Sean Hannity's effort to "prove" that Hillary Clinton is some kind of unhinged wacko was so ridiculous that even guest Gary Byrne, author of a hit-job book on her, shrugged it off.
Hannity devoted a full hour to the book, Crisis in Character, by ex-Secret Service agent Byrne. The Daily Beast has an excellent rundown of the salacious tidbits Byrne provides, along with lots of reasons to think he is full of crap. Hannity, of course, never challenged a single allegation. In fact, Hannity put together a video montage designed to illustrate one of Byrne’s claims, that Clinton has, as Hannity put it, a “volcanic” temper.
The video showed not the vase-throwing Hillary Byrne claims to know but a fiery-candidate Hillary, saying such things as, “I know we can create more good-paying jobs and raise incomes for hard-working Americans again. I know that we can finish the job of universal health care coverage for every single man, woman and child,” “I know we can combat climate change and be the clean-energy superpower of the 21st century,” and “I know we can make college affordable and get student debt off the backs of young people!”
“She does seem angry a lot,” Hannity said after he played the video. “And you’re saying, behind closed doors, when nobody’s looking, she’s that angry person, always.”
Even Byrne thought the video was a dud. “What I’m looking at there, Sean, doesn’t concern me,” Byrne replied. “That’s her being a politician.” He went on to say that he’s talking about the kind of anger where “she almost can’t complete a sentence. She starts yelling and screaming and cussing.”
“You’re describing a phony, fake fraudulent human being,” Hannity said triumphantly.
But here’s the thing. Putting aside serious questions about whether a low-ranking agent would ever have been privy to what Byrne claims he was privy to, so what if Hillary is a bad-tempered meanie with a terrible, dysfunctional marriage? She's running for president of the United States, not wife of the year. It’s Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, who has vindictively interfered with freedom of the press, who has publicly called for violence against those who have upset him on the campaign trail. It’s Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, who is facing trial for defrauding thousands of Americans. It’s Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, who has ties to the mob. It’s Donald Trump, not Hillary Clinton, who has responded to public crises by congratulating himself.
The Daily Beast notes that while most mainstream media outlets have so far declined to host Byrne, he’ll be on The Kelly File tonight and Fox & Friends on Wednesday.
Watch the ridiculous attempt to disqualify Clinton below, from the June 27 Hannity show.
Making America Hate Again
But with Clinton already leading in the polling, Hannity is obviously too angry and too desperate to notice the problem with his source here. Just as he was too desperate to notice the issues with Ed Klein’s accounts, or with the other self-promoters, like the guy who regularly gets trotted out with the Benghazi stories.
What all these “writers” have in common is that they are willing to peddle half-truths and outright lies to a specific political audience, in the hope that they can make some money from the book sales and appearance fees. And if they’re lucky, someone will consider them an “expert” on one of these areas. Kind of like what happened with Katie Pavlich, who trafficked in complete untruths about Fast & Furious to get herself a cushy position at Fox News. To my mind, it is beyond unbelievable that people like this can be taken seriously anywhere. The fact that Fox News promotes them is another indication of an intrinsic problem with the network.
Sean, he’s right down the hall, if you want to see a bonafide spoiled brat.
