Tamara Holder squared off against Sean Hannity's pal, Bill “Hussein” Cunningham, on Hannity tonight with hilarious results. You may recall that in a previous match, Cunningham told Holder, “Know your place and shut your mouth.” This time, Cunningham called her a “Farrah Fawcett wannabe” and said that people like her are “helping to destroy this country.” But Holder was ready for him.
The discussion was ostensibly about President Obama’s hypocrisy on raising the debt ceiling. But like almost any discussion on Fox, especially on the Hannity show, the real point was to open up opportunities for inflammatory attacks on President Obama and/or liberals.
Sure enough, Cunningham made a beeline for the hate. Instead of countering Holder’s reasoned argument about Obama and the debt ceiling, Cunningham trotted out the “Farrah Fawcett wannabe” line and shouted at her:
This woman has lost her mind, there’s no question about that. Let me help you with math.
Holder countered in just the right way, in my view: by questioning Cunningham’s agenda, rather than playing into it by going on defense. She said to Sean Hannity:
Do you accept this? He is your typical conservative. Bashing people, bashing me for my opinion. …This is the problem with your show and with Americans and people like Bill Cunningham. It’s always an attack. An attack on the president. An attack on people.
She’s absolutely right. But as much as I approve of how Holder handled herself here, the fact is that she’s the one on the Fox News payroll, not Cunningham. Also, she ought to know that it’s not just the Hannity show that is “always an attack” but an almost 24/7 happening on the “fair and balanced” network. And that’s not even counting the cesspool of hate website also known as Fox Nation.
Still, you have to applaud Holder’s response to Cunningham’s final attack. He said, “People of your ilk, basically, are going to ruin this country. …People like you are helping to destroy this country, physically. Grow up!”
Holder replied, “Grow up? …Conservatives are terrible. You have no platform at all. You have no way to speak to the youth. And all you do are call names. That’s it.”
I’m not even sure what Holder was thinking in agreeing to appear in a segment with Cunningham again as it’s pretty obvious that she really dislikes him. Her move with the candy was quite strange.
When he started jabbing his finger at her, she took on a more dangerous tone with him. At which point I couldn’t figure out why anyone wanted to put them on together again. This is the sort of thing where the visceral problem between the commentators was so palpable that I don’t know why any network would think it was a good idea to do this – much less do it again after what happened the last time.
Ellen, is there any way we could name her Newshounds’ “Top Dog”, anyway?
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