... by actor Charles Grodin.
Apparently, Grodin gave Hannity a pretty good tongue-lashing (details below the fold). But the meat of it is, from Huffington Post :
GRODIN: You're for torture.
HANNITY: I am for enhanced interrogation.
GRODIN: You don't believe it's torture. Have you ever been waterboarded?
HANNITY: No, but Ollie North has.
GRODIN: Would you consent to be waterboarded? We can waterboard you?
HANNITY: Sure.
GRODIN: Are you busy on Sunday?
HANNITY: I'll do it for charity. I'll let you do it. I'll do it for the troops' families.
There's a video at Huffingon Post, but I'm not all fancy-embeddy-like.
Sean Hannity, a man clearly in love with himself (as evidenced by his hannity.com website), just volunteered to be waterboarded. For charity.
What do you think? Can we encourage Hannity to go through with it? Should we?
More amusement from the interview, also from HuPo:
Hannity asked Grodin if he'd ever accept a book from Hugo Chavez or listen to a speech by a "brutal thug murdering dictator like Daniel Ortega." Grodin's respective ripostes were "I'd hand him my book!" and "I'd listen to anybody. I'm listening to you." Grodin then went on to ask Hannity if he was wearing mascara and if he had any plans to marry Ann Coulter.
Newshounds mentions that Grodin called Hannity on his "fascist mentality," (apparently, both sides can use that word now) and asked him "What branch of the military did you serve in?" Video at the Newshounds site, as well.
The reaction on Hannity's forums, of course, were less than positive. Worst. Guest. Ever., they say!
And this lovely exchange, from the same scary forums:
I am surprised it lasted that long on air and didn't get cut off.
Bill O was hard to watch tonight, too much yellin!
Bill was great tonight, loved the segment with Ellison.
Haven't seen him on the top of his form like this in some time.
Of course I don't catch him too often anymore like I did when my wife and I would watch him before we separated.
Edit: Per ArtSchmart, this was brought up lats night and deleted. If the powers that be feel that best for this diary, I understand that.
This brings up some interesting ethical questions? Is there a potential social benefit to (potentially) watching a man get tortured on TV? It's been done once before, IIRC. Is there a potential harm, in desensitization? Does it simply reflect schadenfreunde that some people want to see this? Does it reflect poorly on Hannity, for trivializing torture? Does it reflect poorly on us, for perhaps doing the same?