Sean Hannity makes idle promise to be waterboarded for charity. . .

Oh, mercy me. Transcript from the Huffington Post:

"[Charles] GRODIN: You're for torture.

HANNITY: I am for enhanced interrogation.

GRODIN: You don't believe it's torture. Have you ever been waterboarded?

HANNITY: No, but Ollie North has.

GRODIN: Would you consent to be waterboarded? We can waterboard you?

HANNITY: Sure.

GRODIN: Are you busy on Sunday?

HANNITY: I'll do it for charity. I'll let you do it. I'll do it for the troops' families."

Leaving aside the question of what exactly is going on in Hannity's brain ("Troops' families! Ollie North! RONALD REAGAN!!!"), obviously this will probably never happen. Still, the fact that Hannity's BFF Ollie North has done it might make give us a faint possibility of seeing something that will surely turn out to be entertaining for us and deservedly humiliating for the conservative icon. Christopher Hitchens lasted about ten seconds when he was waterboarded, and Hannity's going to have a tough time spinning his inevitable sputtering concession as a positive. After all, in real waterboarding they don't stop when the prisoner gives the signal.

Snarky bit warning:

Still, the idea of Hannity being kept awake at all hours of the day and night by high-decibel rap music and maybe held in a corner as snarling dogs bark in his face has a certain appeal. After a few months maybe he'd have the moral authority to wish it on others.

Stupid Lies

Every "talking head" political pundit does it, and we've covered examples from Drudge in the past, but I've long since lost my patience for headline misrepresentation. Think for just a second about the image generated by the following headline, printed in the Drudge Report:


The actual blasted story puts the story in context, painting a different picture:



There's no excuse for this.

It's the same with the reaction to the recent Obama "controversy": two low-level campaign aides at a rally refused seats directly behind Obama, near the cameras, to a couple of Muslim women wearing head-scarves. Sean Hannity proceeded to harp on this issue on his show, painting this as an example of oppression and discrimination in Obama's campaign - implicating the Democratic candidate in a controversy with which he had no direct involvement and about which he immediately condemned when he found out about it.

Mr. Hannity, what would you have done if these women had been permitted to remain directly behind Obama? You and your ilk (I would like you to imagine me saying the word "ilk" with the greatest disgust) already treat all examples of equal treatment towards Muslims as examples of catering toward them and betrayal of America's values - would you have praised Obama for his inclusiveness and understanding, or taken the Sean Hannity route: "SEE!? Muslims sitting right behind Barack Hussein Obama! Is this the President that you want to vote for!?"

Sorry, but being a smug, smirking hateful liar is nothing new.

Ranting Ahead: New Media and the End of the Radio Juggernauts

Warning: The following is an extended personal rant with only cursory news content. Read on with this in mind, if at all.

"[Blogging is] absolutely bad for the culture." - Sean Hannity

A huge part of my coming of age in my teenage years was my gradual awareness of ambiguity in the world. For the same reason that I had latched onto obnoxious, unlistenable bands in the first few years that I began to listen to music, I had become a fan of talk radio, specifically Sean Hannity. I thought that I was getting into politics, into something important and exciting, but in my desire to understand the world quickly I was drawn into nothing more than a High School football rivalry.

As I began to notice inconsistencies in Hannity's statements, I began to consider my own thought processes. Watching him attack his enemies for relatively minor improprieties while letting his friends consistently off the hook, I began to understand the mind of Hannity - the role of that oh-so-subtle level of making and applying labels that drive all of his thinking. Becoming a repeat victim of the moderator-driven fascism at his vapid web forum was the last draw.

Today, my roommates make fun of my irrational dislike for Hannity. I feel that his consistent assaults on rational thought have done more to weaken America than any of the leftist politicians he trashes. To be fair, he's probably the worst offender in his field. This has nothing to do with politics - I have a high tolerance for other right-wing radio figures, ones who consider issues and facts and form opinions in that order. None of these have a perfect track record - some of them get irrational from time to time - but perfection is an impossible standard. At least they're trying. I'd rather have somebody disagree with me for the right reasons than perpetuate ignorance.

Enough ranting - on to the point. Sean Hannity and his ilk can only survive in an informational vacuum. As information and, above all, proper context become readily available, reasoned debate should flourish and only those with something to say will remain viable in the market. This isn't to imply that Hannity will fail entirely; he's thinking for far too many people who understand the world the way that I thought I did five years ago.

Sigh. . .

So Rush Limbaugh has proven my point. In some not-really-tasteless-but-seemingly-facetious remarks from today's transcript of his program, he draws attention to Hillary Clinton's appearance as an aging woman. Not her appearance as a candidate, mind you, but as an aging woman.

Continuing upon remarks made about America's obsession with appearance:

"So the question is this: Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis? . . . And that woman, by the way, is not going to want to look like she's getting older, because it will impact poll numbers. It will impact perceptions.

In politics, perceptions are reality. So there will have to be steps taken to avoid the appearance of aging. You know, politics is not for sissies. Now, I'm looking at people on the other side of the glass here and they're laughing and they're smiling. They think I'm making a joke here and there's some big punch line coming. I'm not . . . You go back and look at presidents that we elected prior to TV, and presidents we elected after TV, and you will notice a huge difference. Do you think a bloated president could win? We had plenty of fat-guy presidents. Do you think one could get elected today? There's not a prayer! There isn't a prayer. Remember when people said, "The way to tell if Gore's really going to run is if he starts losing weight?" It's just what it is, folks. It's just what it is. Perfection, the appearance of perfection and good health, all of that ties into the perception of mental acuity, stamina, being able to hold up to the job -- and I'm just suggesting, it's one of these intangibles.

You know, people will never tell you in an exit poll, "Yeah, I voted for Candidate X because he looks better than Candidate Y." They're not going to tell you, "I like their position on the Taliban. Yeah, I love their health care plan." They don't tell you what the real reason is -- and, of course, there is nobody else out there with the guts or the stupidity to address this as I am, but it's just something to put in the hopper and to think about. Let me give you a picture, just to think about. I'm not even going to answer the question for you, just want you to think about this. The campaign is Mitt Romney versus Hillary Clinton in our quest in this country for visual perfection, hmm?"

You think that I'm going to put Limbaugh into the grinder for this, and I'm not. I'm really not. I think that he has a valid point. Depending on your point of view his remarks may be seen as sexist, but when studies have shown that the tallest presidential candidate receives the most popular votes 88% of the time and wins 84% of the time, it's hard not to believe that the human race really isn't that shallow. Intangibles.

It's not really your fault - subconscious triggers influence much of your behavior. Advertisers and presidential candidates rely on this fact, and, in a quest for a scientifically-perfect candidate, they've moved away from the issues and focused on the image. It's a Machiavellian approach, but Edward Bernays was really on to something.