FOX News Fans The Flames Of Middle East Tensions
Reported by Ellen - February 7, 2006
With a serious problem like Iran confronting the US, Hannity & Colmes (2/6/06) proved just how much FOX News really likes America by choosing two far-right ideologues, way outside the mainstream of American thought, Oliver North and Kenneth Timmerman, to add fuel to the fire of Middle East unrest.
Timmerman’s book, “Countdown to Crisis,” which was repeatedly promo’d on the show, indicates just what kind of fanatic he is. According to a review by The Washington Post on Amazon.com, he claims that Iran plotted the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Post complained that the “persistent problem with this book is its absence of credible evidence.” Timmerman told the audience we’re lucky to have John Bolton at the U.N. dealing with the Iranian crisis.
When the conversation turned to the Islamic riots, North said that the outbreak of violence “shows that the words ‘Islamic moderates’ – that’s an oxymoron. There is no such thing as an Islamic moderate or they would be out ordering calm and talking about the consequences of government censorship.”
Sean Hannity, who savaged cartoonist Ted Rall Friday night for having defended a controversial Washington Post cartoon, painted himself as the picture of restraint because he didn’t start a riot over it.
“This is about tolerance, it’s also about a freedom deficit in the Middle East,” Timmerman said. Then, in the next sentence, he decried “the anti-Semitic filth” of the cartoons in Teheran, Cairo and elsewhere.
Timmerman, apparently unconcerned about North’s comment attacking Muslims, complained “It’s about the preachers of hate… using Islamism as an ideologue to enchain the people to commit these violent acts.”
Hannity complained in the next segment about the Anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-American, anti-Christian cartoons from the Middle East. Guess those Middle East winds of freedom that Hannity loves to extol aren't blowing in the right direction now.
