Apparently, bullyboy Sean Hannity just couldn’t take a chance that his audience might not hate OWS protester Harrison Schultz. Because in the very next segment after what was billed as a “shoot out” between Hannity and Schultz, Hannity stacked his “Great American Panel” with three like-minded conservatives and all four of them spent the next five minutes trashing Schultz and the Occupy movement. UPDATED WITH VIDEO OF PANEL DISCUSSION.
The debate between Hannity and Schultz was enjoyable enough. Schultz was feisty and smart and was never intimidated despite Hannity’s repeated attempts to smear and demean him. Hannity also didn’t allow Schultz to finish answering one question before firing another one at him - without really listening to the response.
Hannity clearly viewed the entire thing as little more than an opportunity to showboat. Near the end of the “interview,” Hannity said, “I have a suggestion for you… You’re 29 years old… Stop wasting your time at Occupy Wall Street. And here’s a novel concept: Get up at 6 AM, shovel some coffee down your throat, hit the pavement, find a job, get to work, stop whining, stop complaining, stop blaming and get your (bleep) out of bed like everybody else in America and get to work.”
Hannity closed the segment with a classy, “I’m glad to say good-bye. See you later.”
I guess he was too worked up to offer up his rice and beans recipe and shopping tips for poor people.
Schultz definitely didn’t do himself any favors, though, in not having a better grasp of Hannity’s shtick in advance. If he had, he could have thrown Hannity’s hypocrisy right in his face about not whining, complaining and blaming. Is there a single episode of Hannity that he doesn’t spend the majority of the hour doing exactly that? Or Schultz could have pointed out how out of touch Hannity is with the problems of the working poor. There are plenty of people working full time who still struggle to make ends meet and live without health insurance, for example.
But rather than move on to another subject – like maybe accusing President Obama of being a racist or a radical or a socialist – Hannity spent the entire first part of the all-conservative Great American Panel piling on to Schultz. They even worked in a smear of Nancy Pelosi while they were at it.
Four against one – another example of what Fox News calls “fair and balanced.”
Update: I inadvertently left out the video of the panel discussion following Schultz' segment. Here it is now.
