Sean Hannity Should Visit The Wizard And Ask For A Heart!

We know that Sean Hannity is the classic bully. But, now that long-time co-host Alan Colmes is stepping aside, ThinK Progress presented an intriguing topic of discussion: Will Hannity have the heart to take on the challenge of working with a strong liberal voice who is as aggressive as he is every day and every night? Colmes is a good man, but he was too classy and too mild-mannered to effectively be the good twin to Hannity’s evil twin (on equal footing that is) on “Hannity and Colmes” most nights. I also wonder if Hannity is man enough to bring in a strong liberal voice that will aggressively go at him the way he uses conservative blind rage to attack anything even remotely moderate or liberal. Hannity is like the glass-jaw boxer that schedules 25 straight bums he can knock out and then gets in the big fight and gets blasted out in like two minutes because he’s weak. Fox News and Hannity should bring in a strong liberal. I doubt (though I will cling to hope) that this will happen, for two reasons: (1) Hannity is too much like the Cowardly Lion from “The Wizard of Oz” and doesn’t have the heart to man up against someone from the left who is as radical as he is and (2) Fox News wants to minimize the number of strong liberal voices (if there are any at all) who appear on the highly-conservative network. I hope that Fox News proves me wrong, but I doubt it. Still, I encourage Hannity to follow the yellow-brick road.

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/26/hannity-guts/

Can Republicans Reach Black People … Not Without A Change Of Direction

Obviously, the Republicans were historically poor in terms of appealing to blacks during the recent general presidential election. Sure, some of it – OK, a lot of it – will be attributed to the fact that it ran an older white guy (John McCain) against a young black guy (Barack Obama). But, the problem is far deeper than that. In every general presidential election in recent history, the Democrats have wiped the floor with the Republicans in terms of winning the black vote. In fact, Democrats are winning the black vote and winning the Hispanic vote (a vote that will be especially important in the future of this country with the growing Hispanic population). I thought of all this as I read a column from the Cleveland Plain Dealer Web site about black people and the Republicans. Here is a comment from Shannon Reeves, a black woman who started a Republican chapter at Grambling State University back in 1988.  Wrote Reeves, “I am tired of being embarrassed by elected Republican officials who have no sensitivity for issues that alienate whole segments of our population. This embarrassment is different for a black Republican. Not only do we have to sit in rooms and behave professionally towards Republicans who share this ideology, we have to go home to a hostile environment where we are called Uncle Tom and maligned as a sell-out to the community because of our membership in the Republican Party.” Truth be told, it is tough on a lot of blacks who cross over and join or otherwise support the Republican Party with policies and in most elections. So many Republicans worked to use racial politics to divide the races and scare white people from wanting to vote for or otherwise support a black president. Republicans need to get into the black community, cut out the racial politics from the likes of Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage and others. But, it is not going to happen. Those voices are too strong on the right wing. Those voices are vicious and many times are just hate filled and clearly divisive. Voices like that will prevent blacks from supporting the right wing/Republicans/conservatives in large numbers. These individuals have feasted on racial politics (portraying affirmative action as a handout to under-qualified and/or lazy black people, portraying welfare as a hand out to undeserving/lazy black people and so on). Need some more evidence? Look at how Republicans savagely attacked Gen. Colin Powell when he broke from the party and supported Barack Obama. A number of prominent Republicans either marginalized his importance and/or accused him of only supporting Obama because they are both black. Fox News factors in this as well with the racial politics it played throughout the campaign with its steady stream of conservative hosts and conservative anchors who worked to overplay the Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger angles. Wright and Pfleger were used to try and portray Obama as a black radical. These are just a handful of examples. Republicans have a lot of work to do to appeal to African Americans, especially, and Hispanic Americans, too. A good start would be to silence the words of haters like Hannity, Coulter, Savage, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and others. It’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Cleveland Plain Dealer:
http://blog.cleveland.com/pdopinion/2008/11/its_my_party_but_i_dont_feel_p.html

Do Some Whites Feel Overdosed By The “First Black President” Thing?

The fatigue factor some people are feeling, with all this talk of Barack Obama being elected as the first African American president of the United States of America went into effect early. In all honesty, the hate started when it became fairly obvious that the country was moving in the direction of the historical election results it experienced. But, not all of us were ready for history; and certainly, not ll of us were ready for history of this kind. Ted Diadiun, a columnist with the Cleveland Plain Dealer discussed the subject during a piece he wrote on Sunday. In his column, Diadiun disgusts a small portion of the ample disgust many peopleexpressed at hearing so much about President-elect Obama – some of which was reflected in hate-filled voicemail messages, letters and other comments that made their way to the Plain Dealer. Obviously, he could not talk of some of the most explosive and offensive words expressed. Who really could talk about the most offensive or racist of the comments many of us have heard about President-elect Obama. For many Americans, it is too soon for a black president. We are, after all, just 40 years removed from the painful heights of the civil rights movement and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. The thought of “black” or “African American” being in the same sentence – in a positive way – with “president” is still a little too much to take. With that thought in mind, some Plain Dealer readers have taken issue with President-elect Obama being referred to as an “African American” – in spite of the fact that this is how he chooses to be referred to from everything I’ve seen. Diadiun’s column is an interesting one because it kind of turns a mirror to so many people who are inexplicably showing so much hatred in the wake of the historic presidential election.

Cleveland Plain Dealer:
http://www.cleveland.com/readers/index.ssf?/base/opinion-0/1227346271180300.xml&coll=2