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Sean Hannity tried yesterday to regurgitate Ann Coulter's absurd claim (pulled, as near as we can tell, from her nether regions) that Barack Obama wants to be called by his full name simply because he's following the tradition in which a president's full name is used when he's sworn in.

And to back him up, he brought on Bill Cunningham, the Cincinnati radio-show host who got into trouble during the campaign by haranguing Obama over his middle name at a John McCain rally (McCain in short order repudiated him and apologized to Obama).

Hannity: Now we find out that Barack Obama says he plans to use the name Barack Hussein Obama when he's sworn in on Jan. 20. Does that -- does that now -- have you been vindicated here and is it now acceptable?

Cunningham: You know, Sean, I kind of expect McCain at some point to repudiate Barack Hussein Obama because back in February, I said he was a hack from Chicago, he swam in the deep blue waters of corruption, comes out of the pool without a drop on him. And at this point, maybe McCain would say that Cunningham was right and that he was wrong, and that he might have won Ohio if he had listened to me.

Hannity and Cunningham natter on about how mean it was of everyone to jump on right-wingers who trotted out Obama's middle name with great regularity as a reminder to voters of his alleged "foreignness". Finally, Alan Colmes (who's getting unusually spunky in his final weeks) chirps up:

Colmes: We're missing something here, which is that when Bill Cunningham ... you know, when you say his name Hussein, when Coulter says B. Hussein Obama -- leaving out his first name entirely -- the intent is a little different, isn't it, Bill?

Cunningham: It is not. My intent was to use the three names to show him respect.

[Laughter all around]

Colmes: That is funny.

Cunningham: You know, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson. I wanted to respect him.

Colmes: Let me get this straight. When conservatives would say Hussein, and underscore Hussein, and Coulter for example wouldn't even say his first name, just go right to the Hussein, it was just to show respect, and not point out that he's got a name that sounds like a guy we deposed in Iraq. There was no intent to do that, right, Bill?

Cunningham: Well, I wanted deep respect, and I wanted to highlight his roots in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he was a Muslim for four years in two schools.

Colmes: I see. I see. Here we go with the Muslim stuff again.

These guys don't even bother trying to tell semi-credible lies anymore, do they?

Cunningham blows up his own fake "respect" immediately by admitting his intent was to spread the "Obama was once a Muslim" falsehood.

Is it any wonder they finally lost? Cluestick for Bill: Obama probably won Ohio because guys like you represented the Republican Party.

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On Hannity and Colmes when asked about the Saxby Chambliss victory in Georgia, Mike Huckabee says that the GOP needs to move away from the "squishy middle" and be more conservative. Yeah, that's just what the GOP needs Mike.

Now who will Sean Hannity walk all over?!

TVNewser:

FOX News Channel's (FNC) Alan Colmes will relinquish his role as co-host of Hannity & Colmes at the end of the year.

In announcing his decision, Colmes said, "I approached Bill Shine (FNC's Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network. Although it's bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I'm proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years."

Colmes will continue to have a presence on FNC as he will serve as a liberal commentator on a variety of FOX News programming, including Foxnews.com's The Strategy Room and continue hosting his radio program, The Alan Colmes Show on FOX Talk, a division of FOX News Radio. He will also begin developing a weekend program.

In all seriousness, this is a sad development. Alan Colmes is a good guy, even if he did get overshadowed by the boorish Hannity, and was one of the only effective liberal voices in all of FOXland. Like Nicole, I never watched too much H&C due to blood pressure issues, but the show will be much worse off without him. Best of luck, Alan.

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From Hannity and Colmes Nov. 21, 2008, Dick Morris changes the topic while being interviewed to openly make a fund raising pitch for Saxby Chambliss.

All of this is relevant only if he can do anything he wants and I know you're going to touch on Minnesota later here in this program. We can't do anything about Minnesota but Saxby Chambliss is only four points ahead in Georgia. If we lose Georgia the Republican party has zilch influence because the Democrats are going to get sixty votes. And that's why I'm urging people who care about that to go to and independent expenditure, GOPTrust.com, GOPTrust.com and fund the effort to reelect Saxby Chambliss because if we lose that seat and we lose sixty votes, forget about it.

John Amato:

He's a complete laughing stock after Obama's win, but he's FOX's go to guy. On Thursday night before the general election he predicted that the new Rev. Wright attack ads that played for three straight days were going to win the election for John McCain. How did that work for you, Dick? Now he's shilling for Saxby. Way to go.

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Michelle Bachmann is a pretty wild person as we've seen, but after spewing venom at Barack Obama for a few minutes with Hannidate, she then lied to Alan Colmes and denied saying this on Hardball:

Bachmann: I would say, what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look -- I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that.

She's come up with a new one folks. She said that she never made those statements and they have now become an "urban legend." Is she living in a B type Horror/Slasher film world or what? Here's what she told Alan Colmes Tuesday night.

Colmes: You said you were concerned during the campaign that Obama had anti American views and you said the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look at the people and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America

Bachmann: Actually that's not what I said. It's an urban legend that was created and that's not what I said.

Colmes: I have the tape at my website Alan.com

Bachmann: What I called on Alan was for the main stream media to do their job. They failed to vet Barack Obama the way they had John McCain. That's what I was called for.

Colmes: I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America. Do you really want...

Bachmann: What I said was that I'm not qualified to say whether members views are pro or anti American. That's not my job to do.

She really is out there. Obama was subjected to a level of scrutiny McCain never faced since he was in a heated primary battle that went on for months after McCain won his nomination. She really should apologize to Obama, but what the heck.

Here's the video of what she actually said.

Joe McCarthy would be proud. I think I can safely say that Michelle Bachmann has become an actual political "Urban Legend." There really aren't too many like her.

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Mary Matalin, or should I say Lady MacCheney defends the vicious McCain crowd reactions to Obama by using the Bill Ayers defense. Colmes did a good job of attacking the hate filled Republican party.

Colmes: Someone yelled out "terrorist." At a Palin rally someone yelled out "kill em."

She refuses to answer the question of course. Then Hannity goes through his litany of Obama smears including Rev. Wright which has been the one name surprisingly missing from McCain's lips. I have a feeling this will be unveiled soon since Hannity played a clip of him Friday night. Usually it takes 36 hours before a Hannity's talking point is made into a McCain ad.

So because Obama knew Bill Ayers it completely justifies the psychotic reactions of McCain supporters. I'll keep saying this. Our country has been polluted by the Limabaugh, Savage, Hannity hate machine for years now and it's rearing its ugly head publicly for all to see. I'm telling you, violence it not far behind "my friends." Matalin wouldn't go as far as Sean when he stated that he didn't trust Obama.

Hannity: I don't trust him. I don't think he's being honest. Do you think he's honest?

Matalin: I, I , I don't really don't want to answer that. I think it's legitimate to ask, what has he done, who is he. I don't question his motives or really his honesty. I just don't think he has the attributes to be a leader at this point in our history.

And McCain does have the attributes to be a leader because?...

UPDATE: (SilentPatriot) NPR has an interview with McCain strategist (and Rove protege) Steve Schmidt in which he says that the issue of Rev. Wright will not be raised. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

UPDATED: Sean Hannity, the guy who says he's a big Christian Conservative, yells at Robert Kuttner, a policy wonk type of guy with such venom that it was kind of shocking actually. I would have expected Hannity's rage directed elsewhere so it struck me as odd.

  Download | play   Download | play (ht Heather and Silent Patriot)

 Kuttner: "I'm not here to be insulted, either. You're doing RNC talking points."
Hannity: I don't have any RNC - these are HANNITY talking points. I write the talking points. You spew this line..."
Kuttner: "I don't spew any goddamn line. Stop insulting me or I'm walking off the set."
Hannity: "Go ahead! Go! Good-bye! Leave! I don't care! Go right ahead! Walk off! You said the economy's in dire straits."
Kuttner: "Do you want to deny that, you fool?"

 After Robert finished up the opening segment with Colmes, the cowardly Hannity went berserk on Robert, telling him all he said was garbage and more garbage, but much nastier than usual. When Kuttner said that Hannity was reading RNC talking points, Hannidate said that he writes the talking points. Now, he was talking about Hannity's talking points, but there is no differences between what Hannity says and what Drudge/Linbaugh and McCain's camp say. Usually there's a 36 hour turnaround from Hannity's mouth to the McCain camp making a video so Robert wasn't that far off.

Kuttner threatened to walk off the set and actually he should have. Instead, he called Sean a fool and a host of other names. Robert should feel proud though since Hannity called McCain a liar when he was backing Romney.

Nothing John McCain did dishonestly in his life counts because he was a POW. So says Sean Hannity after he got caught attacking John Edwards and trying to play the average Amercian guy who just doesn't understand how Edwards could have cheated on his wife and then lied about it."Why should we trust you?" SH says. Colmes attacked Hannity over this as the two argued. An emailer said they rarely ever talk back to each other since it's not the format of the show. Colmes smacked Hannity around and asked the same question about John McCain's first marriage...

‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.'

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Hannity: I'm not getting this. Explain to me and I'm wondering if you can't keep the promise to your family, can't keep your promise to your wife, you're having an affair, you're lying about the affair repeatedly, why should the American people trust you when you say you're not going to lie to them? Why should we trust you?

Colmes: And by the way, that's a great question Sean asks and so Amanda, if that's true and you can't trust somebody who had an affair. How can we trust John McCain to be President of the United States---he cheated on by his own admission on his first wife, he didn't keep his martial vows, he didn't keep his pledge to his first family...

Hannity: Thirty years ago after five and a half years of being a POW

Colmes: Excuse me Sean. You've had your chance to speak, I'm up. John McCain cheated on his wife, right. Amanda? So how do we trust John McCain? He cheated on his wife, why do you have a double standard and John McCain's running for President? John Edwards is not. John McCain's wife was in a car accident. John McCain's running for President, what about his affair?

(H) After five and a half years in a POW camp. (C) That has nothing to do with it. So it's OK to have an affair on his wife.

How about the good old Keating Five? Or Vicky Iseman? Does that count. Mr. Sean?

UPDATED: Silent Patriot says: Truncated transcript via Newshound, who has a great detailed recap.

Hannity: “If you can’t keep a promise to your family, can’t keep a promise to your wife, you’re having an affair, you’re lying about the affair repeatedly. Why should the American people trust you when you say you’re not gonna lie to them? Why should we trust you?”

Continue reading »

  Rove tries to defend McCain's lobbyist pals on H&C with his typical "Obama has them too," routine. Colmes does a good job of pointing out the fact that McCain used to be a maverick when it came to lobbyists, but not anymore. And he didn't forget about naming Rick Davis either.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Colmes: You have John McCain come out hard against Russia, his chief foreign policy advisor got lobbyists money.  John McCain has talked about not taking lobbyist money and being a different kind of candidate back when he was a maverick. And then now he has all these lobbyists working for him.

 I wouldn't get in there and start throwing mud at McCain over lobbyists associations without then realizing what kind of lobbyist associations there are among Democrats, particularly among congressional Democrats.

I think McCain is running for president and not the congress. Rove tries to say that Obama has plenty of them working for his campaign like McCain, but of course that's false. We've posted many stories on C&L about McCain's Army of Lobbyists. Here are but a few:

The John McCain Institute of Lobbyists

McCain Campaign Manager’s Alleged Russian Mob Ties

McCain Caught Off-Guard About Campaign’s Lobbyist Problems

McCain makes a distinction between good lobbyists and bad

And of course this big one: McCain: The Anti-lobbyist just loves lobbyists

   Now the Washington Post follows that up with this:

In McCain’s case, the fact that lobbyists are essentially running his presidential campaign — most of them as volunteers — seems to some people to be at odds with his anti-lobbying rhetoric. “He has a closer relationship with lobbyists than he lets on,” said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The problem for McCain being so closely associated with lobbyists is that he’s the candidate most closely associated with attacking lobbyists.”

Public Citizen, a group that monitors campaign fundraising, has found that McCain had more bundlers — people who gather checks from networks of friends and associates — from the lobbying community than any other presidential candidate from either party. By the group’s current count, McCain had at least 59 federal lobbyists raising money for his campaign, compared with 33 working for Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani and 19 working for Democrat Clinton..read on

  Friday bloopers!

Sean Hannity was in fine form last night as he had his fresh new Obama--GOP--attack--talking points ready to go. (I don't think Scott McClellan passed them off this time.) He wanted his audience to see Obama's newest ad to help lower gas prices, but unfortunately for him he aired an ad that criticized John McCain's energy plan instead. Oppps. He thought McCain had principles. Thanks for the extra publicity. I'm sure Obama thanks you too.

  Download | play   Download | play

Hannity: Here is Barack Obama's plan to lower gas prices, in his own words.

Ad: Sen. McCain, you let me and my kids down.

Fire that tech already Sean. You got punked. (h/t Moe)

How unpatriotic is Sean Hannity? He joins in with McCain's major economic dude, Phil Gramm and believes we are a nation of Whiners.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Hannity: But in all seriously here, we haven't had a recession---there is an economic slow down. I share your concern. Everybody I talk to is furious at 4.50 a gallon for gasoline, especially when they know we have more resources than the middle east, but I want to know. I want to ask you this. I've met people that grew up in tyranny. I knew people that grew up in the former Soviet Union for fear of speaking out against their government. Never had an opportunity to pursue their dreams...In this country, maybe we do, is there some truth to the fact, maybe we do whine too much. Maybe we don't to appreciate this gift we have of freedom. Maybe we don't take advantage of, maybe too many of us look to the government to solve every problem we have, Health care etc...

Gingrich: Sean, I have the deepest affection for you..that is the least Ronald Reagan like quote I've heard from you in your entire career.

WTF is he talking about? My God, Newt rebukes him in the the worst possible way for a Hannity type robot. Calling him the anti-Reagan. I guess when you make over five million dollars a year like Hannity does, no worries about health care for his family, paying for gas and the high cost of food really isn't a big deal to him and many rich conservatives. You know the new term is "economic slow down." We're not struggling, there's just a little bump in the road so suck it up people!@

Heather says:

Gingrich tells Hannity that government should listen to citizens when they're complaining, and admits the truth when he says that "If your customer comes in and complains to you it is not good to say to the customer quit whining because then they get to go to a new store". That "new store" is the Democratic Party and he knows it. Of course that was qualified later with remarks that small business without the aid of government and the private sector is the answer to all of our problems instead of government holding those people back with I would guess their nasty regulations on business so they don't kill all of us while making a profit which of course all Republicans hate.

Alan Colmes took on Karl Rove over Gitmo and habeas corpus rights. Wow, Rover certainly had a problem with the wingnut court he helped create. They always play the fear card as far as they can go. WWI comes up as usual along with the Nazis. Rove starts screaming at Colmes. You see, they set up the Gitmo card like Republicans do with all regulations---so they could get around them. Here's the new White House scare line now:

The White House said Thursday that dangerous detainees at Guantanamo Bay could end up walking Main Street U.S.A. as a result of last month's Supreme Court ruling about detainees' legal rights. Federal appeals courts, however, have indicated they have no intention of letting that happen.

Download | play Download | play (very rough transcript. It's 1:28 am as I'm writing this.)

Colmes: This is a great decision that dates back to the Magna Carter and habeas corpus and refers back to....The constitution applies to persons not just citizens. That is in keeping with what the constitution says.

Rove: This is a ridiculous decision. This is not the criminal justice system, this is a WAR! With all due respect Alan.

When was war declared? Did Congress declare war?...It was not a declaration of war...

Colmes: If you want to go by the US constitution, don't they get to declare war?

Rove: If you feel that strongly, go get yourself an ACLU attorney. File a declaration in the court...

Colmes: If you're going by the Constitution...If you're a strict constructionist, habeas corpus is key..you have to go through the Constitution...

Heather says:

He took on Rove over the detainees at Gitmo and the President's war powers tonight and pretty well put a big can of the whoop ass on Rove...lol. He had Rove screaming at him before it was over and trying to talk over him. Colmes stood his ground against him.

Scott McClellan's new book called "What's Happening," is making heads of former and current BushCo. loyalists explode. I always enjoy that. Fran Townsend was on CNN this morning killing Scotty. Dan Bartlett joined Wolfie. Karl Rove was on H&C and says he's irresponsible in his behavior and compliments Scotty by saying he sounds like a left wing blogger. Thanks Karl, that's quite a compliment. You see, truth and honesty are now associated to left wing blogs and lying, distorting and Stepford like behavior is now what Conservative Republicans represent. He certainly is touchy about the Valerie Plame affair. He clams up about it because there's a civil lawsuit. OK, then why are you on our airwaves? He denies leaking the name of Valerie Plame too...

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather) At the end of the clip he says this...

Hannity: Why didn't he leave earlier?

Rove: Two things. First of all this doesn't sound like Scott, it really doesn't, not the Scott McClellan I known for a long time. Second of all, it sounds like somebody else, it sounds like a left wing blogger.

Karl Rove denies every charge leveled by Scott, including the famous photo of Bush looking at NOLA from his plane.

The administration is coming out full force on Scotty. On the Situation Room, Bartlett said this via CNN:

BLITZER: He writes this in the book about the president: "He and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war." Now he doesn't flatly say the president was lying to the American people, but that is the upshot.

BARTLETT: Well, I think this is the part that gives me the biggest concern about this book, because to give credibility to such an outrageous accusation that mostly was coming from the left wing of the Democratic Party is really disappointing.

And Billw wonders if Bush still stands by his man:

BUSH: It's going to be hard to replace Scott. But nevertheless, he's made the decision, and I accept it.

One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, "Job well done."

MCCLELLAN: Thank you, sir.

BUSH: You bet. Appreciate you.

The Liberal Media Myth....Hahaha...

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Ron Paul supporters were yelling " FOX News Sucks" and chasing after Sean Hannity the other night. "Hey Hannity, how about an interview?" "We're not falling for it anymore" "You suck Sean"...FNC shut out Ron Paul from their Republican Presidential forum on Sunday which angered many supporters of his campaign.

Ron Paul got 10% of the vote in Iowa. That's not chump change and Paul is at 10% in NH polls at this point so there really was no excuse for Chris Wallace to cut him out. And how would that extra 10% look on Fredrick of Hollywood or Huckabee's totals in NH?

On the August 24 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, co-host Alan Colmes confronted John E. O'Neill, co-founder of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and co-author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, about several false attacks against Senator John Kerry (D-MA) by O'Neill and Swift Boat Veterans. Earlier today, Media Matters for America documented Colmes's confrontation of O'Neill's over his allegation that Kerry lied about being in Cambodia in 1968 and O'Neill's 1971 admission that he himself entered Cambodia. Following are other false attacks addressed by Colmes during O'Neill's appearance.

Colmes uncovered O'Neill's false claim that there's "not a bullet hole" in any of the swift boats involved in the combat that earned Kerry the Bronze Star

COLMES: All right. Let me show you something you said on this program when you were on last week [Hannity & Colmes, August 19]. Let me roll that tape.

O'NEILL: [video clip] This is a 75-yard-wide creek that these boats are on. They were on this creek, rescuing the three-boat for a period of an hour and a half. Not a single person was wounded after the original mine explosion. There's not a bullet hole in any of those three or four boats, not one.

COLMES: Now, that's at variance with a number of reports that's come out. Let me show you what the Los Angeles Times reported: "A damage survey filed with the Navy report said that three of the five boats involved sustained 'battle damage,' and [Swift Boat Vets member Larry] Thurlow's boat had .30 caliber bullet holes about super structure." And other reports, damage reports and after action reports, similarly say that there was damage to those boats.

O'Neill's only response -- that "[t]he boats were damaged the day before on March 12" -- didn't take into account his false claim that there was "not a bullet hole" in any of the boats.

Colmes nailed O'Neill on selectively contacting Kerry's former crewmates in order to portray two Kerry supporters as "neutral" (and visually as opponents)

COLMES: Mr. O'Neill, on your website at one point, you showed a photo of 19 officers from your division. The group -- you said that only one man in the picture that supported Kerry. A couple of others were neutral, you said. Two of those have come forward. Let me show you what they have said.

One of them said -- Rich McCann says, "I was never neutral about Kerry as president. If the question is whether John Kerry is fit to be commander in chief, my answer is absolutely."

Another guy named Rich Baker comes forward, and USA Today reports today that Baker says he was never contacted by your group. "Kerry is very well fit for command. He was one of the most courageous and aggressive swift boat captains in the division."

I know you've since took their pictures down. But why did you put them up in the first place if their stories don't confirm with what you say?

O'NEILL: We did exactly the right thing. We showed them as neutral. That was the best information they had. As soon as they announced for Kerry, we could.

The current count is of 23 officers there, there are 17 who condemn Kerry as unfit. There are four, by our count, that are for Kerry and indicate that he's fit. So the current count is about four and a half to one. And those guys are entitled to their opinion. But isn't it remarkable that when those few guys come out, they get a headline everywhere, whereas the 17 get no headlines anywhere?

COLMES: What I want to know, this is all about credibility, and you have put people up on your site who have since come forward. A number of people have changed their stories. Last time you were on, I confronted you with some of those people. And now more people come forward and say, "We were never contacted." Or "I'm not neutral about John Kerry," as your site suggests." So what does that say about the credibility of the Swift Boat Vets?

O'NEILL: I think we showed those people as having no opinion. That was based on our best information. As soon as they expressed an opinion and decided to, we shifted and showed them favorable to Kerry.

The count now, Alan, of the people who served right with him is 17 think he's unfit, and only four, with these guys, think he's fit.

When Colmes pointed out that "[a]ll of the people who were actually on his actual boat, as we pointed out many times, with the exception of one, [Stephen] Gardner, support him," O'Neill falsely claimed, "That's not right either."

Colmes raised the fact that a lawyer for the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign has also provided legal assistance to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

COLMES: [N]ew information comes out tonight that a lawyer for President Bush's reelection campaign disclosed today that he has been providing legal advice for your group. And there have been lots of stories circulating about the relationship between your group and the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign.

This attorney, Benjamin Ginsberg, now has acknowledged he was providing advice to your group. Doesn't that hurt your case that there's no relationship between the two groups?

O'NEILL: Not at all. He's an independent lawyer to our group. He's with a huge law firm in Washington.

We've been sued by or had complaints filed by two large Washington firms, by any number of other people. I think we have a perfect right to retain the -- Ginsberg's firm on behalf of our group. I mean, what are we supposed to do, walk in with nobody?