Okay, so I’ve tried twice to start this review with no luck. Turns out it’s really hard to review something as simpleminded as Sean Hannity’s daily radio show. So I guess it’s time to cut the bullshit and describe what it takes to enjoy neocon pundit/Bush bootlicker Hannity – that way you can judge for yourself whether you have the requisite stuff to tune in to this daily three hours of fake conservative political blather.
First of all, you need to be aware that Sean Hannity has benefited from the post-9/11 climate of political anxiety probably more than any other political commentator. If Rush Limbaugh hadn’t been tripped up by that buyingprescriptionpainkillersbehindadumpster
at Denny’s-thing, he might have been the chosen Bush administration mouthpiece. If Robert Novak hadn’t caused the White House deep embarrassment over the whole Valerie Plame spy-outing fiasco, he might have remained the favored lapdog. But since both of these guys stepped in it, the role of Karl Rove crap conduit and White House atta boy rolled to Hannity, an Irish-American blowhard with all of the rabid conservative attitude of Pat Buchanan but none of Buchanan’s pesky tendency towards independent thought and foot-in-mouth disease.
Second, it doesn’t hurt to blindly support the Iraq war. Doing a hard sell of connecting Saddam Hussein with 9/11 with no real evidence and convincing millions of easily panicked red-staters propelled Hannity to superstar status, both in the realm of talk radio and on Fox News. As all of the initial justifications for that war fell apart one by one – no connection to the 9/11 hijackers or even Al Qaeda was ever credibly established, no weapons of mass destruction ever found – Hannity dug in on flimsier excuses in order to keep his increasing restive audience toeing the line and supporting the campaign. "Saddam violated the UN peace treaty," he pointed out, mischievously refusing to acknowledge his many tirades about how useless and ineffectual the UN were back when they were opposing the action. "The Iraqi people deserved to be liberated," he also tried, not bothering to mention all the oppressed people in places like Sudan or the Ivory Coast, who apparently don’t deserve to be liberated quite as much as the oppressed people who happen to live where there’s a boatload of oil and US-hostile neighbors on either side.
Eventually of course Hannity stopped talking about the war and moved onto other things, most prominently the 2004 presidential elections.
This brings up the third crucial element required in a good Hannity listener – you have to believe in completely respecting any combat veteran, past or present – UNLESS THAT COMBAT VETERAN HAPPENS TO BE A DEMOCRATIC POLITICIAN.
Knowing that support for Bush was dwindling among the usual faithful as the Iraq war dragged on despite the exposure of its faulty premises, Hannity worked hard to shine the spotlight on the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. These were a group of Vietnam veterans who served with or claim to have served with the Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry. For weeks on end, Hannity plugged a book written by the group’s founder. He had several members of the group on as call-in guests. (He apparently doesn’t "do" studio guests or have a sidekick per se, although there’s an un-miked individual with him in the studio at all times. This individual, apparently an adult male, actually allows Hannity to refer to him on-air as "Sweet Baby James" and can be heard faintly chuckling as Hannity frequently directs rhetorical questions and leaden bon mots his way.) He gave tireless updates on the fruits of the group’s efforts to discredit Kerry.
Lost in the ideological shuffle was exactly what the group was accusing Kerry of.
This brings us to the fourth ingredient in the stew of a Hannity follower’s brain; priorities.
In Hannity World, political ideology is ALWAYS first and foremost, actual facts of a given situation - a distant second. The Swift Boat Vets, for instance, asserted that at least one of the three purple hearts awarded Kerry during his tour of duty wasn’t deserved, but since no serviceman can nominate himself, or even suggest nominating himself, for such an award, what exactly Kerry had personally done wrong was never precisely determined. But somehow all the plugging and pushing worked its mojo on the faithfully Hannitized; when the Republican Convention rolled around, all of the delegates wore fake purple bandaids on their cheeks, an apparent swipe at the bandaid supposedly used on one of Kerry’s Purple Heart wounds. Republicans all over the country were calling Kerry a coward, even as they shrilled that war protesters were "harming the troops" in Iraq by criticizing the war here at home.
Ignorance is apparently a highly desirable trait of the Hannity listener too, if his chosen sponsors are any indication. One commercial frequently repeated during the daily three Hannity hours is for some sort of “vocab” instruction tape. "It’s alarming but true," the announcer intones. "People will judge you by the words you use. Your vocabulary tells others much about you – it can even reflect your intelligence level." Um, well, yeah, I guess it could, there, Captain Obvious. It’s interesting to note that I have never heard this commercial during any other radio or TV show before – only during Hannity. Is it because his producers think his listeners are dumbasses who can’t talk right? My dear, does a bear shit in the woods?
Well, goddammit, I’ve done it again. The fucking piece is still too long and I still haven’t gotten around to listing the final element required for maximizing your Hannity listening pleasure. Fuck it, it’s Christianity, okay? Not just any kind of Christianity, but the Wonder Bread kind that pictures Christ as a blond white man in clean robes who loves everybody but will not hesitate to send anybody who doesn’t see things in the simple black and white moral landscape painted by Hannity straight to the fiery pits of hell. Educators who believe in teaching teenagers anything but abstinence in Sex Ed? Go to the lake of fire and fry. Advocates of removing Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube? Burn in hell! Muslims? Ooh, baddest of the bad.
So there you have it. All in all, you’d probably assume after reading through all these ramblings that I’m trying to warn all you Dead Rebel Society readers, with your far-above-average intelligence level and awareness of life’s gray areas, away from listening to the Sean Hannity show. Quite to the contrary, I recommend that any thinking person tune in at least once a week and listen to the whole show. It’s an excellent way to gauge the priorities and thought processes of the (apparently ill-spoken) millions who DO tune in to this show, as well as his nightly hour on Fox News. This is what most Americans believe, folks. So listen. And learn – if nothing else, you can at least order those “vocab” tapes.
Check out Nona's political stuff on her own page! All you ever needed to know about the world we live in, but were too afraid to ask about.
