Remember when any expression of disrespect directed at America or it’s leaders was regarded as treasonous and unpatriotic? It was a time when blind and unfaltering loyalty was mandatory and dissent was not tolerated. Dick Cheney famously declared that “You are either with us or you are with the enemy.” And Fox News broadcast a red, white, and blue explosion of patriopathic zeal, castigating anyone who dared to diverge from the approved orthodoxy.
Sean Hannity was prominent among those who draped themselves in the American flag and scorned those who expressed dissenting opinions. Which makes it all the more contemptible that he now says on his radio show that he is “humiliated for my country,” without the slightest bit of irony or acknowledgement of his overt hypocrisy.
Sean Hannity was among the first to bash the Dixie Chicks when they said that they were “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” That remark was hardly as anti-American as Hannity’s since, unlike Hannity, it was only directed at George Bush and not the nation as a whole. Hannity also went off on Michelle Obama for saying that “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.” Obama was merely expressing pride in how far the nation has come. It was pride in a specific category of progress, not an overall impression of her feelings of being an American.
So while Hannity called the Dixie Chicks “disgraceful,” and pledged to never listen to them again, and he called Obama “offensive” and insisted that she “owes America an apology,” he has no such regrets for his own expression of disrespect for the nation. In fact, he defended his comments the next day on his Fox News program. And what was it that caused Hannity to suffer such humiliation? Here is whole commentary on the subject:
“Many Americans, including myself are, humiliated today. Take a look at the photo comparison of our commander in chief. There he is juxtaposed with Vladimir Putin […] For the first time in my adult life, I am humiliated for my country. Just the picture of Putin swimming the butterfly, which is a real hard stroke. Yeah, big chested – and by the way, it’s in frigid water that he’s swimming across a river … so you got a picture of that juxtaposed next to Obama on a bicycle in Martha’s Vineyard with the goofy helmet on riding his bike.”
That’s it. Hannity is shamed by Russian propaganda showing a virile Putin swimming across a river, and his own comparison of that to a photo of Obama on a bike. Hannity is obviously smitten with Putin’s rugged good looks (and Caucasian features), his big chest and burly arms glistening in the sun, and his outdoorsy manliness. Never mind that he is a brutal autocrat who is presently engaged in an unlawful aggression against a sovereign nation. Or perhaps that just makes him all the more appealing since it is reminiscent of the Bush Doctrine that resulted in the U.S. aggression against Iraq. Hannity loved that too.
I’m not sure what makes swimming across a river more masculine than riding a bike. I suspect the participants in the Tour de France might object to that characterization. What’s more, Hannity might find Obama more alluring if he were ogling the pictures of him shirtless in the Hawaiian surf. But what turns on Sean Hannity most is smearing the President, even if it means feigning a rather disturbing man-crush for a Russian dictator.
OK…that stuff about the big chest is getting really strange. Why does Mr. Hannity have a crush on a communist dictator? What’s going on at FOX anyhow?
The whole GOP has a crush on this communist dictator. Guess the GOP has changed their preference from one-on-one to “let’s all get in the pool with this HOT guy!”
Ok… Let me pull a reverse on you, little Seany….
American…. Love it or leave it…. So get the hell out.
Didn’t Lord Rush of Limburger once say he was ashamed of his country? Of course, that’s all right, then.
So the defining characteristic of a FoxPod is his hypocrisy? In the words of the great Johnny Carson, “I did not know that!”
Yep. In fact, I modified the graphic that I originally did about Limbaugh:
Rush Limbaugh Is Ashamed Of America. The Feeling Is Mutual.
Surely, he meant to say, “I am humiliating my country”. Right?
Hey Sean, Russia Today has an opening. Then you could actually be PAID to kiss Putin’s ass.
Sean, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones are the same person aren’t they? No thinking person would or could take this man seriously. It’s amazing how they say Obama is the most dictatorial person to ever hold the office of POTUS and then turn around and say he is weak and is nothing like the autocrat they love so much. If you exposed yourself to any of the CPAC freak-show this is just representative of the over-the-top rhetoric spewed at that nut-fest every time one of them got up to the podium to speak. Whatever happened to the loyal opposition and the idea politics ended at our shores?
What. An. ASS.
That’s ironic Sean since your country has been humiliated for you for years.
I’m pretty good with the country. Sean Hannity’s a little embarrassing.
http://youtu.be/2yrT0DpvfVI Tell Hannity to choke on this link and the rest of his tea party haters who seem to have selective memories of the good old days. This is for all the tea party haters who think if one doesn’t share their ideology one is not a patriot. Oh how I despise a hypocrite
Nothing to worry about here. Nobody represents the conservative epistemic closure in this country better than Hannity, and everyone — everyone — knows it. He’s a pundit with dead-end opinions that have no influence outside the bubble. None.
O’Reilly gets regular exposure on The View, Today and other mainstream media. Beck and Coulter were on the cover of Time. Limbaugh has been out there too. Erickson has been on CNN. Malkin has been on ABC This Week. Even Dana Freakin’ Loesch has gotten on CNN and ABC.
Has anyone solicited thoughts from Hannity on anything? Has he appeared anywhere but Fox and his radio show? I haven’t seen it. The fact that a collection of people as vapid as this country’s political media hasn’t touched him is telling.
Dude has quite a group of followers on radio and Fox; good for Sean. But outside that bubble, nobody — and I mean nobody — takes Sean Hannity seriously.
Gee, I wonder what Sean Hannity thinks? Said nobody, ever.
He’s appeared at the Tea-Party events and he has palled around with White Supremacists too. Don’t forget about those resume’ builders he owns!
I doubt Hannity is feigning it at all – after all, Putin is an authoritarian who caters to his country’s homophobic religious right and neo-Nazis, who runs the country like a personal playground for him and his oil buddies, who invades anybody he fucking wants. Let’s face it, if Putin ran for President in 2016 the GOPers would be lining up to toss his autocratic salad.
He didn’t say he was humiliated BY his country, he said FOR his country..there’s a diff. As in our govt and its administration of are making us look foolish…
I am tired of all from everyone about anyone’s huge chest. What came through from the writer of this article is the writer is completely ignorant or is part of the true enemies of America who will bring this country down, along with too many other American citizens. Scary.