell people they “don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about” as if that were an argument and not just a blustery bully tactic. But at the same time: how about a little looking out for your friends, asshole? Even when they’re being assholes. That’s what being a friend IS.

And then later in the show they only drove it home worse after a clearly shaken Beckel noted that he would probably get fired over the incident and Hannity douchily plays the motherly comforter – and then that Republican lady – omg – SO not the time to be kicking the guy while he’s down. YES, he got emotional and made it personal. If he did it while on air, knowingly, I’d be part of the rally bashing him for his shitty manners and conversation skills – but since it was a private outburst that accidentally got publicized – wheres the fkking loyalty to your co-worker of who-knows-how-many years?

Fox News is a cable channel and can thus say whatever words they want, so luckily this isnt an FCC matter or anything, but that’s not the issue for me. I don’t give a fuck about the word “fuck”. I’m livid that Hannity:
1) put his friend in an unfair situation for his own selfish gain,
2) helped foster an event that embarrassed his friend,
3) did not at all help his friend out of the embarrassing situation,
4) immediately passed the buck to said friend, assigning him 100% responsibility for something he actually was only 60% responsible for,
5) milked the situation to make HIM the hero who is going to smooth things over for him in classic “i guess you owe me now, bitch” mode.

Screw that.

Sean Hannity is a shitty friend.

I hate those.

So some jerk working at Fox News for 7 years got a secret job with Gawker to reveal the networks secrets such as Bill O’Reilly having a picture of his youth with friends on a boat that included a topless girl. Um…yawn.. But I perked up when I saw this post about Sean Hannity, whose very existence doesnt make sense to me. Unfortunately it’s an insanely stupid post with absolutely nothing insightful, interesting or even logically accurate to say…

This paragraph is excellent and spot on:

To me, that’s the most offensive thing about him. He practices the laziest form partisan journalism — if Obama does it, it must be bad. Case in point — early in Pres. Obama’s term, he went to a burger place with the media in tow. The outing elicited the sort of embarrassing-in-retrospect media fawning that was typical of the early Obama presidency, but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for a president still in his honeymoon phase.

Yes! Great! More of that! oh…Unfortunately it comes AFTER this selection, which is stupid, meritless, and is rotten with the political hackery it’s accusing of.

Hannity’s welcoming cocoon even extends to fake-conservative Mitt Romney. If you listen to Sean on a regular basis, you can tell that he’s suspicious of Mitt—rightfully so, because now that Romney has sewn up the nomination, he’s going to attempt to pivot away from conservatives so fast and hard that Ronald Reagan’s tombstone is probably going to crack in half. But Hannity can read the writing on the wall, so he invites him on the show and makes nice with him.

In the clip above—taken from the same interview I published earlier this week, in which Romney rhapsodized about his Austrian Warmbloods and Missouri Foxtrotters—Romney and Hannity talk about how important it is for politicians to use teleprompters while they attack Obama for using a teleprompter. “It does make some sense,” Romney says. “It keeps you from saying something you don’t mean, you get the message out.”

“Yeah, of course it does,” Hannity concurs. “It’s smart. You don’t want to make a mistake. I’ll tell you, they’re out to eviscerate anybody who makes a mistake.”

Contrast that with just one of the innumerable (202 at least, according to Nexis), prompter potshots Hannity has taken at Obama: “I think he’s got a teleprompter on each side of the bed when he goes to sleep every night. I think most Americans have figured out that you take away that teleprompter, he’s in trouble. as evidenced by earlier today. Let’s roll this tape.”

The ongoing right-wing obsession with Obama’s teleprompter remains a mystery to me. He doesn’t use one any more often than any of his predecessors, or any more often than the men who want to replace him. Yet it’s always “har har har he has to write down his words before he says them” and so on. Yet Hannity advises Romney to use one lest his enemies find an error to exploit.

If you don’t notice that Barack Obama uses a teleprompter a shit ton more than other public figures, you’re not paying attention.

If you don’t find that funny, especially considering that President Obama is regarded as a grand public speaker (accounting for his presidency – as Hillary Clinton noted during the 2007 primary), then you’re a hack.

If you say that anyone is claiming that the issue is over any use of a teleprompter, then you’re either an idiot or dishonest.

Fail, Fail, Fail. too bad. could have been an interesting thing with this Mole business.

This part of the speech is what Hannity was referring to:

The worst part is that he could have actually made a point there if he weren’t such a knee-jerk Republican shill that thought non-hilarious one-liners like that were acceptable retorts to the opposition in power.

He could have, for instance, maybe brought up the fact that Obama is going to triple the national deficit this year and even the Whitehouse’s own estimates show they plan to put Bush’s spending to shame.

And it doesn’t stop there, Woody. This Buzz Lightyear is going to Infinity and Beyond:

Karl Rove gave an ACTUAL response to the Bush stuff (is it too late to give him Hannitys job?):

transcript from Karl Rove’s segment with Greta Van Susteren:

“I can find no administration in which there is such a frequent recourse to blame the previous administration…

They want to blame the Bush Administration for the debt. I happened to be last week in a debate with David Plouffe in which he blamed the Bush Administration for the deficit this year. And I said, “Wait a minute, what about your spending bill? It was your bill, President Obama’s $787 billion Stimulus Bill. What about the $33 billion SCHIP bill that he signed? What about the $410 billion Omnibus Bill?” In reflection didn’t Senator Obama support the rescue package the recovery package last fall, the $750 billion to help rescue the banks? $350 billion dollars of that was spent by the time he got into office. If he didn’t like that spending he could have said, “You know were not going to spend another dime of that $350 billion,” and yet he did…

I think this is wearing thin. This is causing the American people to say, “Wait a minute. This is all your spending. Why do you keep blaming the guy who came before you?”

WND reports that Hannity said he would consider becoming a candidate for President of the United States…. if God directs him.*groan*

“I’ve never made a decision in my life without – whatever destiny God has you’ve got to fulfill it,” he is said to have said, adding “I’m not sure that’s my destiny.”

WND also editorializes that “Hannity would make a formidable candidate, with the likability of Reagan, good looks and strong convictions”. I’ll ignore whether he’s good looking or not but the “likability of Reagan?” Don’t make me puke. Can you think of one Democrat that would cross-over to vote for a Hannity ticket? Strong convictions? How is “whatever the republican party says is awesome” a “strong conviction”? oy u guyz…

Later in the program, a member of the audience asked what the host thought of a Hannity-Palin ticket with the following response:

The studio audience erupted in applause.

Hannity asked: “Would any of you really want me to run?”

Loud applause followed.

Hannity then asked, “How about I just stay on the radio?”

No applause.

At the same town hall Barney told a woman there comparing the Obama socialized medicine plan to the German National Socialist (Nazi) plan, “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.” Although I get the impression from Barney that he is exactly the time who regularly argues with furniture, the chick was not wise to bring any comparison with Nazi’s into the debate. It’s actually the first I’ve ever heard where a conservative used the Nazi slur against a liberal. Weird. and stupid. UPDATE: I assumed wrong. The lady who made this comment was NOT a conservative as I erroneously said. she’s another Lyndon LaRouche (liberal) follower. I regret the error.

Previously, Hannity similarly covered a St Louis town hall meeting with MO Senator Claire McKaskill (D) asking a rowdy audience the same question as Frank: wtf is up with all the yelling? Do you think you’re persuading anyone with it? I think probably not and the purpose is just to vent and voice disapproval of their policies, but still – what IS up with all the friggin yelling?