Alan Colmes
From The Rational
Radical's Blog:
Contemporaneous
Musings About That Conservative Stomp-fest, Hannity & Colmes
[Tuesday, September
14, 2004]
Alan Colmes has been unusually aggressive
lately. He'll often set up the guest properly for the kill.
Unfortunately, he still lacks the go-for-the-jugular instinct
which would have Colmes explicitly and disparagingly summarize the
guest's failure before the end of the segment. Also, Colmes still
apparently has no control over the guest list, since they had on
for a double segment tonight the Swift Boat Liars for Bush head
guy, with the lead-in question of, has the Bush National Guard
controversy taken the heat off John Kerry regarding his Swift boat
experiences. Well, not if Hannity & Colmes has anything
to do with it.
[ Tue Apr 27, 08:53:58 PM ]
The other night Alan Colmes repeated two times in
teasers that "thousands" rallied in DC in the pro-choice
march. Why does Colmes do this stuff? There were hundreds of
thousands there. Why couldn't he be accurate? Even the Fox news
crawler on the bottom of the screen said estimates were between
500,000 and 800,000. Have you even seen Colmes be inaccurate in favor
of a liberal position?
[ Fri Apr 09, 03:13:08 PM ]
Last night, Fox's token eunuch, oops, I mean
liberal, Alan
"The Doormat"Colmes, was so happy to say that
Condomskeezer Lice's testimony was "credible and
articulate." Is Rupert now giving Colmes a script to read?
[ Wed Mar 24, 08:02:47 PM ]
Pat Halpern substituted for Alan Colmes tonight.
Halpern is so laid back, non-confrontational and ineffective in his
questioning, he makes Colmes seem as aggressive and effective as
Sean Hannity!
[ Wed Mar 24, 08:01:07 PM ]
Greta sank to a new low tonight (not something
easy for her to accomplish given where she has already been in her
stint at Fox!). A pathetic practice on her program is that at the
beginning, the Fox News Alert music will come on, and then Greta
will breathlessly relate one of the day's top stories, which isn't
in an alert stage at all, but just the facts that have been known
all day, and usually discussed ad nauseum already on O'Reilly
and Hannity & Colmes directly before her. Tonight, the
end of H&C was devoted to live coverage of Bush giving a speech.
Then at the time Greta was scheduled to go on, she appeared in the
corner of the screen with the Fox News Alert music, and told us that
Bush was giving this speech, and that Fox would continue to cover
it. This was not an address to the nation. It was a yearly
appearance before a broadcasting group. The speech was not even
worthy of live coverage, let alone a News Alert. But then this is
Fox, not an actual news channel.
[ Tue Mar 16, 09:20:37 PM ]
Alan Colmes last night said he was happy to do
all he could to help Sean Hannity sell as many copies of his book as
possible. The title of Hannity's book is "Deliver Us from Evil
: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism". If someone
wrote a book which said my political ideology was as bad as
terrorism and despotism, that would not be a book I'd be eager to
promote. But then, unlike Alan Colmes, I have some self-respect.
[ Fri Mar 12, 12:53:44 PM ]
Kerry has proposed rolling back the Bush tax cuts
for anyone making over $200,000 a year, and to reduce taxes on
everyone else, which means 95% of all Americans. Last night Laura
Ingraham on Hannity & Colmes tried to explain how
unfair that was, because $200,000 isn't really that much money. She
said that if you have a 5 or 6 person family, and live in a big
city, $200,000 doesn't go very far. I have now taken out and am
playing the world's smallest violin.
[ Fri Jan 23, 07:11:46 PM ]
Welcome! Neil
Cavuto and Susan Estrich Join NewsMax
Fox News financial guru Neil Cavuto and best-selling author and law
professor Susan Estrich bring to NewsMax their wisdom and insight.
This is the headline on today's Newsmax.com page. I've been
saying for months that Estrich's blatant ass-kissing of Sean Hannity
was designed to get her another wishy-washy-token-obsequious-liberal
slot at Fox, sort of a matching bookend to the right-wing-enabler Alan
"The Doormat" Colmes. This columnist slot at
Newsmax.com is probably a carrot reward for her butt-smooching so
far. I wonder how much further she'll have to go in order to get her
coveted talk show slot on Fox?
[ Fri Jan 23, 01:26:57 PM ]
It's bad enough when Alan Colmes proclaims the
Fox slogan "Fair and Balanced" with a straight face. He
seems to really believe it. Even more amazing is the teaser he read
the other night: "Dick Cheny answers tough questions about
Iraq" Who was interviewing Cheney, you wonder, that would pose
tough questions to the ultra-right VP? The answer: Sean Hannity was
conducting the interview. Just the person to ask Dick Cheny tough
questions about anything. And as could be expected, the questions
about Iraq were powder puffs.
[ Sun Jan 04, 09:38:02 PM ]
Geraldo,
Estrich: Limbaugh Probe 'Stinks' The article calls them
both liberals, thus their support of Rush supposedly surprising.
Well, since coming to Fox, nary a liberal word has come out of
Geraldo's mouth, only kowtowing to the Foxian ethic. As to
kowtowing, Geraldo is just an amateur compared to Estrich, who in
the fine tradition of Alan
"The Doormat" Colmes, seems to take special pleasure
in decrying unfairness to poor picked upon Republicans, like Arnold
and Rush. Estrich, of course, is maneuvering for a talk show slot at
Fox, as I see it, so her ass-kissing is a fine plan for her to
achieve that goal.
[ Tue Dec 30, 07:34:02 PM ]
An
Aggressive Conservative vs. a "Liberal to be Determined"
Great article on the lack of balance on Hannity &
Colmes. One quibble with the a sidebar to the article which
appears in the print edition but not online: it says that in the
test period, Hannity interruped guests in mid-sentence 92 times,
Colmes 66 times.
The number of interruptions attributed to Hannity compared to Colmes
doesn't seem lopsided enough. I figured out a couple of reasons why:
1. When Hannity interrupts, it's usually after the liberal guest has
not even finished his first sentence, and Hannity often never lets
the guest complete even one point. When Colmes interrupts, it's
almost always after the guest has spoken quite a bit. So Hannity's
interruptions seem, and are, far more damaging to the other side's
ability to express themselves.
2. Hannity will virtually never interrupt a conservative, but I've
seen Colmes engage in repeated interruptions of liberals who don't
seem to be agreeing with his "let's be nice" approach to
things.
3. Colmes will often attempt 2 or 3 times to interrupt a guest
before being successful, while Hannity's more forceful efforts
usually work the first time.
4. Colmes is often assigned the job of interrupting a guest to say a
segment's time is over. I wonder if these instances were counted.
So while the pure numbers show an imbalance, adding in the how, when
and against whom elements makes the picture far more lopsided.
[ Sat Dec 27, 07:30:29 PM ]
Alan
"The Doormat" Colmes was at it again last night.
Hannity & Colmes deigned to allow an actual
representative of a group organizing anti-Iraq War protests to
appear on the program. It was the day after Christmas, probably one
of the least watched programs, but still an appearance. So what does
Colmes do? He spends virtually his entire portion of the segment
criticizing the protests and asking aren't they a waste of time,
since Bush didn't listen. Instead of using this valuable air time to
educate the audience about a war that at one point, in a rare fit of
balls, Colmes called "illegal", "immoral" and
"imperialistic", Colmes helps the pro-war
propaganda effort by denigrating the protests.
And the guest, Leslie Cagan of United
for Peace & Justice was a disaster in her own right. How can
a national group let people go on the air without even the most
minimal preparation for the type of forum they'll be appearing on?!
Hannity started out by asking her if she were in charge, how would
she have handled the response to 9/11. Hannity (and other right-wing
hosts) have been asking this question of progressive guests since
9/12, and virtually all of the them stumble and hem and haw and have
no coherent answer.
Cagan was like that in spades. What I got from her is that she would
have convened an international forum of some sort. Hannity mocked
her and pounded her, and she looked foolish. The entire segment was
taken up with her futilely trying to answer this question.
Then to top it all off, at the end of the segment, she whined that
she didn't even get to discuss the topic, a Washington, DC
demonstration planned for March. Well of course she didn't, since
that is Hannity's tactic from way back, avoid the topic and put the
guest on the defensive.
This entire portion of the program was most disheartening to watch.
[ Sun Dec 21, 08:09:02 PM ]
Noam Chomsky describes
a phenomenon that drives me crazy, the way limp liberals like Alan
Colmes allow right-wingers to dismiss with a wave of the hand past
U.S. atrocities. Chomsky calls it
the doctrine of change of course, invoked in
the United States every two or three years. The content of the
doctrine is: "Yes, in the past we did some wrong things
because of innocence or inadvertence. But now that's all over, so
let's not waste any more time on this boring, stale stuff."
On another major point, Jefferson as quoted by
Chomsky certainly got this right:
Who would expect that the United States would
ever permit an independent Iraqi government to exist? Especially
now that Washington has reserved the right to set up permanent
military bases there, in the heart of the world's greatest
oil-producing region, and has imposed an economic regime that no
sovereign country would accept, putting the country's fate in the
hands of Western corporations.
Throughout history, even the harshest and most shameful measures
are regularly accompanied by professions of noble intent -- and
rhetoric about bestowing freedom and independence.
An honest look would only generalize Thomas Jefferson's
observation on the world situation of his day: "We believe no
more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas
than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The
object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth
and the resources of other nations."
Not
Neo-Con, Just Plain Greed makes the same point:
While neo-cons worship abstract free-market
rules, there is really only one rule that appears to matter to the
Bush clan: If it helps our friends get even richer, do it.
Seen through this lens, the seemingly erratic behavior coming out
of Washington makes a lot more sense. Sure, Mr. Wolfowitz's
contract-hogging openly flouts the free-market principles of
competition and government non-intervention. But like Mr. Baker's
jubilee, it does have a direct benefit for the firms closest to
the Bush administration. Not only are they buying a debt-free
Iraq, but they won't have to compete for the deals with European
corporate rivals.
Those looking for ideology in the White House should consider
this: For the men who rule our world, rules are for other people.
The truly powerful feed ideology to the masses like fast food
while they dine on the most rarified delicacy of all: impunity.
Yup, those who set the rules, set rules to enrich
themselves. How much more basic could it be?
[ Thu Dec 04, 09:56:46 PM ]
Alan
"The Doormat" Colmes, in one of his patented attacks
on "fellow liberals," noted that "some liberals"
are mad at him for not being "mean-spirited" enough. Must
be more than "some" liberals, since virtually none
apparently bought his recent book, which tonight was at 3,104
on Amazon.com's best-seller list.
Colmes is right of course. The reason Democrats are out of power is
that they have been too aggressive and mean-spirited. And the reason
Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency is
because they have been so polite and respectful towards those with
whom they disagree.
Finally, it seems something is going on where Hannity is saying how
he could pummel Colmes in a celebrity boxing match. So now Hannity's
adding physical intimidation to the psychological terror-hold he has
over Colmes.
[ Fri Nov 28, 09:53:01 PM ]
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was on Hannity &
Colmes tonight. It was quite a segment. Sean "Serial
Interrupter" Hannity noted he had "promised" his
producer he would be nice to RFK, Jr. Accordingly, and amazingly,
Hannity didn't interrupt RFK, Jr. and actually let him complete
sentences and thoughts. The result: Hannity was creamed. To fact
after fact that RFK, Jr. presented, Hannity had no response, but
would just keep switching the topic or engage in name-calling.
Without the ability to interrupt and out-shout his guests, the
snotty bully-boy Hannity hasn't a leg to stand on.
[ Thu Nov 27, 09:44:30 PM ]
There he goes again! Alan
"The Doormat" Colmes was rhapsodizing tonight about
what he called the "political masterstroke" of Bush's
stunt dinner at the Baghdad airport. He breathlessly asked if this
"trip" will make it harder for Democrats to criticize the
present on the mess in Iraq (?!!). Segment after segment of the
program tonight was devoted to Colmes asking inane questions about
the meaningless journey. Of course, Hannity was doing the same
thing. Maybe Colmes should pull a Dennis Miller and shed all
pretense of being a committed liberal. Oh wait, he can't do that,
because then he wouldn't be able to continue as the purportedly
"liberal" side of the program.
[ Wed Nov 26, 10:40:17 PM ]
The
Uncivil War
One of the problems with media coverage of this
administration,' wrote Eric Alterman in The Nation, 'is that it
requires bad manners.'
He's right. There's no nice way to explain how the administration
uses cooked numbers to sell its tax cuts, or how its arrogance and
gullibility led to the current mess in Iraq...
All this fuss about civility, then, is an attempt to bully critics
into unilaterally disarming � into being demure and
respectful of the president, even while his campaign chairman
declares that the 2004 election will be a choice "between
victory in Iraq and insecurity in America."
And even aside from the double standard, how important is
civility? I'm all for good manners, but this isn't a dinner party.
Or a high school debate competition, like Alan
Colmes apparently thinks it is.
The opposing sides in our national debate are
far apart on fundamental issues, from fiscal and environmental
policies to national security and civil liberties. It's the duty
of pundits and politicians to make those differences clear, not to
play them down for fear that someone will be offended.
Not Colmes. He's more happy being the far right's
favorite liberal, being the nicest guy that mass murderer Oliver
North ever met, than being an effective advocate on life-and-death
issues. Colmes will spend an entire precious segment of air time
arguing about whether he and other liberals are being appropriately
polite, instead of telling his right-wing opponent to stuff the
discussion of etiquette, and start worrying about the
flesh-and-blood humans being injured and killed by the Bushians.
[ Mon Nov 24, 09:04:58 PM ]
Conservative
Revolution? No -- Just Dazzlingly Effective PR
Everyone who follows the media knows that we
live in an increasingly conservative society. Everyone knows that
conservative talk radio is a dominant force and that Rush Limbaugh
alone attracts 20 million listeners weekly. Everyone knows that
the Fox News Channel � on which I am a contributor �
has drained millions of viewers from the broadcast networks.
Everyone knows that millions of Americans mobilized against CBS'
Reagan miniseries.
Yet, everything that everyone knows in the preceding paragraph is
absolutely false. In sheer numbers, conservative talk radio is
still a relatively small phenomenon, and Limbaugh's aggregate
audience of 20 million � if you assume that most of his
die-hard fans listen to him daily � is probably closer to 4
million or 5 million. Fox News is unquestionably a cable success
story, but, excluding major news stories, at best it attracts an
audience of 2 million � not even in the same league as the
least-watched broadcast news report and a blip on the larger
demographic screen. After more than a week of constant, highly
publicized agitation, CBS reportedly received 80,000 e-mails
protesting the Reagan miniseries, not exactly a populist wildfire.
Here's the truth: Even after 9/11 reputedly turned us into a
nation of flag-waving patriots, even after Fox News Channel
torpedoed the liberal media, even after the drumbeat of Limbaugh,
even after Dennis Miller decided to forgo humor for attacks on
Bill Clinton and even after the Reagans were saved from liberal
calumnies, the country, according to both a recent Washington
Post/ABC News poll and a Pew Research Center poll, is almost
exactly evenly divided between those who lean left and those who
lean right.
Very true. When Bill O'Reilly brags that he's the
most-watched prime time cable news show, and Hannity & Colmes
trumpet their number one cable debate show status, I always chuckle.
Big fish in a small pond.
[ Mon Nov 24, 12:52:45 PM ]
Alan Colmes' book started out in the toilet and
went downhill from there. It's now at number 9,584
on Amazon.com. I've seen it as "high" as 800-something,
but clearly it's a bomb. Talk about widespread condemnation, look at
this excerpt from Publishers
Weekly:
The liberal half of Hannity & Colmes breaks
free of his cohost to deliver a blandly pious 'can't we all just
get along?' homily without interruption. Racism is bad,
conservatives should stop being such bullies and antiwar
protestors are Americans, too. Oh, and Fox News isn't really that
conservative. But who'll buy it? As numerous excerpts from viewer
e-mails reveal, Colmes's TV audience is largely hostile to him,
while potential liberal readers are probably still chuckling over
Al Franken's portrayal of him in Lies as a milquetoast. That he's
nowhere near as funny (or energetic) as Franken or Michael Moore
doesn't help.
"Blandly pious"!
Tonight, guests were incredibly disrespectful to Colmes. Dick Morris
kept ignoring Colmes' question and just kept reciting talking
points. Finally Colmes asked Morris why he was ignoring his
question. Morris, right to his face, replied something like
"I'd rather say what I want to say." Morris
ignored Colmes as if he wasn't there -- which is often the effect
Colmes has, even when he is.
[ Wed Nov 19, 09:25:43 PM ]
Alan Colmes was so thrilled the other night when
G. Gordon Liddy (G. Gordon Liddy!) told him that he was the nicest
guy he ever met. So to his accolades from the right such as
"favorite liberal," we can now add "nicest guy."
Great job, Alan!
[ Wed Nov 12, 07:02:08 PM ]
What the f**k is wrong with Alan Colmes?! He's on
right now with a horrible case of laryngitis. You can barely hear
him, and it's painful to listen to someone like that trying to talk.
Is he so desperate not to miss a night of the program for fear his
already failed book with sell even fewer copies? Update: so he
stopped trying to talk, and just sat there, with Sean making a
reference to him once in a while. And you know what, the liberal
position wasn't any worse represented by him being totally silent!
[ Sun Nov 02, 11:54:42 PM]
Geraldo:
Enviros Planted Time Bomb in Calif. Forests This Newsmax.com
article calls Geraldo "Fox News Channel's leading liberal field
reporter." WRONG!! Geraldo is still a liberal
like Dennis Miller is still a liberal. He's not. Gerald's been more
hawkish than Oliver North on the Iraq War, and you'd be hard-pressed
to locate a liberal sentiment coming out of Geraldo's mouth since he
came to Fox. But Fox can claim he's a liberal, a part of
their "fair and balanced" network -- along with the other
ex-liberal Greta, and the non-performing, voted-for-Giuiani liberal Alan
"The Doormat" Colmes. [PS: If Newsmax thinks Geraldo is
the "leading" liberal field reporter, that implies there are
others. I wonder who on earth they might be? Oliver North
perhaps?]
[ Fri Oct 17, 09:53:36 PM]
You ever notice that when Hannity is absent, the guest
list, discussion topics and/or teasers on Hannity & Colmes
often skew much less heavily rightward? Such was the case tonight.
Just more evidence of how Colmes can't stand up to Hannity.
[ Thu Oct 02, 10:21:09 PM]
Did you see the Nuremberg-style rally on
Fox tonight, otherwise know as the Hannity & Colmes show live from
Philly? A rabidly pro-Fox, right-wing audience roared in approval
whenever a right-wing cliche was uttered. Susan Estrich showed how low
she is willing to go to land a spot as host of a Fox News talk show:
I've never seen her as mad as tonight, and why was she mad? Because
the LA Times had printed a negative story about Arnold 5 days before
the election. That's certainly what in the world Estrich should be
most mad about. And overall, how bold for the ultimate practitioners
of character assassination ("traitors,"
"appeasers," "Neville Chamberlain,"
"fomenting class warfare," "un-American,"
"un-patriotic," etc etc) to be so upset at the language
Democrats are using to describe Bush and others in his administration.
And how sad that Alan Colmes and Estrich and their ilk seem more
enthusiastic in condeming their fellow Democrats about using
"inappropriate" language than in condemning the Bushian
policies that have
killed and maimed thousands and impoverished
millions.
[ Mon Sep 29, 10:13:56 PM]
Hannity & Colmes continued
its Arnold-fest with 18 minutes of Hannity solo soft-balling questions
at him. Colmes said they offered Davis time with just Colmes and Davis
refused. I find that hard to believe. What about Busatmente,
Huffington and Camejo? Was time offered to them also without Hannity?
[ Fri Sep 26, 03:40:28 PM]
Fair and balanced Hannity & Colmes
started out last night with a 30 minute broadcast of an Arnold
campaign rally hosted by Sean Hannity. (The program called it an
"exclusive interview" and a "town meeting." No
way). Alleged "co-host" Alan Colmes seems not to have much
control over the program's content. On that thought, it was especially
pathetic when -- as he interviewed conservative Chuck Norris -- Colmes
asked for the second time this week, where were all the Hollywood
liberals, because all Colmes sees on the program are Hollywood
conservatives. Bizarre. Why doesn't Colmes simply stand up for himself
and insist that more Hollywood liberals, and liberal musical guests,
and liberal comedians (as a fair and balanced counterweight to the
appearances every week of Dennis Miller) be on the program?!
On the 30 minute Arnold commercial, Tony Coelho was even moved to say
something like "We know what you're trying to do."
Contrast Hannity with Colmes. Hannity has all but formally endorsed
Arnold, hosting his campaign rally, and repeatedly demanding of every
conservative he interviews, including McClintock to his face,
shouldn't McClintock drop out to give Arnold a better chance of
winning? Colmes, on the other hand, urges those who would take
guidance from him, to vote no on the recall, but out of
"principle," refrain from voting for any of the candidates
on the second part of the ballot -- thereby ceding the election to the
Republicans should the first part of the ballot recall pass! Hannity
aggressively pushing his preferred Republican candidate, Colmes
advocating a default Republican victory should Davis be recalled: very
fair and balanced indeed.
[ Mon Sep 22, 10:11:18 PM]
Alan Colmes said tonight that he doesn't
understand why everyone says Hollywood is full of liberals, since all
he talks to are Hollywood conservatives. Well duh, Alan! That's whom
Hannity's program invites on. Just like it only has on (terrible,
treacly) conservative singers. And a conservative comedian (Dennis
Miller) every Friday. And only conservatives for single person double
segments. You apparently have no say at all on the show's guests or
their terrible imbalance toward the fringe right-wing side.
[ Wed Sep 10, 10:23:45 PM]
What's with Jay Leno giving Dennis Miller
two full segments to rant away uninterrupted? Miller spent an entire
segment praising Arnold. The rest of the time he bashed liberals and
Democrats. Miller seems like he's on that show every two weeks (he is
on Hannity & Colmes every Friday where they let him also
rant away, and of course there is no progressive comedian given any
time to create fairness and balance).
Miller reminds me of a picked-on kid who decides to befriend the
bullies. Then he's the most vicious of all the bullies towards his
former friends, the other picked-on kids. Miller comes across as a
gushing nerd literally worshipping all things military and Bushian. He
is really quite pathetic.
[ Fri Aug 15, 09:33:57 PM]
Wow, Alan Colmes tonight got real, real
brave and told Sean Hannity to "Let him speak" when Hannity
kept interrupting a guest that Colmes was interviewing. In
the past, Colmes had gotten up the nerve to once in a blue moon tell
Hannity "I didn't know your name was [guest's name]" when
Hannity wouldn't let a guest Colmes was interviewing speak. I wish
Colmes would simply say "Sean, shut the fuck up."
[ Fri Aug 15, 03:36:41 PM]
You've probably heard of the belief that
married couples grow to look like each other more and more. I don't
know if it's a similar process, but on Fox News, Alan Colmes and Greta
van Susteren increasingly wear the same hangdog, subservient
expression. I guess that must come with being immersed in a far-right
environment where any view less than significantly right of center is
considered treasonous.
[ Wed Jul 30, 09:08:05 PM]
What's with Susan Estrich's face on Fox?
I'm not writing about her having had about a million makeovers since
her first appearance. That's fine, she and they want her to look her
best. What I'm talking about is her smiling. Apparently some Foxian
advisor told her to smile more. So when she's not speaking but on
camera, she forces this expression on her face that varies from a
incongruous grin to a teeth-fully-exposed Joker's smile. Why can't she
just sit there with a neutral expression on her face like everyone
else? I wonder if they're grooming her to have her own talk show. She
could join Alan Colmes and become the second house liberal. She
certainly kisses Hannity's butt enough to qualify.
[ Fri Jul 25, 09:19:14 PM]
New
Merle Haggard Tune Blasts US Media Coverage of Iraq War Let's
see if "fair and balanced" Hannity & Colmes,
who have had country star after country star come on and sing pro-war
songs, will have Merle Haggard sing his new song. I tend to doubt it,
since the show's agenda, including its musical guests, seems set by
and tailored to Hannity, not Colmes. Colmes may get stopwatch accurate
equal time with Hannity, but the guest list shows it's really
Hannity's show, with Colmes a sort of equal-time but clearly second
banana Ed McMahon.
[ Thu Jul 17, 09:42:26 PM]
Pat
Robertson Loses It in Attack on High Court
'Every time he opens his mouth he's an
embarrassment to Christianity,' said the Rev. Joseph C. Hough Jr.,
president of New York City's Union Theological Seminary.
Nice to see a prominent religious figure
speak so bluntly about the moronic Robertson (whom the Fox News
Hannity-interruption-fest Hannity & Colmes welcomes as a
respected guest all the time!).
[ Mon Jul 14, 10:19:58 PM]
Sean Hannity's interrupting of guests on Hannity
& Colmes seems to be reaching new heights. He'll ask an
extremely long question which includes multiple factual assertions,
then before the guest gets out two words, Hannity interrupts and
starts filibustering again. Someone should really take a stopwatch and
compare how much time Hannity takes up vs. how much time he gives a
guest.
[ Thu Jun 19, 09:52:17 PM]
Why do right-wingers continue to claim
that Geraldo and Greta, not just Alan Colmes, are the "liberal
balance" on Fox? Whatever they were before they came aboard Fox,
since then nary a left-of-center word has passed either of their lips.
Quite the contrary. Geraldo has been a Bushier-than-Bush warmonger,
and Greta has sycophantically played host to every right-wing mass
murderer like Kissinger whom Fox puts on her program. And of course,
slightly left-of-center, overly polite Colmes is no match even on that
one program for the far, far right, hyper-aggressive pitbull, Sean
Hannity. Fox does have liberals debate conservatives in its debate
segments, but almost all the time, whenever there's a double-segment
with a single "analyst," the analyst is a right-winger. No
fairness and no balance in that either.
[ Tue Jun 17, 09:57:34 PM]
It's amazing how Alan Colmes, supposed to
be a "liberal," can sit next to the Shah of Iran's son and
listen to the son bloviate about the son's comittment to democracy and
freedom. The son's father was a brutal dictator who came to power in
Iran in a CIA coup and whose secret police, the Savak, was known for
horrific torture procedures that I won't get into here. I'm not saying
the son had anything to do with implementing his father's rule, but if
Hitler's son had appeared 24 years after the end of WWII and started
talking about how the son was committed to democracy and freedom, it
would be a sad journalist indeed who wouldn't bring up his father's
record.
[ Tue Jun 10, 09:34:05 PM
]
It's amazing to see the absolute
hysteria on the far-right caused by Hillary's book. Newmax.com's front
page, which you can see here
absent graphics, epitomizes the hysteria.
I don't particularly like her myself, she's not very progressive on many
issues. But if she upsets the far-right so much, terrific!
Hannity devoted the entire hour of Hannity & Colmes
tonight to Bill&Hillary-bashing. He aired three long segments of a
rape accuser. He got to repeat his reading of the other sexual
allegations against Bill. I think Hannity gets a sexual thrill reading
aloud about that. He should title his program "Bill Clinton's
Penis" since Hannity seems obsessed by the doings of that
Clintonian appendage.
[ Thu May 29, 10:03:28 PM ]
Did I hear correctly? Did Sean Hannity
actually ask in a teaser on tonight's program something like
"Where was Amnesty International while Saddam was filling his
mass graves?" As the Amnesty International rep pointed out in the
actual segment, AI has consistently condemned Hussein's human rights
abuses ever since Saddam came to power -- in marked contrast, he
noted, to the Reagan administration and Rumsfeld, who supported Saddam
during the period of Saddam's worst human rights violations.
Unfortunately, the AI rep made that point to Alan Colmes, and not
being a go-for-the-jugular debater, didn't directly condemn Hannity to
his face for his slanderous earlier teaser implication.
[ Fri May 23, 09:53:11 PM ]
After repeatedly forcing myself to watch
O'Reilly and Hannity & Colmes every night (I say I want to know
what the other side is thinking, but maybe I'm really a masochist),
I've come to one solid conclusion: FoxNews is the greatest terrorist
recruiting weapon in the world. If you sat down the average citizen
of any country and let them watch a day of Fox programming -- making
sure to include Hannity and O'Reilly -- that would be enough to make
them strap on a suicide bomber's belt and be chomping at the bit to
blow up some Americans.
[ Fri Dec 06, 10:06:10 PM ]
It's simply amazing to watch what
Sean Hannity repeatedly gets away with on Hannity & Colmes when
"interviewing" someone he disagrees with. Hannity will
pose a question in which he makes two, three, four or even more
"factual" assertions -- often sweeping generalizations
about events many years ago -- then draw a conclusion based on them,
and challenge his guest to prove him wrong. Then before the guest
can speak for more than 10 or 20 seconds, Hannity will interrupt,
and keep doing so, never letting the guest give a complete answer.
Even if the guest was given the entire rest of the segment after
Hannity's question, there wouldn't be time to address the factual
assertions, let alone the conclusion, contained in Hannity's
question. Yet Hannity is so insecure that he won't even let the
guest attempt to do so.
[ Mon Oct 07, 07:43:12 PM ]
A Disastrous appearance by Nathan
Britton of California Peace Action on Hannity & Colmes
Nathan never got past Sean Hannity's first question: What if you're
wrong, and Saddam gets a nuke, and kills a lot of children with it?
Nathan just wouldn't answer the question, trying to switch the
subject again and again. He came across as weaselly. But if Nathan
knew Hannity, he would have realized that unless he answered the
question, Hannity would spend his entire questioning period
repeating the same question over and over, which is just what
Hannity did. [A simple reply: that would be terrible, but not as bad
as what would happen if you're wrong, and our attack on Iraq starts
off a nuclear war in the Middle East and beyond.]
To make matters worse, Alan Colmes then took over, and seemed to
join in the attack. Colmes is pretty much anti-war, but he felt
compelled for some reason [to ingratiate himself with his Fox News
bosses?] to ask Nathan under what circumstances, if any, would he
support military action against Iraq. Again, Nathan wouldn't answer
directly, trying to change the subject or answer a different
question. Colmes wouldn't let him off the hook, and kept repeating
the same question. If Nathan is a pacifist and would never support
war, he should have said so. Most viewers would disagree with him,
but at least he'd come across as honest. If Nathan is not a
pacifist, he should have come up with something that Saddam could do
that would make Nathan support a U.S. attack. But Nathan did
neither, and just came across as weaselly again.
I must admit that, untrue to form, with this guest, Hannity was not
disrespectful, and did not interrupt very much. It's like he read my
post earlier today and decided to mend his ways!
[ Mon Oct 07, 02:18:14 PM]
I bet if you took a stopwatch and
checked, Hannity speaks twice as many minutes as Colmes on their
show, where they are supposedly co-hosts. When Hannity is
questioning a non-conservative guest, I bet he speaks for more
minutes than he allows the guest.
And, Hannity asks long multi-part questions of the form: Given Fact
A, and given Fact B, and Given Fact C, isn't it true that Conclusion
D? Since his Facts A, B and C are wrong, his conclusion doesn't
follow. But as soon as the guest starts to explain, Hannity
interrupts and says "I asked you a simple 'yes or no'
question."
Further, Hannity constantly interrupts non-conservative guests even
when it is Colmes doing the questioning, as we hear Hannity
off-camera bleating "That's not true" or "That's a
lie" over and over again.
[ Tue Sep 17, 09:49:40 PM]
Hannity & Colmes is really
shameless. Today they had solo political analyst segments with Robert
MacFarland, Reagan's national security advisor; Peggy Noonan, Reagan's
speechwriter; and Dick Morris, who though he deviated and worked for
Clinton, is now back to being, in his post-toe-sucking reincarnation,
a confirmed liberal basher.
Right-winger commentators: 3
Commentators who are left of Attila the Hun: 0
The Fox slogan "We report, you decide" should be "We
brainwash, you try to fight it."
[ Mon Sep 16, 08:19:06 PM]
Continuing my intrepid attempt to document
the terrible imbalance in the selection of political commentators on
Hannity & Colmes who appear in solo segments, last week Gen.
Alexander Haig was on for a double solo segment, while today Donna
Brazile appeared solo on only one segment. And of course, Haig is far
more right-wing than Brazile is progressive (I won't even raise the
issue of whether anyone managing Al "Pro-Contra" Gore's
campaign should still be considered progressive at all).
[ Tue Sep 10, 08:38:40 PM]
Hannity & Colmes continued their
string of "fair and balanced" solo commentaries tonight:
Bill Bennet got two segments, Dan Quayle got two segments, and
Democratic Harold Ford got one segment. Four to one, Republican. Very
fair and balanced, isn't it?
[ Thu Sep 05, 08:51:29 PM]
Hannity & Colmes continued their
"fair and balanced" presentation of political analysts
tonight, by having J.C. Watts solo in what I believe were at least two
segments. There was not even one solo segment with a left-wing
analyst.
[ Wed Sep 04, 08:25:30 PM]
Fox's "fair and balanced" was
certainly in evidence tonight with respect to political analysts on
Hannity & Colmes. On the one side, there were multiple segments
with first Newt Gingrich, then Ed Meese. To present opposing analysis,
there was.... NO ONE.
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