Sean Hannity pushed Fox’s pro-death agenda last night when he postured yet again as a medical expert, this time to push Americans into a life-threatening end to social distancing, even as the COVID-19 pandemic rages.
This is far from the first time Hannity has played doctor on TV.
Hannity's "pro-life" circus to keep braindead Terri Schiavo alive
Let’s not forget that “Dr.” Hannity once presented himself as so pro-life he upended the deaths-with-peace-and-dignity of 55 hospice patients in order to conduct a dishonest media circus designed to prevent the husband of braindead Terri Schiavo, another hospice patient at the facility, from removing her feeding tube.
"Dr." Hannity falsely diagnosed Hillary Clinton
More recently “Dr.” Hannity diagnosed Hillary Clinton with some kind of serious health disorder(s). In addition to “twitching uncontrollably” (which a reporter who was present at the time said was Clinton clowning around), Hannity declared, “Add that to the deep-vein thrombosis, the cerebral venal thrombosis. Add that to her collapse and all the other health issues she’s had.” Three and a half years later, Clinton seems to be doing just fine.
Now, Hannity plays dishonest armchair doctor in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic
From Hannity's monologue last night:
HANNNITY: There are parts of this country with very low incidence of COVID-19 that likely -- yeah, we can open those areas probably now. But we're 22 days from May 1st. A geographical openings will be a no-brainer but even in these areas there will be some changes moving forward, especially to avoid a rebound.
And, of course, Hannity didn’t let a little thing like the pandemic interfere with his hate mongering. Just like he didn’t let a little thing like patients hoping to die in peace interfere with his “pro-life” circus for Schiavo.
Just as despicably, he smeared a real medical expert concerned about protecting lives as a threat. He played a clip of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel saying that COVID-19 “will be here for the next 18 months or more” and “we will not be able to return to normalcy until we find a vaccine or effective medications.” Hannity somehow missed the fact that Emanuel was not talking about everybody staying at home for that period. He was saying that a full return to normalcy would not happen until then.
Had Hannity done a simple Google search, he would have found what I did, via a Deadline interview, that Emanuel was promoting a phased easing up of restrictions after about 8-10 weeks of strict social distancing.
But that would have interfered with an attack on the presidential competitor of his worshipee, Donald Trump, and the heck with the public health. He smeared Emanuel as one of the “media mob doomsday Democrats” and hypocritically accused him and them of being “totally irresponsible.” After playing Emanuel’s clip, Hannity sneered, “that lunatic is advising the Joe Biden campaign.”
Hannity pretends (again) he always presented coronavirus as a serious threat
Next, it was on to smearing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is smack in the epicenter of the pandemic, as “all talk and no action.” Next up, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. This time, Hannity laughably claimed to have warned about the seriousness of the pandemic in January. “I was saying asymptomatic people – uh, that are highly contagious is dangerous. I was saying that in January. And I was saying it before anybody else.”
Well, maybe he was. But we also know Hannity was downplaying the threat as “a hoax” right up until he didn't, months later. Receipts are embedded below.
“Why does nobody in the media mob ever hold that guy accountable? Ever?” Hannity asked about Cuomo.
The same question should be asked of Fox News about Hannity.
You can watch Hannity’s irresponsible, dangerous and dishonest rant below, from the April 8, 2020 Hannity show. Underneath is the brilliant Daily Show video showing Hannity and his cronies downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic.
But first, here’s “Dr.” Hannity’s coronavirus dishonesty in a 51-second video via Vox’s Aaron Rupar:
HANNITY, March 9: "This scaring the living hell out of people -- I see it, again, as like, let's bludgeon Trump with this new hoax."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 19, 2020
HANNITY, March 18: "By the way, this program has always taken the coronavirus seriously. We've never called the virus a hoax." pic.twitter.com/yLKpojA7BI
Grandpa is too frighten to leave the comfort of home. He does not want to get COVID-19. At his age it’s fatal and he knows it.
NOTE TO HANNITY
You are so full of yourself. Come out from hiding and comeback to the studio, you old coward.
It reminds me of the old smoking sections on airplanes. Yes, there was a ‘section’ where people were allowed to smoke, but the entire plane still stank of smoke even in the non-smoking sections.
Republican “logic” is the same with the virus. The no-virus section will simply boom, while the virus section will simply stay free of smoke.
Right…?
Just a handful of observations.
Simply stated models improve as data improves and the Trump administration has flunked Epidemiology 101. A model showing millions dead was an early one (from England?) before mitigation started and represents the potential of the MAGA death cult’s “herd immunity” approach.
My favorite ‘blooper’ is him using Marketplace and ABC News graphics to make some points then he whines the “media mob” is a pack of haters and liars. Huh? Can we use their stories or not, Sean?
He seems to blame then Mayor Bloomberg for selling NYC ventilators after Bloomberg was no longer mayor though he’s confusingly ambiguous.
I agree with Sean Democrats on a Cuomo for president bandwagon are getting carried away. One reason being, like Trump, Cuomo delayed acting. However, the reason Cuomo is getting so much positive press and praise even from me is once he woke up he became the type of leader of concrete actions we dream of. Unlike bumbling, incompetent mentally ill narcissist Trump who’s making his pressers about him stream of consciousness lying hoping to boost his TV ratings. Trump never really woke up and keeps elbowing competent experts out of the way to hog the microphone.
I’ll ignore all the rest of Sean’s baloney to point an eight hundred pound guerrilla in the room. Fundamentally I don’t understand what Sean is ranting about. He’s blabbering on and on about getting parts of the country back to work. WTF? We do not have a national stay at home order in place. Trump has only issued guidelines. States and even localities are making their own decisions. Isn’t a Republican talking point forever state rights, states rights and more states rights?
I believe North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas are states where nobody, even by local authority, is under a stay at home order. Utah, Wyoming, and Oklahoma have no state stay at home order but some localities have implemented them. South Carolina didn’t leave this ‘esteemed’ group until 2 days ago on April 7th.
I suspect, but won’t be able to prove for a few weeks, Sean will be rewriting history once again. Because America’s response is an uncoordinated rolling one where states and localities often don’t act until faced with their own disasters, ignoring obvious national trends. This incoherent policy is dragging out any recovery. So what’s Sean going to say weeks after his bloviating here haunts him because, say, Fargo, North Dakota starts seeing an explosion of cases and even hardcore red state holdouts like MAGA North Dakota are forced to put them in place?