One can understand Fox News’ nostalgic yearnings for 2004 in the wake of their second presidential-election whooping last week. But Sean Hannity was almost giddy with anticipation at the prospect of a Swift Boat Veterans reunion tour against John Kerry should he be tagged for a cabinet position in the Obama administration’s second term. 

Although Sade famously sang It’s Never As Good As The First Time, for Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly it’s 2004 all over again. Last night, Hannity got together with his ol’ Swifty pal Captain John O’Neill and, predictably, never mentioned how much O’Neill’s gang of partisan operatives have been discredited.

Once again, Hannity played Kerry’s “controversial” testimony before Congress about the Viet Nam war and O’Neill revived his Viet Nam-era attacks against Kerry. So maybe it’s 1972 all over again, too.

But Hannity couldn’t have sounded more eager as he asked, “If in fact Barack Obama wants to nominate (Kerry) for Secretary of Defense or State, will the Swift Boat Vets for Truth come back?”

“We’ll do the very best we can, Sean,” O’Neill assured him.

Hannity acknowledged that the term “Swift Boat” has become a pejorative for the left but, he added approvingly, “This ad that you guys ran was very effective.” Crossing his arms and leaning back with bullyboy complacence, he played the ad in its entirety. All in the service of news, of course.

By the way, Hannity and Fox News have repeatedly used O’Neill to attack John Kerry and bolster GOP fortunes in the years since the 2004 election. O’Neill was trotted out in late 2005 when Kerry spoke out against troops’ misbehavior in the Iraq War (and George W. Bush’s image was beginning to severely droop) and again shortly before Election Day in 2006, when the entire Republican Party was faring poorly. O’Neill didn’t help much then, I suspect he won’t help much now.

But hey, in the absence of any positive Republican agenda to put forth, by all means keep on smearing. Maybe you could have Donald Trump weigh in.