Remember Jason Mattera? He's the smarmy James O'Keeffe wannabe who was so obnoxious that he had Bill O'Reilly siding with his arch enemy Al Franken over one of Mattera's previous stunts. More recently, “I'm fighting the culture war over here instead of fighting terrorists over there” Mattera ambushed New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg to “ask” if he'd disarm his security team in the wake of tougher gun laws in New York. For his trouble, the Mayor's security team followed Mattera and began asking questions – which had the chickenhawk squawking about being a victim. That's what makes a hero on Fox News.
The supposed argument was that because Mayor Bloomberg has a security team, it's hypocritical and unfair to deny everyone else the right to pack as much heat as possible. In full agreement was a young nasty named Katie Pavlich whose arrogance and relish for smearing the left might make her a perfect partner for a guy like Mattera. If nothing else, it got her a job at Fox as a paid contributor. She wasted no time making a joke about Bloomberg “oogling” someone's bottom.
Democrat Christy Setzer was terrific, a “Democratic strategist” with some real strategy. First, she started to discredit Mattera.
There's a few things your audience should know about the situation. The first is that Jason Mattera is not some earnest journalist coming along, just really wanting to ask questions of the mayor. He's a well-known ambush interview artist who's actually gotten fired before from his job, for example, at Human Events, for exactly this sort of thing.
Actually, what he got fired for was worse: an ambush interview he claimed was with Bono but was actually a Bono impersonator – and credulously received by Hannity, I might add. But that's nothing compared to the mean-spirited homophobia Mattera displayed in college. Or his attack on affirmative action – after accepting a scholarship for Hispanics for himself.
Unfortunately, Setzer didn't have time to get into any of those details. Hannity interrupted to say, “Don't attack Jason.” Remember that the next time Hannity whines about the mainstream media being “dead.”
Setzer, who seemed not a bit thrown, said with a smile, “Sure, I would love to talk about the subtance of it.” And she quickly demolished Hannity's argument that somehow the mayor was getting some special privilege being denied to average New Yorkers:“The average New Yorker is not the Mayor of New York City. There is certainly a big difference."
Pavlich broke in to smear. She said condescendingly, “The left believes that Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor Giuliani, they are more important than the average American citizen who can't afford to have 24-hour 7-day a week security... To the point of attacking Jason Mattera. What is wrong with the question of 'Are you willing to give up your armed security if you're such a big proponent of gun control?'”
Setzer answered, “Here's the difference. What we're talking about is having a trained police officer who knows how to handle a weapon, who's gone through weeks of training as to how to handle a weapon. What we are not talking about are, you know, vigilantes and overenthusiastic volunteer.”
Hannity broke in to brag about his marksmanship (he can't seem to go a full hour without mentioning this at least once) and to ask whether a woman with a restraining order against an abusive partner should be “allowed to carry a gun and protect herself like the mayor is protecting himself. Why is she treated differently?”
Here's where Setzer reframed the discussion. “Sean, here's what I'm curious about. What I would like to know is why you're so insistent on putting more guns out there. Crime is dropping. Crime is dropping in this country. It's been dropping for the last 20 years. By any measure... People who are not trained professionals should not actually have guns in their hands without the proper training.”
Pavlich justified more guns with the ridiculous argument that the New York Police Department “accidentally shot nine innocent bystanders on the streets of New York” because “they had never shot their guns in a situation before 'cause Michael Bloomberg doesn't let them practice.” As if that's supposed to reassure us we'd be better off with more people with even less training walking around with guns. Apparently, she was so interested in making Bloomberg look bad she forgot to make guns look good. Pavlich also claimed that the reason crime has dropped is “because every single state has passed concealed carry laws.”
Well, in that case, the U.S. should be one of the safest countries in the world but it is not. According to the Guardian (via Washington Post), we have the highest rate of gun ownership in the world and our murders are much higher than in countries in Europe and Canada where gun ownership is rare. Furthermore, we have a pretty high rate of homicide by guns: 60% of homicides are committed with guns.
Setzer started to argue but Hannity cut her off to end the segment.
But the whole stunt was meaningless. As Media Matters noted, “(C)ontrary to the premise of the Mattera's question, Bloomberg does not oppose the rights of citizens to own firearms.” Remember that the next time Hannity whines about the mainstream media being “dead,” too.
“Good old Hannity is just a gun-toting tool. I caught a bit of his radio show yesterday and he was bragging about his arsenal, including his two AR-15s…”
Has Slanthead actually admitted to owning AR-15s? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he’s got a massive cache of weapons and ammo stored underground in his North Shore (Long Island) bunker.
Yes, as Ellen wrote, he can’t go a “full hour” (more like go a full five minutes every day on the radio) without bragging about his Glocks, his concealed carry permits in a half-dozen states, his weapons training beginning at age 11 (probably picking off rats in a dump — I don’t know this for a fact, I’m just assuming because it’s a typical teen activity in the white trash Irish ‘hoods that Hannity grew up in: he does admit to pukinig green beer on St. Patrick’s day).
Would Hannity ever stand his ground and fire his Glocks? Probably not. Didn’t he have the chance when that Ron Paul “mob” chased him during the 2008 campaign?
Didn’t Slanthead have the chance to prove his manhood by enlisting during the first Gulf War in 1990? He was only 30 then, supposedly in prime shape from hanging wallpaper and laying roofs which he crows about even as he started his disgusting radio career. Hannity was obviously too young for Vietnam, and too old (not really as grandfathers went) and certainly too fat for Iraq and Afganistan.
But during the first Gulf War, Hannity would have been fighting to put down Sadaam and his evil sons. Eleven years later, they’re all Slanthead would talk about when callers questioned the human and $ toll of Dubya’s war (though Hannity still this day claims there are WMD buried in the desert).
But all this is not news to the regulars here, as we all know Hannity is the yellowest chicken shit hawk on the air today! Bar none! He even told a caller once that he didn’t have to serve since his father put on a uniform in WW II.
Chickenhawk,chickenshit culture warrior.
And KKKlannity would also INSTANTLY DEFECATE (i.e. S**T) in his pants and dig a foxhole deep enough to reach China — I GUARANTEE IT!