SEAN HANNITY
We know what you’re thinking: Given all the raving lunatics on right-wing radio and TV, why choose a relatively moderate talk show host as Asshole of the Month? The answer is inherent in the question: The fact that Sean Hannity seems moderate only makes him that much more dangerous. After all, everyone knows that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are assholes. And in truth, Hannity is every bit as loony as they are.
Most recently Hannity renewed his rightwing- crazy credentials by proposing we reinvade Iraq and Kuwait as a way of dealing with rising oil prices. Here’s part of what he said: “Why isn’t Iraq paying us back with oil, and paying every American family and their soldiers that lost loved ones or have injured soldiers—and why didn’t they pay for their own liberation? For the Kuwait oil minister—how short his memory is. You know we have every right to go in there and frankly take all their oil and make them pay for the liberation.”
Tell us that’s not nuts. Haven’t we lost enough blood and treasure to those conflicts already? According to Hannity, Iraqis should be grateful that we invaded their country without cause and killed an estimated 100,000 to 1 million citizens. (Attention, Fox viewers: Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.) As for Kuwait, it did indeed repay us for its liberation: about $18 billion. Facts, as you can see, mean nothing to Hannity.
Here are some more examples of Hannity saying black is white:
•“It doesn’t say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state.” In fact, the First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” And Article V stipulates: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust.”•“[After 9/11, Bush and his team] made it clear that determining the causes of America’s security failures and finding and remedying its weak points would be central to their mission.” Actually, Bush opposed the creation of a special commission to probe the causes of the 9/11 attacks for more than a year, finally caving due to liberal pressure.
One of Hannity’s most outrageous claims, it would seem, involves an organization he works closely with: Freedom Alliance. Hannity insists that every penny of the donations raised at the group’s Freedom Concerts is applied to scholarships for wounded soldiers or children of soldiers killed during wartime. The Freedom Concerts’ Web site claims more than $10 million has been raised for scholarships “in the last several years.” But Melanie Sloan of CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) says no more than $2.5 million has been donated for such scholarships.
Political commentator Debbie Schlussel (DebbieSchlussel.com) reports that for the year 2008, Freedom Alliance took in almost $9 million in revenues but allocated just over $1 million (12%) in scholarships to wounded soldiers and children of the fallen.
Want to puke over the size of the donations to an individual wounded soldier? Freedom Alliance, which was founded by retired military officer Oliver North in 1990, gave one soldier whose face was blown off and who lost an eye $1,000. Another soldier who lost both legs and his left arm in a roadside bomb incident got a massive $200. Such generosity!
Both Hannity and North (Freedom Alliance’s “honorary chairman”) have been accused of siphoning off money from the “charitable organization.” Schlussel says a Fox insider told her that when Hannity attends a concert, he demands and gets a Gulfstream 5 private jet, a fleet of Cadillac and Lincoln SUVs, as well as several suites of rooms for himself and his family at expensive hotels—all valued at approximately $200,000 per appearance. It’s said that even Ollie North is offended by Hannity’s outof- control greed.“This is the kind of deceptive marketing that the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] looks very dimly at,” Sloan is quoted as saying, according to Politico.com.
One thing is certain: Hannity has hit the big time since being plucked from an obscure radio station in Atlanta by Fox honcho Roger Ailes. The Fox show Hannity was destined to helm, you may remember, was called Hannity & Colmes. Alan Colmes, supposedly there to represent the Left, was a noodge whose true purpose was to be Hannity’s floor mat. That charade continued until 2008, when Colmes departed after 12 years, and Hannity came into his own.
Reported to be raking in more than $20 million a year, Hannity is the go-to guy for wing nuts seeking credibility and softball questions. Nutcakes Sharron Angle and Sarah Palin have made repeated appearances on his TV program. Meanwhile on radio, The Sean Hannity Show is syndicated to over 500 stations nationwide.
All of that power makes this Asshole one of the key players in the right wing’s plan to carve out a segment of America’s population and feed it propaganda instead of facts. Rather than debate the left wing—something they usually lose at— right wingers have decided to create their own separate reality with its own “facts.” In effect, they have balkanized the American people.
John Podesta, President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, seems to agree. Addressing a Take Back America conference, he said,“I think when you get so distant from the facts as guys like Limbaugh and Sean Hannity do, yeah, I think that tends to…corrupt the dialogue.” That was back in 2004. God knows Hannity has only gotten more partisan and more dismissive of reality since then.
If you think about it, this corruption of the political dialogue is the real evil of Sean Hannity; it’s even more offensive and ugly than his apparent stealing from the troops and their families as described above. After all, Hannity’s distortion of the truth is really an attack against exactly what makes America great. Fuck Sean Hannity!
Tags: Sean hannity
April 6th, 2011 at 9:10 am
Always right on the mark Larry! I can’t agree more and I wish you were center stage in this country so that we had what we need. Someone who calls everyone on their Bull Shit.
April 26th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Larry. You are 100% correct. The problem with Hannity is that he distorts the truth but worse yet is that he has too many ignorant viewers who believe him. Also, he works hard at causing his viewers anger at the Democrats.
May 26th, 2011 at 3:39 am
Hello Larry
I admire your belief in the First Amendment and your ability to make fun of a corrupt legal system. I think you should run for Governor of C.A. and then for President of the U.S.A. and I woul gladly be your campaign manager. This country needs alot of help and people need a good President unlike the joker we have now. Hannity may be shooting for ratings or believes we deserve something back for helping these countries. Even if he is wrong his statements are clearly protected by the First Amendment and I am sure you would agree. I f I were you I would run for Governor and then fire the real Ass the judge that through you in jail years ago if he is not retired. Then I would have an investigation of all these judges since most are corrupt and hurt people everyday.
That being said that I always do what is right and I am completely honest. I believe in America even with their mistake of electing this ass who cares about no one but himself. I would have fixed the economy already. If you want to stop corruption then please do more and be remembered as a great man not just the owner of a nude magazine. If you knew me however you would come to believe that there is a God and that he loves his people. I could tell you stories of what has happened to me but you would not believe them until you got to know me. I am not religious I know that most TV Preachers are only out for the money and even some local ones. I hate money and what it does to most people. Having money should mean helping people but most wealthy people are greedy self centered and dishonest. The question about the oil really comes back to do we leave these people to be surpressed or do we help and is it reasonable to ask them to keep the price down and to use the profits to help their own people. Even the Saudi’s keep the oil money and surppress their people into poverty. So I ask you does America simply stay out of it? I say no but I would never commit so many troops for so long at the expese of our soldiers lives, health, and America’s economy. Just take out the bad guys and help the people. Children are dieing, soldiers die with out purpose when these military actions drag on. Do you know anyone who would stand up for America again like you and I would?
Dennis G
May 26th, 2011 at 3:42 am
Lets fix America together. Write me anytime Larry. I love debate and I would love it if you did more to have an impact on society. If you do nothing then what does that make you?
June 24th, 2011 at 12:34 am
Mr.Flynt,
If you want to start controversy in the house of Saud then hear me out. Google gay sex in Saudi Arabia. I am from Kentucky and am Saudi/American. I have the resources to get a camera into many sex orgies taking place within the kingdom. They would Literally kill me for doing such. Ill risk it. From my personal experience 30-40% of women i know are lesbians and 20-30% are bisexual. I have avoided the male gay sex scene but I’d do what ever gets me a job. If you gave me 10 minutes of your time I believe you would agree I can bring alot to the table. Oh and my uncle said he dated your daughter and knows you from long ago his name is Jeff Koury.
June 28th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
I love your Asshole of the month Columns….when do you expect to resume?
July 6th, 2011 at 10:22 am
Hi Larry,
I’m Libertarian, but not so over the top about it. Increase individual liberties, but not to the point of making it such that said person is taking liberties from others too easily or often. Simple. Liberty and justice, rather than safety and prudence – thus I hate nanny laws, and I can’t stand Homeland Security. Anyhow, I lean way toward the 1st amendment, I see the constitution as it stands (which means an amendment amends and thus changes and thus the constitution is as amended and is as is now and the amendments *are* part of it lock stock and barrel – go figure), [and thus I am here and support your work no matter how much I might think you and yours might so often take things too far or be off the mark - my value of the free thing outweighs my frustration with any idiocy I see - and I see a lot of you choosing to pick allies who cut off your very nose in the name of spite-ing those you have validly picked out as enemies - sort of a sad situation and one you should reign in - though it must be like herding cats] so I would just say that the strange thing about Hannity is that he is 1-dimensional and parrots things, whereas Limbaugh and O’Reilly (sp?) seem to possess sincerity and originality and candor to me, whether I happen to agree on a point or be angered by them at one moment or another. In fact, Hannity’s thing almost scares me. That’s just a possible warning, though I am not some sooth-teller and I may be reading too much into things.
Now, some talking points from my free mouth:
Without oil flowing we would have no way to feed our mouths and we would have WWIII and WWIV like you wouldn’t believe [grow up]; that is sad and our principles of human rights take precedence over greed for sure, but what would we condone upon Europe to make them all starve in a continental-starvation-camp if we forced them to give up their oil supply and thus their whole infrastucture for getting food and beverage to their mouths [do the analysis, starting at your kitchen and then thinking to your grocery store, and not forgetting your car and the gas station] in the Holy name of some inverse-Jihad or inverse-Crusade for the Holy-Principle of anti-Capitalism or anti-War or anti-Greed or Pro-Showmanship-of-”We-Care” rather than real caring for our fellow man and woman. I get a bit tired of seeing our goodness and wisdom about human rights being pulled into myopia and shortsightedness about the proper or cool or hip way of doing human rights the way it gets appluaded by the elite with the ear of the under-sub-over-dog-culture-media-ear of America [you know what it is to be a victim of that with Porn being seen as "Filth" still by too many silly prudes out there afraid to masturbate regularly enough to avoid stupid mistakes at bars] and thus making us all get a bit lost in a standard mold of thinking and just sitting on either side of a fence tossing the ball back and forth (liberal to conservative) right where they want us, wasting our breath. We try the “out of the box” trick, we try to think “back inside the box”, we try to “think inside the corrugation of the box” (pardon my cute digression), and we are still missing the point – the box is a trap on all sides – in and out. Just sayin’ this: the goal is to reduce [of course lots, or totally - but bear with me and grow up] the harm [not at all the same as hurt - I'll hurt you some to keep you from harm, for example] done to the liberties/rights to ours and others via various means – all the way from A: everyday living and chilling along through life and no grand endeavors (the beautiful way life maintains itself), to C: tourist influence across borders, to F: routine diplomatic administrivia, to M, to V: sanctions by an alliance and no stupid world government, to X, to Y, to Z (warfare) [playing the alphabet game here...]. That’s all. Remember the goal. Getting all wrapped around the *show off* principle of a human right can get someone or some society of individuals *screwed*. And that means that those individual’s in that society of them are living and suffering in terrible conditions. That concludes my first talking point, albeit delivered intentionally awkwardly to make the reader think and get mad at me for my chosen effect [with luck on my side
].
World government is an abomination. Dynamic imbalances of power with checks on potential abuses by at least 50 or more independent and free-of-one-another countries to police one another is essential to any inhabitant of this wonderful planet. I’ll leave that one for you to study. I am by former trade an instructor and no professor, so I leave a lot to the learner, rather than teach it all. I invest in people, with trust in their smarts beyond mine. Two hints (good instructors do this too…): [1] How to root out corruption in one sole entrenched government? [2] How much harder is it to defy a government from within to regain a human right when under its laws {reference Tiananmen Square}?
Let’s all work to promote society and the individual even more and keep this really awesome thing in the world of the past 40 years going strong. This has been really good for us as compared to our ancestors in former centuries. Society is a society of individuals (saying people gets it a bit skewed almost as if society is a society of smaller societies – uh oh – there goes individual rights). There are 4 I’s in TEAM (four letters and thus four individuals). Yet spitting too hard on France (whose populace happen to know a *thing* or two about libertie and who *gave* us the Statue of Libertie/Liberty) for their knowledge of societies importance to the individual as if their social system has anything to do with neo-nationalism-socialism [homework required - you'll be aghast] (which it truly doesn’t) just shows that attacking social-side work backfires on the individual-side work. One is a lonely number. A married couple is a society of two. Mr. Spock in a Star Trek movie was not exclusively correct when he said that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one” or we have tyranny and Hitler was right. Sometimes that might be a decision the individuals in a group-society can pull together and decide on, with an individual volunteering, as he did, to bite the bullet – and we don’t have tyranny at all, but he said the wrong quote big time, so sadly. More often the needs of an individual a society or group will band together and they will decide that they will bust their collective butts and risk their common hides for the needs of that sole one individual, as is their free right, as defended by at least American Constitution (as it stands now of course, fortunately amended properly early on) for us. That all for one and one for all deal can be interpreted totally different, in that light, with the word “one” not meaning the title of the group, but the title of any individual within the group. Hmmm. I would say that is still a dangerous quote, and I steer clear of cutesy quotes about TEAM and stuff, and just try to respect the individual and how we are all so social as well.
Thanks Larry. So cheered you are out there for us!
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