Donna Brazile appeared on the Hannity show tonight and it’s hard to believe that Sean Hannity’s nose didn’t grow to at least twice its size when he said, in his introduction, “We have had a very friendly, I would say cordial relationship.”

Sure, Hannity was probably “very friendly” and “cordial” in person with Brazile. But less than a year ago, he included her face on his Glenn Beckian conspiracy chart of the “Clinton Crime Family."

As The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple noted, Brazile has been critical of Fox, calling some of its coverage “shameful” and using a hashtag “BoycottFoxNews.” But that’s a far cry from calling Fox “criminal.” And, in any event, Brazile did not try to sucker viewers into thinking she and Hannity are buddies. In fact, she wisely kept her mouth shut when Hannity flaunted her presence at Fox as proof that the network is not one-sided.

Although I remain critical of Brazile’s ever signing on with Fox, as I noted yesterday, she still has an opportunity to be her own woman and call out some of the hideousness at Fox.

In fact, I think she did that fairly well with Hannity tonight. She started off on the right foot (figuratively speaking, of course) when she grabbed control of the conversation by challenging Hannity for not saying, “Welcome, Donna.” Then, after a spirited discussion, in which she refused to stick to short answers about Democrats’ policy positions in the 2020 campaign, she chided Hannity for attacking “honoroable, decent” Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Unfortunately, I guarantee you that will do nothing to stop the smears.

Also, let’s not forget that Hannity was clearly doing his best to be respectful so that Fox News will have video of Trump’s unofficial chief of staff and the network's top Trump propagandist looking like he’s not fomenting extremism on behalf of his Bedtime BFF.

It’s all political theater and I am hoping against hope, Brazile can steal the show.

Watch the full video of Hannity’s pretense below, from the March 19, 2019 Hannity.