Sean Hannity seemed almost giddy with bullyboy delight last night as he teamed up with two of his most hate mongering-est pals, David Clarke and Sebastian Gorka, to exploit the NYC terror attack as an opportunity for McCarthy-ite accusations against those not as blindly loyal to Donald Trump as themselves.
Hannity often complains about others “smearing” and “besmirching” but Hannity deliberately engaged in such behavior here. In fact, his choice of guests indicated that the entire segment was pre-planned to do so.
First, Hannity attacked CNN anchor Jake Tapper for saying, “Allahu Akbar" can be said under the "most beautiful" of circumstances.” Tapper was talking about how the phrase has been bastardized by terrorists. But Hannity – who even here accused CNN of being fake news – falsely suggested that Tapper was showing terrorist sympathies. Apparently, any excuse for viciousness in the service of his politics is "true enough" for Hannity.
Hannity included Tapper’s response to Fox News. Then Hannity blustered, “Hey, Jake, maybe that’s why you have low ratings. Tell your audience the truth.” While he was at it, Hannity swaggered after MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for daring to ask why the New York City terror suspect might “have an animus toward the United States.”
And who better to help in the effort than Nazi-tied, fake-terror expert Gorka and the fake cowboy and disgraced ex-sheriff of Milwaukee, David Clarke? Transcript excerpt below, via Media Matters (with my emphases):
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): It infuriates me that the media in this country, they no longer care about truth and facts. And over there, fake news, and over there, conspiracy theory TV, all they care about is Donald Trump and destroying the president. That’s it. There’s no truth anymore that they tell their audience. They are all a bunch of sheep that report the same lies, but that’s my feeling. What’s yours?
DAVID CLARKE: Well, first of all, it’s shameful conduct on the part of CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post. They’ve become terrorist sympathizers. But what happened yesterday is what will happen when you try to play social engineering, conduct social engineering experiments with national security. Look, this diversity lottery—you know, when I first heard that, I said Powerball is run as a more effective lottery than this thing is.
You know, this attempt at diversity, you just cannot do this with national security or domestic security. Culture—this attempt at multiculturalism has been a disaster. Cultures do not blend, they clash.
There was not a peep of objection from Hannity.
Not surprisingly, Gorka continued the attack and the hypocrisy. “What kind of mind” Gorka "asked," “talks about the ‘beautiful phrase ‘Allah Akbar'" at such a time? Note to terror “expert“ Gorka: It’s “ALLAHU Akbar,” not “Allah “Akbar.” Again, Hannity did not correct him. Maybe all Arabic sounds the same to these two.
Then, with unintentional irony, Gorka boasted that in the U.S., “We believe in the dignity of the individual.” I guess the part about “so long as he or she toes the line” is a given with this crowd.
Oh, and Gorka threw in an old chestnut by swiping at Barack Obama for not calling it a “Jihadi terrorist attack.”
Let’s not kid ourselves. Hannity and his henchmen want complete obedience to Dear Leader Trump, not democracy, and he’s happy to stomp on anyone who dares to question or not fall in line.
This is dangerous.
Watch Hannity try to bully America into submission below, while pretending to be a patriot, from the November 1, 2017 Hannity, via Media Matters.