Stop The Ins-hannity

There’s no shortage of examples of how Sean Hannity has come to fame by misquoting others and telling half-truths to insinuate lies, in fact, all out lying, but I’ve recently received a transcript for the Sean Hannity radio show that has puzzled me for a long time. It’s puzzled me because I can’t believe that while I write this book, there are fact checkers who demand that I cite all of my sources, which I have no problem with, but I wonder why radio hosts are not responsible for the same? After all, there shouldn’t be only certain mediums where people can only tell the truth, and others that can just tell as many lies and false truths as they want without consequences. This is from a January 2002 edition of the Sean Hannity show, carried by my local station, WJON.

SEAN HANNITY: Jim, Los Angeles. Sean Hannity Show. What’s up, Jim?

JIM: Hey, what’s up, Sean?

SH: Happy New Year.

JIM: I just heard you talking about how Democrats were supposedly attacking Christians for criticizing people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and I don’t see how you can make that kind of assumption.

SH: Well, what I can tell you is that I’m reading from Greg Pearson’s piece in the Washington Times yesterday and he was quoting Newsweek and Howard Fineman—their correspondent—how the Democrats are planning to demonize conservative Christians as being like the Taliban. According to Fineman, the Democrats are planning a daring assault on the most critical turf in politics, the cultural mainstream and the theory goes: our enemy in Afghanistan is religious extremism and intolerance. It is therefore more important than ever to honor the ideals of tolerance—religious sexual, racial, reproduction—at home. The GOP “is out of the mainstream” and Democrats will argue that it’s too dependent on “the intolerant religious right”. In other words, they’re comparing Christians to the Taliban.

JIM: Yes, absolutely. First of all [laughing] don’t trust the Washington Times. It’s owned by Moon.

SH: He’s quoting Howard Fineman. Howard Fineman is not a conservative.

JIM: Yeah, and the thing is that much of the sectarian right—I call it the sectarian right—is very Talibanesque. One thing I agree with President—

SH: Whoa. Who is—Make your comparison. The Taliban, let us remind people, used to beat women that would leave their homes without men. The Taliban wouldn’t let women go to school or go to work. The Taliban used to beat men if their beards weren’t a certain length. The most rigid interpretation of Islam that is out there. Explain. Compare and contrast for me where Christian conservatives are similar in any way.

JIM: Yeah, one thing I agree with President-select Bush’s September 18th speech before Congress—

SH: Answer the question though. Where is that comparison? Compare and contrast.

JIM: George W. Bush criticized the Taliban for their mistreatment of Hindus but you have someone like Pat Robertson who said that Hinduism is demonic and that we shouldn’t allow that to come into our country.

SH: First of all, I didn’t hear Pat Robertson say that. Now I know Jerry Falwell came under fire for the comments he made after September 11th, but you gotta remember he apologized for those comments and he put them into context. He was speaking in a broader philosophical vein and if you don’t accept his apology on that, that’s fine. But you can’t compare mainstream Christian conservatives with the Taliban. You can’t make that comparison. It doesn’t fit.

JM: The thing is that these are not mainstream Christian conservatives. My mother is a mainstream Christian conservative. Pat Robertson is a nutcase and Jerry Falwell is a thief. These people are—

SH: You know what I’m going to do: I gotta put you on hold here. This is important. We’ve got to work through this because there’s a level of hatred toward Christian conservatives that I think is at the root of this.

[Bumper music plays and Hannity goes to break]

[Bumper music plays and Hannity returns from break]

SH: I’m going to get to politics tomorrow—otherwise I would rush through it and I don’t want to do that. Back to Jim in Los Angeles. Jim, you still there?

JIM: Hi, Sean.

SH: Jim, here’s a question—that you have yet to answer this question. I gave you a list of how abusive the Taliban has been—in terms of their treatment of women, women who can’t go to school, women who can’t go to work, women who can’t leave their home without men, about men who must have beards a certain length, their extreme and fanatical interpretation of the Qur’an that believes God has instructed them to kill who don’t believe, those that don’t agree with them—and asked you to compare that to Christian conservatives and you make the comparison here where there’s some type of moral equivalency. You can’t do that.

JIM: Yes I did. I pointed out that at least the Taliban allowed Hindus into their country. Pat Robertson said that Hinduism is demonic and we shouldn’t allow these people to come to our country. That’s religious bigotry—

SH: Jim, you’re wrong because, for example, Christians are charged if they are caught proselytizing. Remember these two girls we interviewed. Don’t dismiss that. Here in America, you can practice—and Thaïs is what freedom of religion is about—you can practice any religion you want—even an extreme religion, even what by definition is considered a cult.

JIM: Not is Pat Robertson had his way because he believes that anyone who’s not a Christian or a Jew is a second class citizen and should not be allowed to hold office. We should oppose this kind of religious bigotry. That’s wrong.

SH: You know, here’s the problem, ladies and gentlemen, around the country, in debating someone like Jim—

JIM: [Sighing in annoyance]

SH: Jim, wait a minute, you’re obviously ignorant of your facts.

JIM: No I’m not. You call Jerry Falwell the real deal. This man is a thief who steals from his flock.

SH: Hang on for a second. Put him down for a second. Put him on hold. Don’t hang up, Jim, because this is important. Number one, you’re ignorant because you don’t know Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have been two of the staunchest supporters of Israel that are out there and outspoken in American society today. That’s fact number one. Number two, your criticism of Jerry Falwell as a thief is just—it’s clearly rooted in your own bigotry and hatred of him because of his religious point of view and his religious perspective. Jerry Falwell—you may not like his Christian perspective—but it doesn’t mean he’s a thief nor does it mean he’s been caught stealing, nor has he been accused of such and all you’re doing here is dropping these bombs in hopes that somehow you can demonize their name and reputation. The person who is intolerant here is you.

JIM: Mr. Hannity, Jerry Falwell sold a video on his TV show to his flock that claimed that President Clinton was involved in drug smuggling and murdering people and he had this phony infomercial in which he claimed that an investigative reporter was fearful of his life. This was not an investigative reporter—this turned out to be the producer of the video itself. So he sold this phony, outrageous, libelous, video at a high price—at a big markup—to his flock and he used deception and I call that stealing and that’s wrong.

SH: Was President Clinton a criminal? Was President Clinton legally impeached? Was President Clinton found to have lied under oath?

JIM: Oh wow, the guy had sex and he doesn’t want to tell the whole world. Gee, is that the same thing as murdering people and drug dealing and the kind of thing that scurrilous video said? That’s wrong.

SH: President Clinton cannot practice law right now and when you talk about the Taliban women—the Taliban support al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda has been fighting against the Indian government in Kashmir. This is, they’re fighting against Hinduism, isn’t it?

JIM: Absolutely. And pat Robertson and Falwell, they’re the biggest bigots for any religion other than Christianity.

SH: Hey, listen, Jim. Everybody who has a particular religious faith believes that they have the right faith. I have never heard Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson say that they don’t believe in the principles of freedom of religion.

JIM: No, that’s wrong. Absolutely. Pat Robertson said that only Christians and Jews should hold office in the United States and that’s against the constitution.

SH: Jim, you’re making this up.

JIM: No I’m not.

SH: Jim, you’re making it up.

JIM: I can document—

SH: Ladies and gentlemen, Jim doesn’t like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Okay. Fine, Jim. Don’t listen to them. Don’t listen to them. But don’t make up phony lies about them. Give us either one quote from either Robertson or Falwell. Give us the source.

JIM: Hinduism Today is the source behind the Pat Robertson quote about Hinduism.

SH: No, no, give me the source. What did he say and when did he say it and where was it quoted.

JIM: Well, I don’t have these things in front of me, but I’d be glad to email you all the information.

SH: [Sarcastically] Sean, I’ll email you tomorrow some time.

JIM: I’m sorry, I’m hanging out on my couch. I don’t happen to have the exact quotes with me. that doesn’t mean that my quotes aren’t valid. They are and I can back it up. I’ll tell you what: if you want to call me up, I’ll have all of this information for you tomorrow.

[Hannity disconnects the call]

SH: [Very sarcastically] Alright. We’re going to make a point of it. we’ll call Jim tomorrow. Thank you, Jim for your sourcing of your ridiculous quotes.

I apologize for the length of that, but it was essential for showing probably the best example to date of how Sean Hannity not only lies to his audience but even prevents his callers from legitimatizing their own statements. Sean seems to have an affinity for cutting his callers off or disconnecting them just before they’re about to make a point the he cannot refute, and changing the subject after they make a point that he failed to cut off or disconnect. I’ve called into the Sean Hannity show before and have been treated very similarly, and even with hostility. Sean Hannity doesn’t like anyone who disagrees with him.

Hannity will deny anything but his own point of view, and will go to no end to discredit those who do, no matter how low he must stoop, or how unrelated the discrediting process might be to the comment that he’s trying to disprove. Well, let’s see Hannity disprove any of the quotes in this chapter, because I’m sure he’d like to. In fact, in this conversation, he did deny some of the quotes that I’ve put in this book. Every quote is cited and sourced, therefore, I’d love to see him refute it.

The New Lie is a large part of Hannity’s broadcasts as well as his popularity, almost as much as the ignorance of his audience.

And without ignorance, there could be no New Lie, in fact, there could not be lies. What I suggest is that from now on, Mr. Hannity always quote his sources, and that an unbiased person be in charge of the phones at his show, that way he can never cut people off just because they disagree with him. In reality, it’s his show, therefore he can do whatever he wants and say whatever he wants; but until he starts being held to certain standards that are seemingly non-existent on AM radio, Mr. Hannity should never be taken seriously, and his quotes should be taken as seriously as Wikipedia.