In a night of all hate all the time on Fox, the Hannity show’s segment with Bill Cunningham stood out last night both for the bigoted level he and Sean Hannity happily sank to in order to smear President Obama and for the fact that Fox passed off as legitimate opinion the preposterous allegation that Obama's caution in using the term "Islamic terrorism" has endangered the country.
Hannity started the hate mongering by gleefully haranguing that the Boston Marathon bomb suspects and their families had received too much taxpayer assistance – even though Hannity noted that the benefits had stopped last year because Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife “no longer met the eligibility income.” Of course, it's not certain at what point the Tsarnaev brothers turned into radicals so for all we know, the assistance was wholly appropriate, not to mention lawful. But Hannity’s implication was clear: welfare recipients are scum. Or worse.
Hannity introduced his pal “Billy” Cunningham as a “great American.” What he didn’t bother mentioning to the “we report, you decide” network’s viewers is that Cunningham made a name for himself in 2008 by attacking then-candidate Obama via his middle name, “Hussein.” As I wrote in a post from the time:
Loud-mouthed demagogue Bill Cunningham, a conservative talk show host with a history of smearing Barack Obama (along with just about any other Democrat whose name he can yell), found himself on the receiving end of some unintended consequences of repeatedly using Obama’s middle name at a John McCain rally yesterday. Rather than inflict damage to Obama, the one who got besmirched was Cunningham. McCain quickly repudiated and apologized for Cunningham’s remarks. Predictably, white supremacist sympathizer Sean Hannity took Cunningham’s side and joined in the Obama smears on last night’s (2/26/08) Hannity & Colmes.
Apparently feeling the heat, Cunningham appeared on Hannity & Colmes the next night and laughably insisted he used Obama’s middle name as a gesture of respect and to “give the man credit.”
In case there was any doubt, Cunningham proved himself a liar last night.
Hannity fed Cunningham the opening. “Why is this president so pathetically weak that he can’t acknowledge a simple truth?” Hannity “asked.” He was referring to President Obama’s “failure” to call Ft. Hood “Islamic terrorism” and, according to Hannity, Obama had thereby set the country up for future attacks.
Cunningham said:
Sean Hannity, maybe his middle name is a clue and also the fact that he spent most of his childhood practicing the Muslim faith. And so, I think - of course, he’s a Christian now- but we have to understand where he came from. He said the sweetest sounds he’s ever heard is (Muslim) prayers at sunset. So with that orientation, I think it’s hard for this president to say anything other than ‘Muslim, jihadist, terrorist’ because it runs contrary to the things he was taught when he was a boy in Honolulu and Jakarta, Indonesia. And he’s become a Christian later, which I accept completely.
Right. A Christian who just has too much Muslim in him.
Cunningham continued:
But there is something fundamental about his incapability to call what happened in Ft. Hood – was a wake-up call. …He’s got a pre-9/11 mentality and it’s getting us killed.
The other guest, Democrat Joe Trippi said, “I think there’s something really wrong when Bill has to go after the president’s middle name as some kind of attack…” That’s true as far as it goes and I’m glad Trippi challenged Cunningham on that score. But Trippi gave a pass to the ridiculous level the “analysis” had sunk to. Obama’s getting us killed because he didn’t call Ft. Hood a terror attack? Really?
But Hannity – who has a penchant for race baiting and bigoted buddies – interrupted to defend his pal, “Billy.” After a lengthy diatribe, Hannity pounded on the table and asked, “What the hell is wrong with this president that he cannot acknowledge that there are radical Islamic jihadists that think if they strap bombs on their own kids and blow up innocent kids that 72 virgins await them in heaven!”
And what the hell is wrong with Fox News that they would allow someone to carry on this way over semantics? The fact is, President Obama’s anti-terror policies are quite hawkish. In all probability, that's why Hannity didn't want to discuss them. So instead we got thinly-veiled bigotry that Fox pretended was sincere debate.
Shame on them all.
Granted that Trippi is not a very strong commentor much of the time. He hems and haws and usually appears to be willingly subservient to whatever Hannity wants to say about Democrats. (In his way, he’s similar to the Alan Colmes of 1996-2008.) But sometimes he does actually try to say something with a point.
And Trippi was trying to respond to Cunningham’s hatred. But before he could say more than a few words, Hannity shouted over him to cut him off, and Cunningham joined in, knowing he could get away with it. Trippi tried to call Hannity on what he was doing, but Hannity continued interrupting him and apparently never heard Trippi’s responses. So Trippi was left to stumble through maybe a third or half of a response to an extremely leading question that had nothing to do with the statement he had been trying to make – a statement that was intended to rebut Cunningham’s hatred. With Trippi derailed, Hannity happily ended the first part of the segment. They returned for a second part, but it didn’t get any better. Frankly, this was one of the more distateful Hannity segments I’ve seen in some time, and that’s saying something.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/boston-bombing-suspects-sold-pot-article-1.1326722
The Stop Hannity Express says Hannocchio is the last person on earth to call other people liars, given his extensive background on telling people tales that are not true.
What the hell is wrong with a man who is too chicken to waterboard himself for our troops, many who died protecting our freedoms. Another Hannocchio lie.
Billy, another kook named Billy. We rather watch sewer rats run up and down the New York City streets than Billy’s sad excuse of a “tv” show.
NOTE TO HANNITY
Your refusal to waterboard yourself for our troops-the ones who protect your sorry pale behind-makes YOU pathetically weak. You bring shame to your father’s name, and to your children. We feel sorry for junior for having a sorry excuse for a “dad.” Merri Jill married the wrong man. Man-up for once in your miserable life and waterboard for our troops.
Really, Billy?
The President’s middle name is a common Arabic one meaning “good, small handsome one”, and its one he shares with the Jordanian Royal Family.
I’m tempted to ask whether Osama bin Laden thinks of the President’s middle name in regards to “weakness on terrorism” — but as long as we’re on the subject, does this mean George Bush’s middle name (“Walker”) was a clue to his weakness on terrorism?
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Bogucki and Warner (the two lawyers) are so wonderfully typical of the sort of American who live up to the use of a capital “A”. Enheartening at a time when so many wing-nuts seem to be raising their ugly heads.
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201304240003-0022699
One of those two lawyers is a military man. It’s men like him who are helping restore the reputation of the USA badly damaged by GWB, under the direction of Cheney.
