FOX News Overlooks Revelations About McCain Aide’s Ties To Freddie Mac In Favor Of Rehashing Obama “Ties” To Ayers
Reported by Ellen - September 24, 2008 -
The New York Times has reported the breaking news that despite John McCain’s assertions that his campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with Freddie Mac for several years, the company has been paying Davis’ firm $15,000 a month through last month. But that bombshell was overlooked on Hannity & Colmes last night (9/23/08) for yet another round of attacking Barack Obama for his thin association with former 60’s radical William Ayers. With video.
The segment opened with Sean Hannity reading a scripted introduction that said, “Senator Barack Obama’s ties to unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers are making headlines again.” Wait a minute. If Ayers is such a terrorist, why hasn’t he been sent to Guantanamo Bay? Instead, he’s walking the streets as a free man and is even a professor at the University of Chicago. Maybe Hannity should be thinking more about reporting Ayers to Homeland Security than tying him to Obama.
It seems that the “news” here was that a Wall Street Journal (now a sister company to FOX News) article indicates that Obama and Ayers worked more closely together on an educational initiative “to promote the group’s leftist agenda” than has been previously revealed.
It was the kind of unbalanced panel we have come to expect on the show. Republican Kate Obenshain plus conservative Tony Blankley, “balanced” by Juan Williams, an Obama critic.
Hannity bragged, “This has been a story that I have been all over.” With melodramatic flourish (and counting off on his fingers), he declared, “(Obama) has not answered these questions. Why did he go to (Ayers') house for support early on in his career, why did he sit on multiple foundations, why did he give speeches with him? His answer, that ‘he’s a guy who lives in my neighborhood, we’re friendly.’ He was eight years old when (Ayers was a radical). Do you think that’s an acceptable answer, Juan?”
Williams answered that just because they worked together is “definitely not to say, Sean, that they are of like mind.”
Still counting on his bullyboy fingers, Hannity kept going. “Would you sit on a board with that guy?” Hannity demanded.
Williams said he would not, to Hannity’s great satisfaction, I’m sure.
Turning to Obenshain, Hannity’s voice rose as he said, “That goes to the heart of your judgment and, frankly, his honesty about the nature of this relationship.”
Oh, really? Then I think it’s time to revisit Hannity’s guilt by association. As Max Blumenthal of The Nation has written, Hannity regularly offered sympathetic air time and was reported to have bonded off the air with a white supremacist, a Neo-Nazi on the Southern Poverty Law Center's Top 40 list of haters, until they fell out a few years later when Hannity cut him off. You can get more of a peek on the kind of guy Hannity used to associate with here.
Obenshain, always ready to attack a fellow American while posturing as a patriot, said in an accusatory tone, “They worked hand in hand on this Chicago Annenberg Challenge and collaboration FOR YEARS.” Her voice rose in an ecstasy of incrmination. “It was basically to radicalize school kids.”
Well, if Obenshain wants to talk about working hand in hand, how about the fact that she served as chief of staff for George “Macaca” Allen? According to her own terms, we can now assume that she shares his racial insensitivity.
Alan Colmes, visibly annoyed to be covering the same area again, pointed out that a Republican sat on the same board. “Should he be disqualified from doing anything because this conservative, this Republican who supported John McCain was also on the same board?”
Naturally, neither Obenshain nor Blankley had a response.
But Williams did. “Let me tell you, FOX News and others have looked into those very same documents (as the Wall Street Journal did) and what has been found? Absolutely that they went to some meetings together. No evidence has been found that Barack Obama is part of some radical agenda that’s led by Ayers.”
That is not likely to stop them from bringing up the subject again. But it's highly unlikely that Davis' money from Freddie Mac will get a segment, unless they can use it to blame Democrats somehow.
Please consider writing to Hannity to remind him that he might want to reconsider throwing stones from his glass house of associations. You can reach him at [email protected]. You can also contact Colmes at [email protected] or FOX News at [email protected].
