There is not much that I truly love in this world—my family, my country, my priceless collection of antique ceramic cats. Hello, Morris and Morris. But above all, my heart belongs to my beloved....
(audience cheering and applause)
So when I tuned into his program last night as I do every night, it was kind of a good news, bad news situation.
SEAN HANNITY (4/22/2014): Tonight, I'm taking on the ever so funny Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. ... Stewart and his friends at Comedy Central, they kind of are the chief apologist for the Obama administration. He does suck up a lot. ... You know, the more I think about it, I guess I can't expect a comedic hack and his army of writers, I can't take them too seriously.
(audience howls in disgust)
OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!!!!!!!!! WAIT!! WAIT!! JUST WAIT!!! Sean Hannity knows my name!! (audience laughter and applause, Jon rubs his nipple)
I'll be honest with you, the hack thing hurts a little. But the wound is healed by the ointment of your attention. You see, what happened there was, Sean there was, well, he was upset that on Monday, I may have mentioned that he was being hypocritical in defending the Nevada rancher and militant federal grazing fee not-payer Cliven Bundy. I am sympathetic to critics of eminent domain, and those who feel Obama's jackbooted thugs should never have signed that executive order extending those federal grazing fees indefinitely. I'm sorry, did I say Obama? I meant Ronald Reagan. (audience laughter and applause)
That's besides the point. Of course, according to Hannity, his support of Cliven isn't even about rule of law.
SEAN HANNITY (4/22/2014): Can I make my position any more clear to Mr. Stewart? I stand for proportionality. ... I thought there was a lack of proportionality here by the government, and snipers and surrounding a ranch and taking your cattle.
It's proportionality he is upset about. Proportion control. The government is overreacting, which they tend to do when 20 years of attempts to collect money, including four separate court judgments are ignored, and the owner might have mentioned he has weapons and is vowing to "do whatever it takes," with his wife adding that she has a loaded shotgun and is "ready to do what we have to do."
But I'm sure if the government just tried one more time, sent a couple of more guys up there with maybe a Swiss army knife with one of them credit card swipers, I'm sure we could settle this reasonably.
For Sean Hannity, it's for proportionality when dealing with dissent. Like when a police officer generally seasoned non-violent protesters at UC Davis.
11/28/2011:
SEAN HANNITY: In all seriousness, that's a lot of pepper spray.
CHARLES PAYNE: It was a lot of pepper spray.
SEAN HANNITY: Right. Did they cross a line? I don't think so.
(audience howls of shock and disgust)
No! That was proportional! In fact, they couldn't have crossed the line, because I didn't even see a line, because my fucking eyes were burning, because I just had a pepper spray Silkwood shower! (wild audience cheering and applause)
So that, that is a responsible exercise of authority. I mean, those people were clearly there. Which I believe is provocation enough. The protesters were in possession of butts with intent to sit. So that sriracha bukkake was entirely appropriate. (audience laughter) By the way, trademarked phrase.
Or what about Stop and Frisk, the random search and seizure based purely on appearance? Is that proportional or authority overreach?
8/19/2013:
SEAN HANNITY: Officials have cited the police tactic as being instrumental in reducing major crime in the Big Apple. ... As soon as they started it, murder rates went down, crime went down.
FEMALE GUEST: But just to say someone is suspicious because they're black and brown....
SEAN HANNITY: I think you are going to tie the hands of law enforcement.
FEMALE GUEST: That's not fair.
Ah! Can't tie the hands of law enforcement. Sean Hannity will not allow this nation's law enforcement officers to have their hands tied... when they need them to frisk the brown people.
Brown cows, on the other hand... (audience laughter) have certain Constitutional rights. But anyway, that's when shit got weird.
SEAN HANNITY (4/22/2014): You may remember that Jon Stewart had a "Rally to Restore Sanity". ... He invited all of his friends to attend, including this singer. ... Remember Cat Stevens? He has since changed his name to Yusuf Islam. There's one problem with inviting Mr. Islam to a rally aimed at restoring sanity. Oh, that's the same Islam who infamously is unapologetic for endorsing a fatwa, meaning to kill, a novelist by the name of Salman Rushdie.
Ah, point taken on that one, I'll give you that one, that's a good one. See, I wanted him to play "Peace Train" so Ozzy Osbourne could cut him off with "Crazy Train", and then the O'Jays come in and they end it with "Love Train". Eh, it was a good bit. Had one small flaw. The fatwa guy. But, you would be surprised how few non-fatwa musicians had done train-based songs ... and were available that weekend.
But correct! Correct, Mr. Hannity, mistake. I should have looked into it more. I should have known better. I'm just not sure you're the best guy to make the guilt-by-musician association point.
8/24/2007:
TED NUGENT: Obama, he's a piece of shit and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns. ... I said, "Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch!"
SEAN HANNITY: That was friend and frequent guest on the program, Ted Nugent.
(audience howls in laughter and disgust)
Now believe it or not, I didn't know about the Cat Stevens fatwa thing when we booked him. But you literally went from a tape of Ted Nugent saying that shit to, "That was friend of the show Ted Nugent."
I will say this, though. For all the disingenuous, hypocritical, non-factual, corrosive, hacky, awful word turds that you speak, you did get one thing right.
SEAN HANNITY (4/22/2014): Stewart went into his tape arsenal, which by the way, serves as more proof—remember, he was begging me to stay in New York? He's kind of obsessed with this program.
Yeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssss. (wild audience cheering and applause) I am obsessed with your program. You can say true things! I am obsessed with your program, in the same way I am obsessed with antibiotic-resistant superbugs, or the Pacific garbage patch, or the KFC Double Down. Because I just can't believe that in this day and age, with all that we know, this shit is out there. (audience cheering and applause)
That humanity—humanity—that our society is still weighed down by these burdens of a seemingly more medieval time. Like your show. To see it night after night serving up the same shit—my God, you're the Arby's of news!
(wild audience cheering and applause)
How could I not be obsessed with the Arby's of news?
Arby's. The Hannity of roast beef sandwiches.
(audience laughter and applause)
And what is so fascinating is the paradox at the heart of your show. That your purely blind partisan impulses are couched in such lofty principle. Everything framed in terms of the power of your patriotism. You got the flag pin, you got the backdrop, you got the graphics.
The patriotic ball cozies you sell on your website.
(shocked audience laughter)
And yet, you, the ... what? They're very inexpensive—they're made in Malaysia. And yet, you, the uber-American, this man is your cause?
CLIVEN BUNDY (4/10/2014): I don't recognize the United States government as even existing.
He doesn't recognize America's existence! He's a U.S.A.-theist! (audience laughter) Cuz the federal government does exist. In fact, it was created by those guys and that document you love so, so much.
SEAN HANNITY (11/15/2011): The beauty of our, I think, our framers and our Founders, is they put in place this document where they had the ability to right wrongs and correct injustices.
SEAN HANNITY (10/6/2010): The American people really want a return to first principles and constitutional government.
SEAN HANNITY (2/5/2014): I love Washington because he gave up power. Amazing to me, when he could have held on to it.
Washington. Now there's a Founding Father who could found the shit out of everyone. How do you think he would handle an armed group of federal government rejectionists who wouldn't pay their taxes? Well, we don't really need to speculate, because it was called the Whiskey Rebellion. And Washington, with his federal army, crushed it in 1794. I guess you would say, disproportionately. (audience laughter)
And the reason he was legally allowed to do that was because a man named Daniel Shays pulled the same shit in 1786 and 1787. That's him, apparently rolling down a hill.
So the Founding Fathers called the Constitutional Convention to form a much stronger federal government that could collect taxes by force, if necessary. Which I guess makes you, Sean Hannity, not an American patriot, or an anti-Federalist —or to be kind, let's just say you love the Founding Fathers, but only their early work, before they sold out, and became "The Man," or men, or white property-owning men.(wild audience cheering and applause)
.