Mohammed Morsi and his government in Egypt have worked a miracle, gentle reader! They’ve gotten Sean Hannity concerned about poor children in America! How did this wonder of wonders happen? Because Secretary of State John Kerry has just announced nearly $450 million in aid to the "terrorist," "Muslim Brotherhood" government in Egypt instead of spending it on poor children (or on the military, which is more characteristic). The Obama administration's support of Egypt is a familiar topic of outrage on Fox, and Monday night Hannity made it the subject of one of his bring-in-a-friend-and-we'll-bully-a-liberal segments.
The “friend” was Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice which describes itself as “dedicated to the concept that freedom and liberty are universal, God-given and inalienable rights that must be protected.” Right Wing Watch notes that the Center was founded by Pat Robertson and that its activities include time opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, and intervening on behalf of persecuted American Christians, as well as fanning the flames of Islamophobia. (An op-ed by Sekulow appeared on foxnews.com the same day.) The liberal victim was Mark Hannah, veteran Democratic strategist and a former aide to Secretary Kerry.
Above a chevron that read “Arming the Enemy,” Hannity opened the discussion with one of his characteristic tirades: why are we giving a scheduled $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt in 2013, simply “because Morsi promised to implement political and economic reforms”. That may sound good to some people but Hannity is not cutting any slack to Morsi, whom he described repeatedly as a 9/11 truther and Muslim Brotherhood terrorist who calls Israelis the “descendants of apes and pigs.” He then went to Hannah, and the conversation began somewhat like this:
Hannah: [Aid to the military and to poor children] are deserving programs…but –
Hannity (interrupting): Why should Morsi get it over the children in America and over our military?
Between Hannity’s shouts of “I want a real answer!” and Sekulow’s hyperbolic interruptions (“Do you really believe that the Muslim Brotherhood-led government under Morsi in Egypt is part of our apparatus in the Middle East? Or will you not acknowledge that the entire plan of the President with regard to the Arab Spring has turned into an Islamicized winter nightmare?”) Hannah had a tough time saying anything at all, and ended up snapping at Sekulow, "Let me finish my sentence." He did manage to say that he thought it was in America’s interest to promote political stability in a long-time ally, that we were giving much of the money directly to entrepreneurs and not to the government, and we were also giving 2 billion to Pakistan, a notoriously unreliable ally.
Of course he wasn't going to convince Hannity. “So you’ll steal from American children and deny our military weapons to give it to the terrorists. Pretty sick stuff to me,” he concluded. “Unbelievable,” agreed Sekulow, nodding sagely.
Are these the same poor children Newt Gingrich thinks should be holding down jobs?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/04/world/middleeast/kerry-announces-millions-in-us-aid-for-egypt.html?_r=0
That said…
The trolls were out in force about this, saying it proves… something. They were kinda all over the map. They tried to feed me that Romney would have never given money to Egypt, so I showed them his going against the rest of the GOP to say he would.
Then they tried to saying that there’s nothing in Romney’s history that shows he would have been dishonest giving them money, and I made them cry.
Or did Hannutty simply write that off as part of the “price to free Iraq” from Saddam?