Sean Knows Bias

If you don't like the facts, Hannitize them for your pleasure!

So last week, Sean Hannity aired an hour long special, “Behind the Bias: The History of Liberal Media” on his show. I’m sure it came as a great surprise to many that it was full of shit.

I’m not going to spend this blog deconstructing how it lied and misled its audience; that’s already been done. Instead, I’m just going to point out a multitude of reasons Sean Hannity should never, ever, have been allowed to host a special about bias from anyone other than himself.

So, let’s begin with just a little sampling of Sean Hannity’s well-documented bias. Let me point out that I came across all of these examples in a single afternoon. It’s not hard with Sean. Also, keep in mind, these are just examples of Sean Hannity’s bias. If I included other Fox News programs, we’d be here a while.

Here’s just a quick rundown of the few I came up with in one sitting:

– Sean lies about a Bill Clinton op-ed (Because with Hannity, there’s never enough hate for the Clintons.)

– Hannity spouts nonsense about Sarah Palin being treated worse in the media than Hillary. (Because conservative women are apparently the victims of a massive left-wing mysogynist conspiracy, and of course nobody bashes the Clintons enough for Sean’s liking.)

– Hannity quotes remarks made about Rahm Emanuel and then acts as though they were made about President Obama. (Because a lot of people think Emanuel is a dick, and Sean thinks Obama is dick, thus they might as well be the same person, right?)

– Sean claims President Obama called insurance executives “bad people”, then ran the video where Obama clearly states they aren’t bad people. (Granted this one requires at least an iota of contextual understanding, but let’s let Keith Olbermann break it down. )

– Sean says President Obama has “surrendered” in the war on terror. (Because believing we can win without torturing people and holding them prisoner indefinitely without charging them with anything is the same as giving up.)

– Hannity lies about the amount of support for Ron Paul after Fox News Republican primary debate. (When you can’t lie about a liberal, just lie about the least conservative person in the story. Also of note, Ron Paul was not invited to the next Fox News debate, despite polling higher in the state it was held than some of those that were invited.)

– Sean claims Obama was cutting $53 million dollars from New York City’s Anti-Terror Fund using fuzzy logic, when New York actually got $47 million more than they had previously. (Because, as the story goes, liberals hate America and want Americans to die horrible deaths in the name of Allah, so obviously one must twist the facts accordingly to fit that narrative rather than just admitting the man is actually increasing funding against terrorism.)

– During the presidential campaign Sean berates his guest, calls him an “idiot”, and says any claims that our economy is in a dire situation are based on lies. (Now he thinks Obama is doing an awful job because of how bad our economy is. But before it was just a lie.)

– Sean says California’s water shortage is Obama’s fault. (Because the “drop in the bucket” he harps on is more important than the vast amount of water wasted by the poor irrigation techniques he doesn’t want to talk about.)

– Hannity claims the president of Planned Parenthood told an “outright lie” when she said the organization provides mammograms for women… based on the fact that -some- PP facilities do not. (Because, ya know, if she says the organization does it, she better make sure every single one of their locations offers it, dammit!)

– Hannity says he’s never questioned anyone’s patriotism, to look like less of a goon. (Or because he doesn’t know what patriotism means.)

– Hannity airs a video edited in a misleading fashion to make it seem like Obama said he’s raising taxes for everybody, when he actually said under Bush’s plan, which Obama wanted to change, taxes were about to go up for everybody. (Again, the narrative says liberals and Democrats want to raise everyone’s taxes, so we have to do what we can to support that story, regardless of the facts.)

But remember, folks, Sean Hannity isn’t a news man, so it’s okay that he makes things up. Because everybody that watches his show knows, even when he’s presenting things as facts, that it’s really just his opinion that he’s talking about. And it’s that tacit understanding of the difference between news and commentary that leads Fox News viewers to be the most misinformed of any major news outlet, right?

No, wait… See, what I actually meant was… um… that our universities are filled with liberal ideologues and you can’t trust anything they say. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds better.

Just Be Wrong!

New segment time. This one focuses on people who harp on particular issues, are then proven wrong, and can’t just say they were wrong.

The obvious focus today? Birthers! They’ve been proven wrong time and again, and that never stopped them from continuing with the absurd claim that they weren’t sure if the president was born in Hawaii. But today the president came out with the long-form of his birth certificate, the one thing the birthers have been clamoring about all this time, saying if they saw that then the issue would be over.

Well, now it’s out there, so clearly people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin came out and apologized for making an issue out of nothing, right? Or at the very least just admitted that the issue is finally put to rest?

Nope! Actually, Palin and Beck (who isn’t as funny as he thinks) would rather talk about the timing of the president’s move. See, they think the president might have been waiting for today to do this to distract from other issues. Because, ya know, the birthers harping about this for years wasn’t used as a tactic to distract the public from other issues, or discredit the president, or anything.

“Carnival barkers” indeed.