November 11, 2018

It takes a special kind of POS to mock Michelle Obama for speaking frankly about her anger at Donald Trump’s bogus birther attacks that could have endangered her family – but Sean Hannity not only did that, he used her pain as an excuse to revive his “angry black woman” attacks on her.

On Friday, The Washington Post published an excerpt from Obama’s forthcoming book, "Becoming":

“The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks,” she writes. “What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him.”

Trump’s birtherism had been thoroughly debunked even before he began his hideous attacks – which were aided and abetted by Fox News and especially by Sean Hannity. Even more despicably, Hannity pretended otherwise.

In April, Hannity was outraged at Jimmy Kimmel for mocking Melania Trump. Hannity said, “I’ll be honest, leave the women and children alone.” But with Michelle Obama, Hannity has acted as though on the lookout for excuses to demonize her as an angry black woman.

On Friday night, Hannity picked right up on that old tradition when he mocked Obama's obviously-still-raw pain. He only read the part of her quote where she said she would “never forgive” Trump and omitted the part about her fear for her family’s safety.

HANNITY: Whatever happened to, “They go low, we go”—oh, the Democrats want to kick ‘em, and get in their face and create a crowd, and after they create a crowd they’re gonna follow them in a grocery store, department stores and gas stations, and say, “We don’t want you anywhere, anymore.”

Guest Tammy Bruce, Fox’s go-to attacker of Democratic women, also scolded Obama: “You know, considering the environment that we’ve got - right? You would think that maybe she would think twice about the nature of that kind of rhetoric.”

“I would also suggest that she’s very angry at the wrong person,” Bruce continued. She blamed the Clinton campaign for starting the smear “which most of us thought absurd.” Thus she conveniently erased the role of Fox News in spreading it.

Hannity went on to dissemble about his own birther record again.

HANNITY: I was never a birther. I just thought it was stupid—

[…]

It—just release the stupid thing, you know? And it became a big to-do about releasing the birth certificate.

Once again, Hannity was deceptively whitewashing his record. Hannity may not have been a birther, himself, but he enthusiastically promoted birtherism on multiple occasions.

From there, Hannity reprised an old “angry” (black) Michelle Obama chestnut: the clip of her saying, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

“It wasn’t the only time she said that,” Hannity accused. “And I’m thinkin’ well, I was kind of proud of my Dad and all the heroes of World War II and the brave guys that slammed the beaches of Normandy.” But, of course, if any of them dared to criticize his beloved Trump, they’d be fair game.

In case anyone missed the point, Deneen Borelli, one of Fox’s go-to African American black-attackers, called Obama “bitter.”

Speaking of bitter: “I’m wondering if she writes about the three million that fell into poverty during her husband’s two tenures,” Bruce sneered. She went on to paint a laughably bleak economic picture of American life under Obama.

Watch Hannity, Bruce and Borelli display their utter lack of decency above, from the November 9, 2018 Hannity, via Media Matters.

Crossposted at Newshounds.us.

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