Dear "Oh The" Sean Hannity...

[Admiral_Snackbar]

To my credit, I really, REALLY tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, I listened for a full hour of your Hannity and Colmes show the other night. The one where they start hashing out the Edwards vs. McCain affairs, and somehow you extrapolate by association that Edwards is the reason the Democrats will fail in November because all libs just LOVE to conduct multiple affairs while their poor, innocent spouses are being eaten away by Ebola cancer. I spent the evening listening to various debates and show clips from your show, and at some point I really thought that you could make some sort of reasoned, thought-provoking argument using the facts at hand without appealing to:

1. Emotion.
2. 9/11.
3. How perfect your marriage and family are, spoken with all the humility a devout Catholic can muster.
4. Our fighting men and women in the war, and by association the sanctity of all veterans everywhere as ones who can do no wrong. Ever.
5. God.
6. Jesus.
7. God, Jesus and Prayer.
8. God, Jesus, Prayer and the sanctity of the USA as a Christian Nation(tm).
9. Some sound bite you try to hammer home without bothering to read more than the first 4 lines before getting to the eventual decimation of the initial statement you so fervently support. Assuming you or your research piss boys read the facts in the first place.
10. Some blatant plug of your inane books, where you are cleverly airbrushed on the cover to appear with this out-of-focus bodily halo. Cherubic, even. Maybe that's from your honorary Liberty University degree, maybe they couldn't properly airbrush out your ear hair, I dunno.

It saddens me that you, Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly (even your liberal counterparts like Franken) always appeal to the lowest common demominator by putting yourselves on this Manichaean throne of I Know What's Right For America. Your incessant, ignorant, inconclusive, divisive Partisan Pablum is destroying the ability of Americans to take valid, non-filtered information and make decisions for themselves.

[LalaCity]

Originally Posted by Admiral_Snackbar

... at some point I really thought that you could make some sort of reasoned, thought-provoking argument using the facts at hand...

...erm, and what, exactly, led you to this erroneous and most preposterous line of thought? Hannity may well be the most partisan, unquestioning and repetitive blowhole on the right -- though if you tied me naked and honey-coated to an ant hill and forced me at machete-point, whilst the encroaching fires of apocalypse raged 'round me, to definitively nominate the most odious, lyin'ist hate-monger from the field of right-wing demagogues, I'd still be hard-pressed.

[Admiral_Snackbar]

Originally Posted by LalaCity

...erm, and what, exactly, led you to this erroneous and most preposterous line of thought?

Like I said, occasionally I like to try on the Optimism Coat and see whether it fits or whether it's really lined on the inside with fiberglass and body lice.

[LalaCity]

Originally Posted by Admiral_Snackbar

Like I said, occasionally I like to try on the Optimism Coat and see whether it fits or whether it's really lined on the inside with fiberglass and body lice.

In my experience, listening to Limbaugh, Hannity, et al, is more akin to donning a hairshirt: it never ceases to irritate and at some point I end up pleading for mercy and deliverance from a God who has quite obviously forsaken me utterly.

But, like you, in the interest of giving ear to opposing views (is that possible -- giving ear to views? oh well), I occasionally tune into Limbaugh -- like I did the other day and was treated to a particularly windy rant on Barack Obama's "indoctrination" (at the tender age of eight, mind you) in anti-Americanism at his Indonesian "madrasah."

Eight precious minutes of my life I will never, ever have back. *sigh* But let them never say I did not heroically try.

[Wild Zero]

Originally Posted by LalaCity

I occasionally tune into Limbaugh -- like I did the other day and was treated to a particularly windy rant on Barack Obama's "indoctrination" (at the tender age of eight, mind you) in anti-Americanism at his Indonesian "madrasah."

You forgot to include the fall back of every right wing radio hack, Obama's middle name.

[Risible]

Admiral, you forgot to seed "misogynist" somewhere in your OP, because it surely deserves to be included ...

[RedVelvet]

Hannity is a knuckledragging mouthbreather.

I mean it.

Idiot is too kind a word. They don't have a name for this sort of troglodyte. I consider him the male Paris Hilton. Takes only...adds nothing....pollutes the world with the most jingoistic crap known to man.

......and absolute hypocrite, by the way....

I dated a man who worked in college radio back when Hannity had a show there......

I have storrrrriiiiiieeeeessss.

Also..he's an incompetent poonhound.

[Admiral_Snackbar]

Originally Posted by Risible

Admiral, you forgot to seed "misogynist" somewhere in your OP, because it surely deserves to be included ...

Well, I think neo-conservativism is inherently misogynist, in that it expects women to "know their place" and let the old white men make all the decisions. I do recall listening to Hannity (and to a lesser extent, Michael Savage, but that's an entirely different ball of ear wax) and recalling most of his diatribes about Clinton alluded to "man, I don't want to be an aide when it's her 'time-o-the-month', snicker snicker". I just kept picturing the C- and N-words to always be thought bubbles when it came to race or gender with that guy.

Also, per RVs assessment of his questionable behaviors, my one theory is that the people who parade their righteousness and morality as snow white and immutably superior more often than not have plenty of back alley abortion, date rape, sexual favored or other above-the-law skeletons in their closets. There will probably be some "accusations of running an underage truck stop prostution ring out of FOX News surfaced today..." story airing in a few years, Hannity will eat a bullet and we'll be rid of another demagogue. All these blowhard assholes eventually take a ride on the Failboat.

That and I am sure there is some secret code word in the Secret Service for 86ing a dead hooker from some Congressman's hotel room.

[RedVelvet]

Originally Posted by Admiral_Snackbar

Also, per RVs assessment of his questionable behaviors, my one theory is that the people who parade their righteousness and morality as snow white and immutably superior more often than not have plenty of back alley abortion, date rape, sexual favored or other above-the-law skeletons in their closets. There will probably be some "accusations of running an underage truck stop prostution ring out of FOX News surfaced today..." story airing in a few years, Hannity will eat a bullet and we'll be rid of another demagogue. All these blowhard assholes eventually take a ride on the Failboat.

This make me laugh a lot.

tee hee

[Fascinita]

Originally Posted by Admiral_Snackbar

Your incessant, ignorant, inconclusive, divisive Partisan Pablum is destroying the ability of Americans to take valid, non-filtered information and make decisions for themselves.

You're giving them far too much credit. These people are mere entertainers. It's bread and circus, and nothing more. They are not destroying anything that's not already broken. They are simply making a living by being entertaining. To expect anything other than entertainment from entertainers is a mistake.

[Admiral_Snackbar]

Originally Posted by Fascinita

You're giving them far too much credit. These people are mere entertainers. It's bread and circus, and nothing more. They are not destroying anything that's not already broken. They are simply making a living by being entertaining. To expect anything other than entertainment from entertainers is a mistake.

When people begin using these entertainer's rhetoric as gospel in their political and social choices, it ceases being entertainment. Yes, the 'system' is already broken, but they're just stepping in the crack and widening it further. It just lends more credence to the argument that in the enterainment industry, you just fail upwards.

One could say that people get what they deserve...I would just prefer to see some level of common sense used when trying to discuss oh, any issue of merit in a social setting these days without some beanhead bringing up "well, Hannity said blahdy blahdy blahh...and he cares about America". And these sycophantic motherfuckers VOTE. In droves.

Sometimes I think democracy should require an intelligence evaluation.

[RedVelvet]

Originally Posted by Fascinita

You're giving them far too much credit. These people are mere entertainers. It's bread and circus, and nothing more. They are not destroying anything that's not already broken. They are simply making a living by being entertaining. To expect anything other than entertainment from entertainers is a mistake.

It's a mistake to assume that people are savvy enough to assume its entertainment.

Hannity sells a lot of crappy jingoistic idiotic books.....and they are not considered....fluff .....by those who buy them.

[Fascinita]

Originally Posted by RedVelvet

Hannity sells a lot of crappy jingoistic idiotic books.....and they are not considered....fluff .....by those who buy them.

Its populist charms aside, that stuff is still entertainment. That people act as if it's not--as if it were democratic discourse--is a sign of what's broken in the first place. In other words, the problem is that entertainment can pass for democratic discourse.

If you and I and people who know better treat this brand of entertainment as if it were democratic discourse, address these entertainers on their turf and in their terms, merely because a bunch of people have decided to go that route, who are the real schmucks? I'm not playing along with a bunch of Fox-heads, pretending that anything meaningful is going on. Let those who don't consider it fluff go on with that fantasy. I have limited control over how savvy other people are. However, I like to think I know better--that I can control. And I choose to resist the notion that if it looks like discourse, it must be discourse.

That goes for any polititainment show, by the way. I may enjoy the satire that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert put on, but I'm also aware that some of my fellow lefties are too content with thinking that it's enough to make fun of the right.

Anyone wishing to address the problem of entertainers-cum-political pundits should go to the root of the problem. The problem isn't that Hannity and Colmes exist as such, but that Americans would content themselves with the clownish antics of H&C and their ilk, in lieu of authentic discourse.

[RedVelvet]

Me...I just love your Burgess/Clockwork sig....

Alexander DeLarge is one of my fav characters in film and lit.

[Fascinita]

Originally Posted by RedVelvet

Me...I just love your Burgess/Clockwork sig....

Alexander DeLarge is one of my fav characters in film and lit.

lol I love both the book and the movie, too. And I'm a Clockwork Orange kick lately. I've been greeting people with "Welly, welly, welly, welly, well!" I think I may get my behind handed to me on a platter soon if I don't stop.