Nothing indicates that Donald Trump is in big trouble more than the lengths to which Sean Hannity reached in order to “defend” his beloved from the growing signs of treason in the White House.
It was to be expected that Donald Trump press agent Fox host Hannity would kick up a dust storm of accusations against the left in response to the resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and growing questions about the Trump administration’s ties to Russia. God forbid Hannity should care about whether Flynn went rogue with his possibly illegal communications with Russia or whether he was acting on behalf of others in the White House.
Instead, we got this (transcript excerpts via FoxNews.com):
HANNITY: Let’s be clear: It was wrong that Flynn misled the president and vice president about his phone call with the Russian ambassador. He owned up to it, he did the right thing, he stepped down.
But there’s something much bigger and going on. The alt-radical left have a master plan to damage and destroy President Donald Trump and anyone connected to him as collateral damage. This is about the left willing to do anything to stop Trump from draining the swamp and changing the status quo and bureaucracy in Washington. That means the media bureaucracy, liberal bureaucracy, lobbyist bureaucracy, et cetera.
The D.C. swamp is rising up. They’re colluding and viciously fighting to take down the 45th president and his entire administration. It’s that serious.
The alt-radical left is hell-bent on annihilating everybody around the president, from his top advisers like Kellyanne Conway, Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Steve Miller—even Dr. Sebastian Gorka—to the president’s own children, including the media’s attacked his 10-year-old son, Barron.
OK, never mind how Hannity spent eight years doing everything he could to smear everyone connected with President Barack Obama. Anyone remember Sestak-gate? Hannity was so excited about that nothing-burger that he canceled his day off and devoted an entire show to what he clearly hoped would lead to impeachment. And Hannity never seemed to pass up an excuse to portray Michelle Obama as a whitey-hating radical.
But Hannity really moved into fringe territory as he tried to suggest the real traitors are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton:
HANNITY: The left is trying to make what happened here into the next Watergate. But we have to remember that these are the same liberals who fiercely defended Hillary Clinton and ignored the massive private server scandal.—remember, top secret and special access programming in the closet of a mom and pop shop bathroom. They ignored and defended the corruption, the pay-to-play at the Clinton Foundation. They ignored and defended Hillary Clinton’s endless lies.
And the left was also noticeably silent back in 2012 when President Obama—remember, he was caught on a hot make saying this to the Russian prime minister, to send a message to Vladimir? Remember this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MARCH 26, 2012)
THEN-PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This is my last election. And after my election, I have more flexibility.
THEN-RUSSIAN PRESIDENT DMITRY MEDVEDEV: I understand. I will transfer this information to Vladimir.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Tell Vladimir more—more flexibility. Don’t tell the American people. That’s selective moral outrage and hypocrisy of the worst kind.
So what we’re seeing playing out is what Eli Lake, who will be here in just a few minutes with reaction, described in an article today entitled, quote, “The political assassination of Michael Flynn.” Now, in it, Lake points out that it is so extremely rare for reporters to be told about government-monitored communications of private citizens, which is what was leaked to the press about Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador.
Lake then notes, quote, “‘Normally, intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or the NSA gives the permanent state”—the bureaucracy in other words—“the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.”
Now, it’s no secret that Flynn had a very rocky relationship with the national security establishment and members of the Obama administration. He’s even said that he was previously forced out of the government for daring to speak up about the threat of radical Islam and questioning the narrative being put out by the Obama White House.
Meanwhile, let’s not forget that, along with Trump, Hannity loved leaks that damaged private citizens and officials before he decided to hate them.
But here's the real problem for Hannity: However much he may want to keep on hating Obama and Clinton, they are not in the White House now and they are not the ones that Republicans as well as Democrats want to investigate.
Watch the hypocrisy below, from the February 14, 2016
2/15/17 UPDATE: Media Matters noted the similarity between the Russian and American "alt-right" messaging on Flynn's resignation. Hannity's is roughly similar, just with more Democrat bashing.
Damn, Sean — you’re right. We DO have a plan.
And that plan is . . . to simply let Drumpf and his minions keep talking . . .
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