Desperate Sean Hannity And FOX News Still Trying To Make The Election About Democrats
Reported by Ellen - October 18, 2006 -
Another Hannity & Colmes, another night of denial of Republican woes and an unbalanced attempt to highlight bad news for Democrats. Rather than discuss any of the latest polls or the deep discontent with Republicans that is now seen in places like Texas, last night’s election segment focused on Nancy Pelosi, instead. Democratic Strategist Mary Anne Marsh said, “I almost feel bad for Sean because I know he’ll be in a sanitarium 22 days from today.”
Sean Hannity tried lots of hammy theatrics designed to raise awareness of the supposedly far-left agenda of Nancy Pelosi. Hannity's voice was full of melodrama as he declared, "I don't think America has a clue who this woman is that would be third in line to be President of the United States." Comment: I don't recall any attempt by him to inform America about the current Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert.
Colmes summed it up when he said to Marsh, “This election isn’t about Nancy Pelosi… this election is about the record of the people who’ve been in power, the House, the Senate, the presidency and because the American public is dissatisfied with that, that’s why Republicans aren’t scoring well in the polls. It’s not about Nancy Pelosi and if they want to make it about Nancy Pelosi, it’s because they don’t want to run on their own records.”
Marsh, my favorite of the Democratic strategists on FOX News, got it right. “This election is about George Bush’s values. And what are those? Deceiving this country about what’s going on in Iraq. Is that an American value? I mean, Nancy Pelosi, like most Americans, thinks the war in Iraq’s going badly, we’re not winning the war on terror and the economy’s going into the tank. Now that puts her in the mainstream.”
Unfortunately, there were no Democrats or progressives when the subject was North Korea. Hannity made another blatant attempt to blame Bill Clinton for the current problems. There was one guest, Republican Lawrence Eagleburger, former Secretary of State under Bush 41. Hannity introduced the segment by saying, “New questions are being asked whether the Clinton administration did enough to stop North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.” I did a Google News search of “Clinton North Korea” and didn’t find any such “new questions.”
Hannity proceeded to play a slick little videotape of a timeline on North Korea that just happened to begin in 1992, when Clinton was elected, and ended in late 2000, just before Bush took office. “You judge for yourself,” Hannity disingenuously said.
One could imagine the gleem in Hannity’s eye when the Harry Reid land deal scandal arose. If blaming Bill Clinton had not been the top story, I suspect Reid would have. At the moment, it's the only video from last night's show featured on FOXNews.com. Once again, there was only a conservative guest, Robert Novak, and no Democrats or progressives for balance. Novak, the un-patriot who blew CIA agent Valerie Plame’s cover (and said his only regret is the trouble it’s caused HIM), doesn’t strike me as the best person to point a finger at other people’s ethical troubles. But he didn’t hesitate to blame Reid and, at the end, almost in passing, Dennis Hastert, for using their positions to make business deals. The “fair and balanced” FOX banner on the screen read, “Teflon Senator?” while Reid was being discussed. The same might be said of FNC's contributors who have to be the wrong-doingest group of pundits on television.
Once again, the Foley and Weldon scandals were not discussed; nothing about the guilty plea of the former FDA chief; nothing about the just-released report on how former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham steered $70 million in business to two defense contractors who, in turn, kicked back millions in bribes; and there was no coverage of the NATO general’s allegations of mistakes in Afghanistan.
But there was time for another swipe at Hillary Clinton who, supposedly, misrepresented the person for whom she was named.
