Monday, January 05, 2004
Funnity and Colmes
Some observations from watching the first half-hour of Hannity and Colmes.
Colmes was on vacation. (I think it might say something about this show that Hannity was able to take his vacation during the holidays while Colmes had to wait until now.) His replacement was one Michael Wolfe. Not sure who this guy is - but let me say he made me miss Alan Colmes. I assume, since he is subbing for Colmes, that he is supposed to represent the left - but I could not have determined this from the substantive comments he made on the show.
First segment: Topic: Democrats Attack Howard Dean (I'm paraphrasing throughout). Guests: Democratic strategist Peter Fenn and conservative Kellyanne Conway of the Polling Company. Peter Fenn seems gravely concerned with the gaffes Howard Dean has made, but it wasn't too bad. Then, Hannity asks Conway a tough question - "Do you think Dean can move to the right given all the liberal positions he's staked out?" Yet Conway can't even answer this question - she immediately moves into the Republican Story of the Day - the Moveon.Org ad that compared Bush to Hitler. (See this fair and balanced report if you haven't heard this story yet.) "If Dean really wants to do something good for the Democrats, he'd ask moveon.org to apologize for the ad comparing Bush to Hitler they had on their web site."
Cut to Michael Wolfe, who said, "Now wait a minute, Kellyanne - that's not really a story. It says in the article right here on fair and balanced Foxnews that this ad was simply submitted to Moveon.org as part of a contest, not sponsored by them, so it's really not representative of the views of the left or any major leftist organization." Oh, wait, that was the Michael Wolfe in my head. Instead, the real Michael Wolfe just let that accusation sit out there, asked his unrelated prepared question, and the rest of this segment proceeded predictably.
Next segment: the aforementioned ad. (See, btw, MoveOn's entirely reasonable explanation of the whole affair here). A clip from the ad (which is of course idiotic) was shown. According to Michael Wolfe, who is about as exciting as scotch tape, Moveon refused the invitation to appear on their show. So, Hannity and Colmes went out and found the most reasonable replacement available- A LIBERAL WHO AGREES THAT BUSH AND HITLER ARE COMPARABLE! That's right - Wayne Madsen of geopolitique.com (I refuse to link to it) spent the next several minutes agreeing that Bush and Hitler's initial years in power were the same. Not a word about moveon's contention that this is part of a smear campaign by Republicans. He had no real comment on Wolfe's one salient point of the evening (comparing this ad to the infamous Max Clealand ads). He was there to play the role demanded of him by the typical Foxnews viewer - a rabid, irrational liberal who feels that George Bush and Hitler are the same. Nice work, Wayne Madsen.
Third segment - Dick Morris. Topic: Can Dean win a general election? Hannity noted that with his recent comments Dean has gone over the edge. Dick Morris says he didn't have far to go. Michael Wolfe seems capable only of reading a script - and he's not very good at that.
Finally, in a preview for the obligatory segment for Pete Rose, the video showed Pete in an Expos uniform. I could take no more.
This is what we are up against. This is what passes for "debate" on Foxnews. This is the type of propaganda that millions of Americans are fed every night.
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Colmes was on vacation. (I think it might say something about this show that Hannity was able to take his vacation during the holidays while Colmes had to wait until now.) His replacement was one Michael Wolfe. Not sure who this guy is - but let me say he made me miss Alan Colmes. I assume, since he is subbing for Colmes, that he is supposed to represent the left - but I could not have determined this from the substantive comments he made on the show.
First segment: Topic: Democrats Attack Howard Dean (I'm paraphrasing throughout). Guests: Democratic strategist Peter Fenn and conservative Kellyanne Conway of the Polling Company. Peter Fenn seems gravely concerned with the gaffes Howard Dean has made, but it wasn't too bad. Then, Hannity asks Conway a tough question - "Do you think Dean can move to the right given all the liberal positions he's staked out?" Yet Conway can't even answer this question - she immediately moves into the Republican Story of the Day - the Moveon.Org ad that compared Bush to Hitler. (See this fair and balanced report if you haven't heard this story yet.) "If Dean really wants to do something good for the Democrats, he'd ask moveon.org to apologize for the ad comparing Bush to Hitler they had on their web site."
Cut to Michael Wolfe, who said, "Now wait a minute, Kellyanne - that's not really a story. It says in the article right here on fair and balanced Foxnews that this ad was simply submitted to Moveon.org as part of a contest, not sponsored by them, so it's really not representative of the views of the left or any major leftist organization." Oh, wait, that was the Michael Wolfe in my head. Instead, the real Michael Wolfe just let that accusation sit out there, asked his unrelated prepared question, and the rest of this segment proceeded predictably.
Next segment: the aforementioned ad. (See, btw, MoveOn's entirely reasonable explanation of the whole affair here). A clip from the ad (which is of course idiotic) was shown. According to Michael Wolfe, who is about as exciting as scotch tape, Moveon refused the invitation to appear on their show. So, Hannity and Colmes went out and found the most reasonable replacement available- A LIBERAL WHO AGREES THAT BUSH AND HITLER ARE COMPARABLE! That's right - Wayne Madsen of geopolitique.com (I refuse to link to it) spent the next several minutes agreeing that Bush and Hitler's initial years in power were the same. Not a word about moveon's contention that this is part of a smear campaign by Republicans. He had no real comment on Wolfe's one salient point of the evening (comparing this ad to the infamous Max Clealand ads). He was there to play the role demanded of him by the typical Foxnews viewer - a rabid, irrational liberal who feels that George Bush and Hitler are the same. Nice work, Wayne Madsen.
Third segment - Dick Morris. Topic: Can Dean win a general election? Hannity noted that with his recent comments Dean has gone over the edge. Dick Morris says he didn't have far to go. Michael Wolfe seems capable only of reading a script - and he's not very good at that.
Finally, in a preview for the obligatory segment for Pete Rose, the video showed Pete in an Expos uniform. I could take no more.
This is what we are up against. This is what passes for "debate" on Foxnews. This is the type of propaganda that millions of Americans are fed every night.
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