Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly Are Killing Republicans

Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and some others are like anchors weighing down the Republican Party. Hiring a black man (Michael Steele) will do little to offset the repeated damage the aforementioned men have done, are doing and will continue to do to the Republican Party. Here is the latest example: A few days after racist Jesse Lee Peterson (racist because he clearly considers whites to be superior to blacks even though he appears to be a black man) went on a racist rampage against black people on Hannity’s Fox News show, he returned … on Beck’s Fox News show. Once again, Peterson was on to do little more than attack black people and attack President Barack Obama. Peterson is too ignorant (or perhaps too drunk on his notoriety) to realize he is being pimped by white conservatives who simply use him simply to attack black people while they believe they’re keeping their own hands clean. Jesse Lee Peterson is like the blacks who were used as slave catchers to do the dirty work of the master’s bidding.

News Hounds:
http://www.newshounds.us/2009/02/08/two_days_after_racist_comments_on_hannity_rev_jesse_lee_peterson_repeats_them_on_glenn_beck.php#more

Fox News Forum Writer Tries To Outfox Common Sense

Fox News has long been a journalistic (I use that term loosely) safe house for Republican and conservative news and views. But, I was a little curious when I saw an article written by John R. Lott Jr. that was titled, “Obama’s Senate Games.” Many of you may know that some Republicans have been upset with New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg (a Republican) who supposedly is being considered for the Commerce Secretary position in the administration of President Barack Obama (who, obviously, is a Democrat). Naturally, Republicans feel this is strictly being done by the Democrats to help them reach a filibuster-proof majorityin the United States Senate. This may or may not be true and I don’t have much of a problem with Republicans speculating about the motive of President Obama supposedly offering the seat to Gregg (even if that is the motivation). Hey, we need to keep it real … politics is a grown-folks business.

Here is the chunk of the article that made me shake my head:

Yet, as Politico’s Ben Smith noted on Saturday:

“The White House, I’m told, is still trying to get a guarantee from Governor Lynch that he’ll replace Senator Gregg with a Democrat.”

Smith’s statement was a single sentence and no other implications have been drawn from it. But a report in The Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary today seems to confirm this claim.

Obama is misappropriating a government position, putting someone into his cabinet who he doesn’t believe is the best person for the job.

The Politico information indicates that Obama clearly does not view Senator Gregg as the best person to head the Commerce Department. Rather, it makes explicit that Obama was offering the Commerce job solely to buy a Senate seat for the Democrats.

The question here is: Do you believe Ben Smith? Who is telling Smith this information? Sounds like a whole lot of speculation without a whole lot of proof of anything. The article gets worse before it gets better (if it ever gets better). The writer (Lott) then accuses President Obama of putting someone in who he does not think is the best person for the job (essentially to get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate). Then, the writer goes on to bring up the name of Rod Blagojevich (you knew that was coming at some point in the article). Lott then passes the buck to Politico and uses Politico to advance his partisan interpretation and shield himself and his purpose for writing the article: to smear President Obama and Democrats in general.

Fox News:
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/02/02/lott_gregg_obama/

Fox News Host Gretchen Carlson Makes Idiotic Claim To Slam President Barack Obama … Praise Rush Limbaugh

Fox News, the network of patriots (except when we have a Democrat as president), is at it again attacking our president/commander-in-chief while basically praising conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh. Fox News co-host Gretchen Carlson at least twice took shots at President Barack Obama while drooling over Limbaugh (who was a guest on the Fox News show “Fox and Friends”). Carlson and her co-hosts on the show spent the entire campaign season slamming President Obama about one thing or another while singing the praises of Sen. John McCain. Carlson and her cohorts also spent time talking about media bias against McCain while hypocritically showing media bias against Obama. The bias was so pervasive (to the point that they gleefully made baseless claims that turned out to be completely and sloppily false: That Obama had attended a madrassa, a Muslim school) that it calls into question what the motive behind the bias was for Carlson and her fellow shot hosts.

Here are two comments from Carlson (as documented by Media Matters):

CARLSON: But what I want to ask you when we come back is whether or not Barack Obama should be more concerned with things like the economy and maybe Al Qaeda — if in fact we still are in a war on terror — than you?

CARLSON: Before we went to break, I said something about the fact that in his first week in office, that Barack Obama chose you as his enemy, instead of, like, Al Qaeda, or possibly putting the economy on a higher platform. And so, we came up with this new photo. Did you know that you’re now on Mount Rushmore?

Tha is insulting and idiotic on the part of Carlson (who completely ignores the context of the president’s comment) to even make such a suggestion. But, it does go to the point that she is taking her Republican talking points (this garbage notion that Democrats won’t keep our country safe) and executing them to perfection with Fox News as her platform. What an appalling comment from Carlson, who obviously is trying to appeal to the lowest element in the diversity-challenged (in many different ways even beyond race) and tolerance-challenged Republican Party/conservative community. Carlson is trying to imply Obama somehow is not focused on the enemies of the United States of America and it is an insulting insinuation. But, how could we not expect this from Fox News?

Media Matters:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200901290023?f=h_latest

Rush Limbaugh Is A Divider … Not A Uniter

Rush Limbaugh, who has long since pissed away any pretense of patriotism by proudly rooting for our new president (Barack Obama) and commander-in-chief to fail. What a great way for “patriots” like Limbaugh to celebrate our great nation. Limbaugh, who has spit in the face of bipartisanship throughout his life and throughout his professional career, is now mocking President Obama as not being the person to bring the nation and the two political parties together. 

“Now this is the great unifier. This is the man who’s going to unify everybody and usher in a new era of bi-partisanship and love.”

The problem is, however, is that Limbaugh does not want to bring people together. He has made a living throughout his career of being a polarizing and hostile figure to those who are not conservative and to those who are not Republican.

Politico:
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0109/limbaugh_strikes_back_cefb1583-6ab1-483f-9dfb-2d564b7a41c6.html

Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity Partially Blames Sen. Chuck Schmuer For New York Plane Crash

Fox News channel’s Sean Hannity, now with an almost daily one hour of hate on his new solo show, decided to use one of his hours to try and sort of blame New York Sen. Charles Schumer (obviously a Democrat if Hannity is blaming him) for the crash of the airplane (which had an engine allegedly damaged by geese caught inside) in New York.

This from News Hounds:

Sean Hannity, ever on the lookout for new ways to smear Democrats, achieved a creative breakthrough last night (1/17/09) on a special weekend edition of his new solo show. Without bothering to investigate any other facts beyond Senator Charles Schumer’s 2004 earmark for a group called GeesePeace, Hannity and FOX News were ready to allege that Schumer is to blame for the crash of the US Airways flight last week. Later in the program, Hannity warned that if it happens again, Schumer would be responsible for any ensuing deaths. In concert with Hannity’s smear, a banner on the screen read, “Buck stops at Chuck?” With video.

The words are disturbing enough, but the video puts it into even more of an obsessive context. Even as Hannity tries to blame any Democrat he can get his hands on for anything that goes wrong, his fellow show panelists start laughing as if they’re watching a television sit com. Reprehensible. Hannity then (as you can see in the News Hounds excerpt) implies Schumer could or should be held responsible for any future plane crashes that involve geese. I know that we are a blame society, but this is bad for even the likes of Sean Hannity (exposing a near catastrophic situation to score political points).

News Hounds:
http://www.newshounds.us/2009/01/18/hannity_blames_sen_charles_schumer_for_us_airways_crash.php#more

Fred Barnes Hears Obama Called “Monkey Boy” And Is Not Particularly Bothered By Obvious Racism

Fred Barnes, most noted for his work on Fox News, seemed to have no problem when a caller referred to President-elect Barack Obama as “monkey boy” in an obvious racist cheap shot. Barnes said absolutely nothing about it and merely nodded in approval at the overall tone of what the caller was saying to him. It was the height of irresponsibility for Barnes to not at least check the caller on his racist language (even though Barnes (who was being interviewed on CSPAN) obviously agreed with the conservative pro-Bush tone of the ignorant caller’s statement.

News Hounds:
http://www.newshounds.us/2009/01/17/fred_barnes_has_no_problem_with_caller_describing_barack_obama_as_monkey_boy.php#more

Hannity’s Hour Of Hate Doomed To Ultimate Failure

Now that Sean Hannity has essentially been granted his own full 60-minute block of television hate, his new exclusive show on Fox News, he has to be feeling pretty good about himself. Now, the extremist right-wing host will be able to (now completely unchallenged) spew all kinds of hatred toward anything that is either middle of the road or liberal. But, I concur with a popular opinion I’ve already been hearing among many liberals … the show will fast become tired. There is only so much Hannity that most mainstream people (not even just those on the left) can stomach before they will become nauseous (first) and bored (later). This show will eventually pale in comparison to Hannity and Colmes as people will see how talented Colmes was (even if he was much more of a moderate than a liberal and he was far too classy and soft spoken to truly contrast the far more arrogant, extremist right wing and outspoken Hannity). Just as Hannity’s America was a show that made you think it was nap time … Hannity’s new weekday hour will be more of the same.

Sarah Palin Just Won’t Go Away

Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin reminds me of the Friday the 13th movie series. The series just went on and on … long after we were all ready to turn the page in favor of something new, fresh and of greater substance. Don’t get me wrong, I like the first few Friday the 13th movies, but it went downhill in a hurry. Gov. Palin continues to claim that the McCain campaign blew it by holding her back and not allowing her to go out and do more interviews. Of course, judging by her performances with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric (Palin was brutally bad), Team McCain easily made the right decision. John McCain made some bad decisions (chief of which was picking Palin), but he was wise enough to realize she had no chance in real interviews, particular early on. She was ill-equipped to be vice president, and perhaps even more disturbing was how ill-equipped she was to do simple interviews with questioners who were not hardcore right wingers (Fox News). If Palin (who bungled a question about the duties of the vice president, could not name significant U.S. Supreme Court cases beyond Roe v. Wade and could not or would not even name some of the newspapers she supposedly reads) had it her way, I am sure she would simply have gone on Fox News for those puff-piece segments with Greta Van Susteren, who had a bizarre fascination/obsession with the Alaska governor and the Palin family, or Sean Hannity, who is from the extremist wing of the Republican Party. Maybe Bill O’Reilly, another right winger, would have thrown a few more tough questions than Hannity or Van Susteren, but in the end he is still a conservative and would have been kissing her feet after 10 or 15 minutes. Palin is positioning herself for a potential run/loss in 2012 for the presidency, but if 2008 is any example of what she has to offer than she could end up as a political version of the turkey that was slaughtered in back of her during that one television interview.

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/22/palin-mccains-biggest-mis_n_152857.html