Bump.

I think Colmes is definitely a liberal. I also think on the TV show he presents himself well and comes across as being reasonable, even-tempered, intelligent and thoughtful. He always appears to be much more in control of himself during debates with Hannity and guests.

I actually lean to the right but I find Colmes much more likeable than Hannity, who often comes across as overbearing, self-righteous, and shrill. Although I often agree with Hannity's points, his presentation on TV is just not that great. IMO.

Interestingly, although I often find Hannity distasteful on TV, his radio show is very good. On the radio he comes across very different than on TV, even though he often is saying the same things in much the same way on both shows. He is much better on radio.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the TV image of Hannity, with his hand waving, pointing, practically jumping out of his seat provides a stark visual contrast to Colmes calm, pleasant demeanor. Which is annoying for me even though I'm more inclined to agree with Hannity's positions.

Bah. I'm a masochist.

Hannity's been playing Awesomely Conslusive Pro-War Quotes of John Kerry in an effort to prove to the liberal guest of the day that George W. is the victim of a massive double-standard.

...I'm still trying to figure out his logic.

If I (the executive branch, responsible for presenting evidence for a case) ran up to John (the legislative branch) and shouted "the sky is falling, the sky is falling!", and presented a bunch of evidence that proved, indeed, the sky was most certainly falling, then John will naturally say to his friend Jane (the American public) "the sky is falling!"

Now, if I say "oops, turns out the evidence is totally wrong," there would be an outrage that I lied about it. But Loyal Sean will say "John said the sky is falling, too! Why aren't you accusing him of lying?" Here's where Hannity's logic goes completely off the track:

Congress was simply parroting the evidence the Bush Admin. was using.

If I lied by using questionable intel, John is only responsible for being too trusting. If the Bush Admin. lied by using questionable intel, Congress is only responsible for not being critical enough. Who wants to bet that if Congress had been more critical, Hannity would have turned around and accused Congress of being unpatriotic by not giving the President the benefit of the doubt?

I never watch this and I will never again, but, just in flipping channels last night I see Hannity screaming at Peter Fenn and I can't believe what an idiot Hannity is. He may even be worse that O'Reilly.

Oh, no, mimiko1. I contend that O'Reilly is much worse for the simple reason that at least Hannity is SOMEwhat honest in his advocacy of Republican / extreme right-wing conservative causes. O'Reilly likes to pretend and deceive his listeners into thinking that he's "independent" when in fact he's just as much of a right-winger as Hannity.

Fenn was the one who was screaming. It was the other guest's turn to speak, and Fenn kept interrupting. Hannity asked him to stop, and he wouldn't. When he threatened to cut his microphone, Fenn kept shouting "I don't care! I don't care!"




Hannity has never called himself anything BUT a conservative. I don't know what you mean by "extreme right-wing conservative causes" (or how you're differentiating them from mainstream conservative causes).

I've been a radio fan of both Hannity AND Colmes over the years, . They are both honest in their opinions, and don't mechanically take the party-line position. (Alan stuck up for Trent Lott over his Strom Thurmond remarks, and Sean defended Hillary against charges of racism over her "Gandhi ran a gas station in St. Louis" joke.)

I concur, NJ Mark. Every time Ann Coulter began to speak, Peter Fenn interrupted her and Fenn eventually became hysterical. Not a fine moment for national TV.

I just found this thread, and while I don't religiously watch Hannity and Colmes, I do usually agree with Hannity. I had an encounter with him about 2 months ago where I work. He came in to buy a boat for his son, a Boston Whaler. My boss told me to let him know when a customer by the name of Hannity came in. I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be funny if it was Sean Hannity?" Sure enough, about 45 minutes later, in walks Sean Hannity. I really didn't have a chance to speak with him, but he seemed pretty nice, and didn't expect preferential treatment (even though he got it).

I like Sean Hannity. He is very passionate on his views. (just like my man Bill O'Reilly)
Alan Colmes is a namby-pamby & he gets on my nerves with his muckety-muck.
I can do without Ann Coulter & Jerry Falwell coming on the show just about every wk.

I think that O'Reilly & Hannity should do a show together.

Did anybody catch the "Back in Black" segment on The Daily Show a few days ago? Lewis Black was talking about the daughter of that douchebag Alan Keyes coming out of the closet. She talked about the troubles she had a home by saying, "Queer liberal...Republican conservative...it doesn't work out too well." About which Lewis Black retorted, "Really? I thought that was the whole idea behind Hannity & Colmes." Classic.

I watch this show every now and then because, well, I have a morbid sense of humor, plus I need to see what the other side's propaganda is saying. Colmes occasionally interjects a good point, but of course he gets shouted down by Hannity, who, as long as Ann Coulter is around, is only the second most pathetic, libelous, lying, shrill, pointless parrot of a pundit in the country. While I understand people wanting to hear other people tell them what they think they already know, I can't understand why anybody would be a Hannity fan.

I too have a weird fascination with this show. It is the only one on Fox that I will occasionally stop and watch. The thing that bugs me most about Hannity is I think he could, in an ideal world, be a semi-rational guy, of course one who I would mostly disagree with. I saw a clip of when Ann Coulter was on, I think last week, and even he couldn't muster up any defense of her. I have also heard interviews with him, where he seems to have some logical ( in his opinion) rational for his opinion. That said, I also think he takes way too much joy in being a shill for the right.

Oddly enough, I feel the opposite. His radio show doesn't interest me nearly as much as the TV show.

Ann Coulter isn't exactly my cup o' tea, but I also get tired of seeing her all the time.

A couple nights ago they did a segment on some stupid bitch-slapping contest held by a hip-hop station with had Ken Hamblin and some liberal guy debating the issue. Whatever became of Ken? He was my favorite radio talk show host for many years until his show suddnely vanished without a trace...

Because Hannity is a person who speaks what he believes and he does it fairly well. Its true that he's not as articulate as Rush, but I think he's much more reasonable and down-to-earth than the likes of Michael Savage, Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Sean is the blue-collar type who belies the stereotype of conservatives all being rich, pompous guys in suits like Limbaugh and Bill Buckley. If you know his history, than you know he came from humble beginnings and spent a lot of his life in poverty. He's a grounded guy who honest-to-God loves his wife and kids and probably doesn't talk to other women on the phone and asks them to masturbate for him. Sean also admits that he doesn't agree with liberals at all, but he likes many of them. I believe him. Notice that on his radio show, many people come on who are from the other side of the fence. RFK Jr. has repeatedly come on and taken an ass whoopin' from Sean. Sometimes Sean doesn't argue well and I don't think he wields the intellectual scalpel as well as others do, but I think he speaks more for middle-class America and many of their values than do the bigger suits.

I tend to go Republican, but I also respect Alan Colmes. I find him also reasonable and down-to-earth. Listen to any host on Air America and you'll see what a nice contrast Alan is by comparison. Talk about mean and shrill. Still, anyone who doubts that Colmes is a liberal is sadly mistaken.

Perhaps the reason the TV show Hannity and Colmes works so well is because they not only espouse different political ideologies, but they also bring their different personalities to the mix. If Colmes and Hannity had identical personalities, it wouldn't be as interesting.

The reason Ann is on this show constantly is because no other show on television will have the screeching harpie on as a guest anymore.

This show is garbage. Hannity reminds me of a bully fresh out of high school, and Colmes is a pathetic attempt to "balance" Hannity out. Any reasonable person wouldn't be caught dead on this network, so I can only surmise that they must pay Colmes very well.

Except that he's now a...rich, pompous guy in a suit.

And fuck him with a sandpaper dildo for his political grandstanding yesterday, setting up his show outside Terry Schiavo's hospital. That is disgusting opportunism of the worst degree, using twisted logic that goes against what Republicans allegedly stand for (state's rights, the "sanctity of marriage," which is really just a talismanic phrase the right-wing concocted to discriminate against gays, and George Bush's own Texas right-to-die law) in order to make a bizarre appeal to their radical base. We've seen the GOP talking points about how this is "a great political opportunity," and there's Sean cheerleading for them. What a good little minion. What a complete and total asshole. His actions are completely indefensible.

I am SO tired of hearing about that woman.

The comments on the previous page amount to little more than cheap name-calling and deserve no more validation than that acknowledgement.

There was a brilliant editorial in yesterday's USA Today that cataloged the blatant hypocrisy that came, not just from the Republicans, but the Democrats as well. Both sides have flip-flopped in the name of reactionary political opportunism.

And yes, I do think Sean setting up shop outside Terri Schiavo's hospice is pathetic.

I might half way buy that, but for his practice of breaking up fights that Hannity starts losing. I assume he's handcuffed by being on Fox, but you'd think he'd let someone make the points he can't.

It's just Hannitizing Sean. It's not the viewers' fault he's a liar and a bully, not to mention a Republican attack dog. If he'd stop being those things, there wouldn't be any ammunition against him.

Hasbro: It is sort of telling that, according to Colmes, the dynamic of the show is that Sean and Alan don't attack each other, but they can go after guests. So Sean sucks up to Republican guests and goes out of his way to find something to attack non-Republican guests about, whereas Alan mostly plays defense against Sean and Republicans, but he never corrects Sean's lies, and he never goes after Republicans the way Sean goes after Democrats (or even just plain non-republicans). That's sort of why the show "works:" Sean's a dick, and Alan's a pussy.

I like Alan Colmes a lot and while we differ politically, I think he comes across better. My roommate watched the show for the first time last night (he's a conservative) and he thought that Hannity came across as an obnoxious ranter. I felt Colmes was great last night, though, when he brought up the issue of whether or not Randall Terry was in favor of killing abortion doctors. Hannity probably would have demanded Terry to give him a straight answer; Colmes quietly and patiently said he would let Terry defend himself and instead Terry ranted like a moron.

Colmes is a great liberal...for conservatives! To any thinking liberal, he's an enabling douche who has a track record like the Washington Generals....except the Generals can at least take it to the hoop every now and then.

Oh those great Fox News "liberals" like silly Susie Estrich, Pat Cadell, and Tammy (A Girl Named) Bruce who show up on H&C so often? They do so terribly much to keep the discourse on H&C "fair and balanced." Which means leaning hard right.

Terry Schiavo died today. How very sad. The one good thing about this is that hopefully I won't have to see those numbnuts who claimed to be Christians, but they make Christians like me look bad in this situation ever again. I wish that Sean Hannity would stop pandering to these so calledChristians & stop bringing more shame to Fox News with his muckety-muck in this tragedy.

I hope Micheal Shiavo sues somebody for slander/libel/defimation and makes an example of someone who has been spreading falsehoods about him. Possibly Hannity or Terry.

Thankfully, I have seen the end of Ringling Brothers South, a/k/a the Sean-Hannity-At-The-Hospice spectacle. I suppose that Sean will now pack up and move back to home base. I doubt that he'll set up shop at the Vatican - a far more newsworthy story, I think.

For me, the most memorable parts of this past week's show were:

1. When Sean said that the matter was now in the hands of the Supreme Court, he said, twice, that Ms. Schiavo's fate was in the hands of "twelve people." Doesn't he know how many justices there are on the Supreme Court?

2. When Sean brought on Florida State Senator Dave Aronberg as a guest, and the senator absolutely cleaned Sean's clock. That was beautiful. The interview started off like:

HANNITY: You voted against that bill to require that a patient's wishes have been in writing in order for a feeding tube to be disconnected. That means that you're a murderer, a killer, no better than a member of a Nazi death squad. For shame that you walk this Earth.

THE SENATOR: That bill would not have applied to Terri Schiavo.

HANNITY: Oh, fuck you. I'm Sean Hannity. I'm the one who is supposed to point out how stupid people are. How dare you point out that I have the facts wrong! Now, as I said, it's your obligation as a human being to do anything, regardless of whether it is legal or constitutional, to save this woman. For you even to think otherwise is disgusting.


And so it went, for the rest of the interview. Priceless.

Has everybody heard the audio clip of Hannity coaching the fake nurses who appeared on H&C on how to be stubborn and totally wrong assholes just like him? I'm sure he's blaming this one on the "liberal media," too: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/leshow-ha...hing_guests.mp3

Terry Shiavo's autopsy
I expect a full retraction from Sean on the matter and Colmes thoroughly taking him to task. *eye-roll and wanking motion*

Yeah, right. Keep on pumping and slap the back of your head to keep your eyes from permanently sticking back there:
Here's what happened tonight:
Hannity ignores the evidence

Gee, Hannity will claim he's right even when proven to be absolutely 100 percent wrong? What a shocker. I thought he was going to have "Dr." Bill Frist (who, at this point, is about as much an MD as Dr. Dre) on so they both could spend the entirety of the show apologizing profusely for being liars, for making completely baseless attacks on all who opposed them (and were right), and for hurling libelous invective at Michael Shiavo. Ya know, because both Hannity and Frist are such stand-up guys of great moral fiber, or so their supporters claim.

I can understand Michael Sciavo just being relieved enough that this ordeal is over and having no desire to follow up on the matter, but I'm hoping he sues the pants of Hannity and Randal Terry. Both of them need to be taken to the woodshed for their abomnible behavior on this matter.

Its been pretty much nothing but Natalee this & Natalee that. I thought Nancy Grace is bad. Sean Hannity (though I like the guy) is even worse. Every night on Hannity & Colmes, nothing new or important happen on this case, but I keep seeing Natalee's parents on Sean Hannity every single night. Its bad enough that Sean Hannity sucks up to Jerry Falwell & nutsy Ann Coulter all the time on this show. Now, the Halloways keeps coming on Sean Hannity on a daily basis & its really getting on my nerves.

You know there is still an intense amount of interest in this case, and I think Hannity talking to the parents reflects both the audiences curiousity about this case, but also Hannity's desire to help out the search anyway he can in case she is still alive.

Bullshit.

I guarantee you that if you polled 1,000 American's less then 25% of them would be able to tell you who Natalie Holloway was, and of the small number that did know who she was, fewer then 15% would say that they had anything more then a mild interest in the case, let alone an intense interest.

This is just yet another example of something that FAUXNews does flabulously well, taking a minor news story which on a legitimate news station wouldn't merit more then 3 minutes coverage all day and using smoke and mirrors and bait and switch techniques, build something out of absolutely nothing.

I defy you to show me 5 pieces of legitimate and actual information about the case that has been announced/come out in the past month and a half.

Actually don't bother, because there aren't that many.

Every night, it's the same fucking thing over and over again, Holloways mom gets to blather and bleat and shriek on endlessly about how the authorities in Aruba aren't doing anything/aren't moving fast enough/refuse to tell her anything, and she and/or one of Natalie's other relatives gets a few minutes of air time, then it's time for 15 minutes of nothing but horseshit speculation which would be better spent of Hannity and Colmes jacked each other off while looking at pictures of Anne Coulter in her Nazi SS garb.

There are actual issues worth discussing, like the situation in Israel/Iraq/iran, but that would lead to emabarrassing situations for Shrub and his minions, and since FAUXNews has been giving Shrub's administration the world's sloppiest blowjob for the past 5 years, there's no fucking chance that Hannity would get onto an actual topic worth discussing which is why it's 60 minutes of Natalie Holloway.

Fair and balanced my ass.

On Monday's show, are we going to hear about the death of La Toyia Figueroia & the arrest of her murderer on Sean Hannity or is it going to be the Natalee Halloway hour again?

In the first ten minutes of Hannity (and Colmes) on Friday, September 2, there was one of the most amazing spectacles. The pro-Bush veneer on Fox cracked.

The show had live reports from Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera in the hell on Earth that is New Orleans. The entire segment can be found here on the Crooks and Liars site, under the heading "Horror Show." A clearly angry Shepard spewed fury over the government's handling of this. Geraldo cried on the air as he held a baby. It was really -- well, the images spoke for themselves.

But then Sean tried to start the spin, and said to Shepard that he wanted to put this in "perspective." Amazingly, Shepard interrupted Sean and shouted back at him, "THIS IS PERSPECTIVE!"

Incredible. I wonder whether Shepard and Geraldo will be severely reprimanded for their thoughtcrimes. *Sigh.*

There is no doubt in my mind that, if John Kerry had been elected and all of this happened, the likes of Hannity and Company would be calling for his impeachment. But I know that, soon, Sean Hannity will soon be telling everyone how the federal response to this was brilliant under the circumstances, and will be devoting segments to denunciations of rapper Kanye West's "George Bush doesn't care about black people" statement on MSNBC.

Thank you for posting that link, Vienna Woods. I've always liked him, but this week the Shep Smith love (and Anderson Cooper, for that matter) is through the roof. Good for them for telling it like it really is and dismissing the bullshit and the spin. I'm not a big fan of Geraldo, but this quote from him at the end of that segment says it all:

Thanks for the linkVienna Woods, I caught the last few minutes of the segment last night and missed the real fireworks. I was already pissed off with Hannity over the crap he was putting out on his radio show, particularly his slam against the mayor of N.O. It was s delight to see Shep and Geraldo rip him a new one. When Shep pointed down to the convention center and said "This is the persepctive, this is all you need!" I was sure Hannity was gong to suck his chair up his ass.

Thank you Vienna Woods. I think that Hannity is going to need more presepctive because right now, he's doing a tribute to a Supreme Court Judge who died tonight. I know that it was terrible that he died, but there's a crisis going on in the Gulf Coast region that is much more important.

Sean definitely needs perspective (and why they even bother to have Alan on the show, I don't know - he's so mealy-mouthed, that he makes no difference); however, Mississauga, while this hurricane situation is of prime importance right now (and for people's lives down the road too), some might say that who gets to be the next Supreme Court justice is of equal if not greater importance right now and down the road since that person has massive influence on the direction of the Court and all laws/decisions that come down from there...which can swing the court one way or the other.

Bush already is getting to make one appointment (to replace O'Connor) and now he gets to appoint one of the current Supremes to Chief Justice AND, if I'm correct, also appoint a 2nd person to the Court (to fill Reinquist's place) -- so this is even more critical than usual.

You know what I hate about the Natalee Holloway case is that I now hate the very sight of her and I have actually called her a bitch and I AM ASHAMED OF MYSELF. It's not her fault that her disappearance is getting all this coverage. She is an innocent girl. I pray that her family finds some peace. But the non-stop focus on her at the expense of the major problems facing our nation, not to mention the issues in Iraq, makes me crazy. By spending way too much time on cases like Holloway, the press risks having people react like me, where we end up not giving a damn about someone who has been tragically murdered (it seems). NH is like the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy, etc. What is the media's problem? These are local stories -- they are not national.

They are all affluent white women?

I was truly revolted by Fox News and MSNBC even carrying news about NH yesterday during the hurricane coverage, even if it was on during their crawl. One girl, who went out drunk with a bunch of strangers, is missing in Aruba. Thousands of people are missing here on our own soil.

Amen.

I have too called Natalee Holloway a bitch- whenever I see a story about her, I just say, "man, bitch is DEAD. Move on." I too feel terrible, because it is a heartbreaking story where it seems like she has been murdered, and I'm starting not to care because there's been like ZERO development in the story.

Hanntiey talking with Greta and she was saying how Gerorge Sr. didn't like her question about the levees. And Hannity had to interject his rational to the sequnece.

How far the Bushes asses does he intend to go.

So far that while he's in there he can wave at us through their mouths.

To aid in the Hurricane relief, I think we should raise an assload of money to be donated in the event that Sheperd Smith actually punches/bitchslaps/kicks Sean in the nuts!!! No amount of $$$ too large or small!

I would sell my husband to the circus to see that. And I love my husband. But someone needs to tell him that the thousands of deaths caused by Hurricaine Katrina are more tragic than one little rich girl that went to Aruba on Daddys money and tragically died. I am sad for her family and for her, but someone forgot to tell Natalie that it is not okay to go off alone with someone you dont know, especally on foreign soil. And by the way, Sean-Bill Clinton is not the AntiChrist. Get. Over. It.

Straight from the Department of Missing the Point:

Sean Hannity implied that it was alright not to have shored up the levees to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, because "billions" had been spent on the levees previously.

Huh? Were the levees adequate or not? If the levees were not adequate, then they should have been reinforced.

Will we hear Hannity saying that we should stop pouring money into the mission in Iraq, because "billions" have already been spent (and a lot more billions than it would have cost to upgrade the levees)?

He is so in love with the footage of the submerged New Orleans school buses, as are many of the folks defending Bush. "People should have been put on them and driven out of town, to higher ground." No shelter, no provision, no destination, just higher ground? Well. Wouldn't that mean that thousands of people would have found themselves on higher ground with no protection from the hurricane, no food, no potable water and no medical care? Huh. Damn.

Imagine the sniping then :"The so-called Mayor of New Orleans came up with a scheme to transport thousands of his citizens to what he called higher ground, with no provision at all for these souls once they were dropped off outside of the strike zone. A stupid, ridiculous reaction that left his citizens completely vulnerable."

No matter what kind of bungling Bush has done, we do need people to ask the alternative questions like Hannity has been. It's great that Fox has people who will both challenge the administration and those that will argue on their behalf. That's what the whole Fair and Balanced thing is about.

The Thursday night episode of Hannity and Colmes was a pretty entertaining one. You had Ann Coulter, whose odd, stream-of-consciousness interviews with Alan Colmes are always entertaining (ostensibly about the hurricane, they talked about Iraq, 9/11, and the Iranian hostage crisis). You had Hannity ragging on some Washington state congresswoman for not removing the gas tax to save people money...and the congresswoman did such a crappy job defending herself--Colmes had to pretty much spoon-feed her the line "The state gas tax money goes to the state; the state needs it." And Hannity taking on Jesse Jackson and in fact, giving him the bus story. Jackson's rather sensible take? "You can't just people on buses; they have to GO somewhere. And that becomes a federal issue."

This is a joke, right?