The blowhard next door (August 26, 2002)

[DainBramaged]

If you don't already know who Sean Hannity is, you will. If you are already familiar with the ubiquitous conservative pundit, prepare to see a lot more of him. The 40-year-old co-host of Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes" (as the conservative foil to liberal Alan Colmes) is a young, telegenic face in a graying-man's game. His show is already the third-highest cable news show, trailing only Fox's "O'Reilly Factor" and CNN's "Larry King Live." His radio show, which went into syndication late last year and airs in the crucial 3-to-6 p.m. "drive time" slot, draws 10 million listeners. And he seems poised to follow the gilded paths of Fox colleague Bill O'Reilly and, quite possibly, Rush Limbaugh, who has been the standard-bearing conservative spokesman for nearly two decades.

Eventually, Hannity will "be bigger than Limbaugh," Michael Harrison, the publisher of the radio industry's Talkers magazine, predicted to People magazine earlier this year. It's not difficult to see why. While no less partisan, Hannity's scrappy, boy-next-door delivery would seem to have a broader appeal than that of the more dour Limbaugh.

So now comes his next step. Following the multi-bestselling Limbaugh and O'Reilly, Hannity has decided to make the leap to print with his new book, "Let Freedom Ring." The climate, it appears, could not be better. Already this year, Ann Coulter's "Slander" and Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" have been runaway No. 1 bestsellers, proving that ink on paper is one foolproof way to break out as a partisan pundit. And sure enough, Hannity's book, released just last week, has already made its way to the top of Amazon.com's nonfiction bestseller list.

But in Let Freedom Ring, Hannity seems to be following another regrettable trend in modern punditry: Never let facts stand in the way of a good partisan screed. That was the dirty truth behind "Slander" and "Stupid White Men," and Hannity continues it with his book, a poorly researched effort full of blatant falsehoods and highly distorted versions of the truth.

Early in the book, Hannity grants that the "vast majority of liberals are good, sincere, well-meaning people. They love their kids. They love their neighbors. I am sure most love their country." The rest of Let Freedom Ring, however, is devoted to attacking liberals as a threat against America. Indeed, Hannity frames a war against liberals as part and parcel of the war against terrorism: "The Left may be sincere, but they're sincerely wrong. And they must be challenged and defeated if we are to win this war on terror and preserve our way of life for this and future generations."

But Hannity's claims often stray into the realm of myth. He scores some points with his criticism of the outrageous rhetoric thrown by some liberal commentators, such as James Carville and Bob Herbert, but Hannity gets his facts wrong again and again, especially, and not surprisingly, when it comes to Democratic politicians.

Numerous lies abound, for instance, about former President Bill Clinton. Hannity cites an oft repeated lie that in a speech at Georgetown University, "Clinton seemingly blamed the vicious terrorist attacks on you and me and all Americans." Citing a passage from the speech in which Clinton noted that Europeans and Americans had engaged in atrocious acts in the past, such as the Crusades and slavery, Hannity says Clinton is providing a "justification for radical Islamic terrorism" and an "apology for terrorism." This criticism had a bold, but short-lived, life span last fall, when conservative critics leapt to attack Clinton based on a slanted article in the Washington Times before actually reading what he had said. The speech itself makes it clear that the former president didn't note these historical events to excuse the attacks of Sept. 11 but merely to illustrate that killing innocent noncombatants has a long history. Other conservatives who picked up this tick had the class to correct their attacks with the truth. Now, 10 months after this myth was corrected, truth doesn't seem to be much of a concern for Hannity.

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20020826.html