Hannity Denies Calling Bush Critics Unpatriotic
Reported by Ellen - April 3, 2009 -
During last night's (4/2/09) “Great American Panel” segment on Hannity, panelist Layla Kayleigh confronted Sean Hannity on his divisive tactics against President Barack Obama. When he insisted he was only being “critical,” she noted that when Democrats criticized President Bush, they were called unpatriotic. “No, they weren't,” Hannity disingenuously said (or else he suffers from amnesia). OK, so maybe they weren't called “unpatriotic.” They were “only” accused of being sick, hating America, undermining the troops and more. With video.
The discussion began with Hannity teasingly calling Kayleigh “the only socialist on the panel,” based on her Obama-supporting comments in the previous segment.
Kayleigh objected to the characterization and said, “(Obama) can be wrong. But this atttitude that you have is only going to divide us. We have to come together and find solutions.”
“Patriotic” Hannity immediately started whining accusatorily, “I can't be critical or else I will divide the country.”
“Of course you can be critical,” Kayleigh began.
But Hannity had already directed the panel over to Jesse Lee Peterson, Hannity's favorite bigot. Instead of listening to Kayleigh's concerns, Peterson (supposedly an advocate for personal responsibility) pointed the “liberals did it first with President Bush” finger.
“When people attacked Bush, they were called unpatriotic,” Kayleigh said.
Hannity said resentfully, “Not true. That's not true.” Then he began counting off on his fingers about Democrats, saying, “They said the surge lost, the war was lost.” You could almost hear him longing to attack Democrats further but couldn't when he had just denied being intolerant. So he moved on, pointing to his pal Peterson.
So just to correct the record, here are just a few of the things that have been said about Bush critics on Hannity's show, either by him or by a guest he never rebutted:
"Why don’t you liberals just admit it? You don’t like the military. It’s all phony when you say you support the troops," Mark Levin (Hannity calls him "The Great One"), 11/2/06
“The left has a disdain for the military... They’re dangerous... trying to undermine the will of the American people." Tom DeLay, 10/31/06
"It’s clear that the Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry wing of the Democratic Party has a visceral loathing for the American military and for, frankly, America as a country in the world. Their whole approach is to blame us for what, in fact, our enemies do... I think it tells you how deep the sickness is in the left wing of the Democratic Party.” Newt Gingrich, 11/1/06
"That’s your Party that undermines our troop morale and emboldens our enemies," Sean Hannity, 2/1/08.
"When you have Democrats saying it's time to get out, artificial timetables and saying that the Commander-in-Chief lied, distorted, hyped and misled the troops. Is that the thing to do during a time of war?" Sean Hannity, 12/2/05
By the way, last I checked, this is still a time of war. Or is calling our president a radical socialist better than calling him a liar?
You can remind Hannity how he really felt when it was Republican leadership being criticized by emailing him at [email protected].
