Just a few weeks after Megyn Kelly actively helped promote George Zimmerman’s attorney’s efforts to demonize Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman's shooting victim, Sean Hannity did his part for the Zimmerman defense team. Last night, Hannity selected a video the defense wants admitted into evidence as one of the three viewer choices for “video of the day” – and then gratuitously opined that the unflattering-to-Martin video should be admitted.
As I posted late last month, Megyn Kelly hosted a shamelessly suck-up interview with Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, in which she seemed determined to air as much of the dirt he was trying to throw at Martin as she could squeeze in. This, despite the fact that she almost surely knew that the material she helpfully aired on Zimmerman’s behalf would almost certainly be excluded from trial and was nothing more than a blatant attempt to pollute the jury pool. Yesterday, Kelly was back on the case for the defense with her shameless slap in the face of African Americans – by hosting Mark Fuhrman to discuss racial issues in the case, ignoring his own disgraced record on the subject and then allowing him to repeatedly suggest that Zimmerman is the victim of a racial witch hunt.
Last night, was Hannity’s turn. He wasn’t nearly as brazen as Kelly but he was just as disingenuous.
Hannity showcased the video, shot from Martin’s cell phone, as the first of the night’s three choices for “video of the day.” There was no mention of how Zimmerman attorney O’Mara had first mischaracterized the video as Martin’s friends beating up a homeless man nor how the defense had tried – and failed – to get it admitted as evidence of Martin’s fondness – i.e. propensity for – violence. However, Hannity did helpfully say, “We’ll explain why his lawyers think it’s important for their case” that the video be admitted – as he played more of the video.
Later, when the Martin video won, Hannity described the video by saying it “could help identify the voice that is heard in the background of the 911 call from the night that Trayvon Martin was shot and killed.” Hannity acknowledged that the video “shows two men fighting” before adding, “Zimmerman’s lawyer says that the voice heard in the (cellphone) recording is Trayvon’s. …Now some experts have disputed whose voice is heard on that tape, the 911 tape where someone in the background can be heard yelling for help over 14 times. According to reports, lawyers for Martin’s family say the new cell phone video doesn’t belong in court. I actually disagree.”
So suddenly the video that was formerly needed to show Martin's behavior is now needed to identify (or exclude) his voice on the 911 tape, even though we don’t know for sure - we only have the Zimmerman defense team's assertion that the voice really is Martin’s - and Hannity didn’t say whether or not this is the only possible recording of Martin’s voice available. But knowing Hannity’s history of uncritically aiding Zimmerman’s defense, along with his very disturbing history on race, there’s very little reason to think he’d bother to check.
Oh, wait: http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/06/10/2131091/fox-news-speculates-trayvon-martin-could-have-killed-someone-with-skittles-and-iced-tea/
They already did.