Hannity And Fox “Commemorate” Earth Day By Smearing Environmentalists As Money-Grubbing Marxists
Reported by Ellen - April 23, 2010 -
Yesterday (4/22/10) was Earth Day but you would not have known that from watching much of Fox News last night. Sean Hannity “commemorated” the event by hosting a special smear session with right-wing radical Brian Sussman who attacked environmentalists as money-hungry Marxists. Yes, that's right, Sussman accused climate activists of being both Marxists and rip-off artists who are only interested in cashing in. The "commemoration" was similar to the way Hannity “observed” the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombings – with inflammatory attacks on Democrats – and Martin Luther King’s Birthday – with racially tinged attacks on African Americans. What a great American! With video.
Sussman has quite a history of extremist comments. He’s a birther who has suggested that President Obama believes 9/11 was an inside job, for example. Yet none of that background was offered to the “we report, you decide” network’s viewers.
In fact, some people might say that Fox News had already decided to legitimize Sussman on their own. In concert with Hannity, which is supposedly an “opinion” show and, therefore, not Fox News’ “fair and balanced” news, Foxnews.com nonetheless called the segment “New Revelations on Climategate” and described the session as "Climategate’ author exposes shocking new details on agenda of global warming fanatics.” Not “Climategate author makes new charges” but “exposes shocking new details” - thereby completely legitimizing the charges. The term “global warming fanatics” is also pretty damning – of Fox News’ so called “fairness and balance.”
Hannity’s scripted introduction said it all: “Climategate scandal exposed global warming as a myth cooked up by alarmists. Now, a new book investigates just how they are and how communist corporations, elitist politicians and wreckless scientists have contributed to creating a phony crisis.”
Well, almost said it all. After one of Hannity’s “special investigation” segments that was more like a trailer for Sussman’s book than any kind of real investigation, Sussman joined Hannity to make a boatload of unsubstantiated, inflammatory accusations against the usual targets:
Sussman: “Al Gore… doesn’t believe in global warming. He doesn’t believe in any of this. He believes in money. That’s what this is all about.” As “proof,” Sussman offered that in 1995, Gore put together something called “The New Consensu” in which he reportedly said, ‘Even when the science is uncertain, we need to go ahead with these plans and we need to build… consensus.” Then Sussman charged “There is no consensus.” Unless, of course, you discount the consensus that already exists.
Once again, Fox News validated Sussman, this time via a banner that said, “Veteran Meteorologist exposes global warming scam.”
Sussman went on to accuse other climate change advocates of “raking in” the dough – without any mention of climate change skeptics who might be raking in the dough - like, say, by writing a book with inflammatory accusations. But then, in a contradiction heartily endorsed by Hannity, Sussman went on to accuse global warming activists of being communists who want to “take down America,” as Hannity put it.
Sussman said, “This is a perfect plan whereby, instead of using the 'us against them' thing that Marx would use, now they found the environment as the hook… It’s hype… and it’s a way to knock this country down many, many notches, Sean, and de-develop the United States, transfer our wealth to other countries and in the process, squeeze us for (unintelligible).”
