Sean Hannity Confronted About Republican Sexual Hypocrisy: hilarious exclusive transcript in which a caller slams Hannity about Newt Gingrich's Philandering 10/06 UPDATE:Click here to read a post on how Hannity had me kicked off an aircraft carrier rather than answer a quick question for my blog. Also, at the end of this post there is an extensive list of Sean Hannity links. Also, I had another hilarious radio conversation with Hannity.
Original Post on Hannity & GOP Sexual Hypocrisy: On Friday, Sean Hannity was in San Diego and did his radio show at a local event with an audience. He interviewed Newt Gingrich. In discussing the upcoming elections, Hannity assailed African-Americans for their loyalty to the Democratic Party. It never ceases to amaze me how pundits on the right portray American blacks as sheep for not aligning themselves with the party of Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, John Ashcroft, and Trent Lott (quick note: Hannity was a major apologist for Lott after he lauded Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential run as a pro-Jim-Crow Dixiecrat). Hannity then criticized Dems for switching resources from African-American New York Gubernatorial Candidate Carl McCall to Bill McBride who is running in Florida against Jeb Bush. Hannity attacked Democrats for not having a black in the Senate.
That last part irked me because, for one thing, Democrats fielded Harvey Gantt for the Senate against Jesse Helms. Gantt was running ahead but the North Carolina Republican Party sent over 125,000 threatening and misleading postcards to mostly minority voters warning them that they might not be eligible to vote and if they attempted, they would be subject to criminal penalties (read more about it here). UPDATE: Keep in in mind that Hannity also has had close ties with Hal Turner, an unrepentant white supremacist and terrorist and Hannity once had a KKK-owned store (The Redneck Shop) as a sponsor of his radio show.
So I called and was put on hold. While I was listening to the show, Hannity did a perfunctory jab against Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretions. I thought this was ironic since on the show Hannity was giving fulsome praise to Newt Gingrich, who, in my opinion, engaged in sexual misconduct far more serious than Bill Clinton (UPDATE: in 2011, Gingrich told David Brody, an interviewer for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcating Network that the reason he cheated was that he was "driven by how passionately I felt about this country."
Here's a summary of Gingrich's family life: 1) Gingrich marries his high school teacher, Jackie Battley, who was seven years his senior; 2) Jackie puts Gingrich through college and she works hard to get him elected to the House in 1978 (Gingrich won partly because his campaign claimed that his Democratic opponent would neglect her family if elected--at that time it was common knowledge that Gingrich was straying); 3) Shortly after being elected, Gingrich separated from his wife--announcing the separation in the hospital room where Jackie was recovering from cancer surgery (the divorce was final in 1981); Jackie Gingrich and her children had to depend on alms from her church because Gingrich didn't pay any child support; 3) Six months after the divorce, Gingrich, then 38, married Marianne Ginther, 30; 4) "In May 1999,eight months after Marianne was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Gingrich [55] called his Marianne [48] at her mother's home. After wishing Marianne's mother happy birthday, he told Marianne that he wanted a divorce." 5) In 2000, Gingrich, 57, married ex-congressional aide Callista Bisek, 34, with whom he was having a relationship while married to Marianne.
In fact, sexual indiscretions commonly committed by Republicans (e.g., serial monogamy) are much more destructive to American society than those typically committed by Democrats such as Bill Clinton's serial philandering--this despite the fact that the GOP portrays itself as the party of family values. For instance, Gingrich's behavioral pattern (serial monogamy precipitated by adultery) is a destructive practice that has serious implications for society. In a column for The New Republic, Robert Wright pointed out the personally repulsive and damaging practice by men who, once they arrive, decide that it is time to give walking papers to Wife Number One (who usually is the one who helped the guy get to where he is). Someone once said (net sources attribute this epigram to different people) that many men owe their success to their first wife and their second wife to their success. To paraphrase Wright, this trading in wives for a younger model is not only bad for Wife Number One but it hurts men in young Wife Number Two's age demographic because she is taken out of circulation by older Successful Guy. There are many other reasons why these serial harems created by Republicans politicians (look at the number of divorces by the House class of 1994) are destructive to society).
One has to keep in mind also that the American right was getting on Clinton's case about his sex life since the 1992 primaries. That's particularly galling considering that it was an open secret among DC politicos that Gingrich--the most important Republican from 1994 to 1998--was boning the young blonde House clerk twenty-three years his junior, Callista Bisek who would become Wife Number Three in 2000 (after, of course, ditching Wife Number Two). Washington insiders concluded that it was well know in DC that Gingrich and Bisek were having an affair which started shortly after Gingrich made the comment during the 1992 campaign that "Woody Allen having non-incest with a non-daughter to whom he was a non-father because they were a non-family fits the Democratic platform perfectly." 2010 UPDATE: Railing against gay marraige, Gingrich spoke of "marriage as a union of one man and one woman as our national policy."
What's more: when Gingrich decided to play the field with much younger women, he made no serious attempt to get into shape.
Quick note: for a thoughtful discussion about Republican sexual hypocrisy, there's a chapter in Joe Conason's book, Big Lies.
Here is what I had to say to Hannity:
SCOOBIE: Hi, Sean. Before I go to my topic, I heard you make some cuts against Bill Clinton. Can I respond to that?
HANNITY: Are you a friend of Bill Clinton's?
SCOOBIE: Yes, I think he's a pretty good guy. I mean, I really disapprove of his fooling around with women, but on the other hand--
HANNITY: Would you like him to date your daughter?
SCOOBIE: Well, no but I'll tell you what, I prefer him--
HANNITY: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Wait. Wait. Wait. If he's such a good guy, why can't he date your daughter?
SCOOBIE: Well, I don't think he's perfect by any means, but he's a lot better than Newt Gingrich who seems to like to dump his wives, trade them in for a new model every once in a while, once he gets--
HANNITY: You took your shot at Newt. Is Bill Clinton an honest man?
SCOOBIE: Compared to Not-My-President Bush, certainly he is. He didn't cheat to get into the Oval Office. That's one thing.
HANNITY: They can't get over it, can they? You guys lost and you can't get over it.
SCOOBIE: And that really segues into my topic: I really had to chuckle about your talk of this misguided loyalty of blacks to the Democratic Party.
HANNITY: Why aren't they supporting Carl McCall in New York? Why are they abandoning an African-American who is running for office? I think--
SCOOBIE: Well, that's practical politics. He really didn't have a chance against Pataki. You have to put your resources towards viable candidates, such as getting rid of George, er, I'm sorry, Jeb Bush, who was responsible for purging tens of thousands of minority voters from the polls back in 2000 through this felony--
HANNITY: Can I ask you--what is it about all these liberals; they're so filled with vitriol. They are so filled with animosity. Sir, no such thing happened. It's an absolute lie and it's even a bigger disgrace that you repeat the lie.
SCOOBIE: BBC journalist Greg Palast--
HANNITY: BBC, now we're quoting the Brits, okay.
SCOOBIE: He did a study and he found how Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush used the felony voter purge to get tens of thousands of eligible voters off the voter rolls and these people didn't have access to any kind of ballot once they were at the polls--
[HANNITY DISCONNECTS SCOOBIE]
HANNITY: First of all, that's untrue. It's never been proven. It's never even been alleged except by the real extreme left like yourself. But what is true and what was chronicled is the systematic disenfranchisement of brave men and women who were out there serving their country--and that's what Al Gore did. We have to break...
NOTE: Since Hannity disconnected me without giving me a chance to respond, I will respond now by pointing out that being in uniform doesn't give one the right to vote twice or vote after election day. Despite the fact that members of the Bush campaign discussed approaching military voters to get them to vote after the election (read Jake Tapper's book Down & Dirty), the Gore team allowed military ballots to be counted despite the fact that many of them lacked the legal criteria for being a legal ballot. On the subject of disenfranchising military, here's Palast discussing how the GOP used caging lists to disenfranchise minority members of the military who were sent to Iraq:
Campaign 2008 Update: This is hilarious! A little background: John McCain was married to his first wife, Carol stayed true to her husband during his captivity (she even suffered severe injuries as a result of a 1969 automobile accident. After John McCain's return to the United after being a POW, he began to have extamarital affairs. This culminated in a relationship that McCain began in 1979 with Cindy Lou Hensley, a rich 25 year-old woman. She eventually became Cindy McCain. Sean Hannity's excuse for John McCain's behavior: He was a POW. If you don't believe me, watch the YouTube vide. It's unbelievable.
Addendum: Talk Show Radio Accessibility--Follow-Up Survey Results Research 2000 thought it would be an interesting endeavor to find out how six nationally syndicated talk radio programs handle incoming calls among individuals who wish to engage in the live talk show over the air. The our original April ‘06 ‘Talk Show Radio Accessibility Survey Results‘ were interesting enough to report in the hopes that “ALL” talk radio hosts and formats in the future will make it less restrictive and more accessible for potential call in guests regardless of whether or not they have a differing point of view. Findings:
* Ed Shultz “as the easiest to get on the air with regardless of the caller’s “view point for the simple reason that the show is the only format of the six that does not ask the caller what they want to discuss.” * Sean Hannity comes in last place with “none” of the callers “with a different view point” getting on the air. * The “one caller of five dissenting view points” allowed on Limbaugh’s show “went through three screeners before getting on the air.“ * Ingraham, Miller and Rhodes showed “no significant differences” in terms of getting on the air “if one had a dissenting view point. * In all cases, callers with dissenting views were able to get on the air with the host.
Methodology:
While the following survey results do not possess the standard 95 percent confidence level or 5% margin for error which is standard within the scientific polling community, Research 2000’s follow yielded almost identical results.
In August and September, we examined the same six nationally syndicated talk shows we did back in April which are heard in the Washington DC ADI five days weekly between August 21 through September 19, 2006. Three liberal: Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes and Ed Shultz. Three conservative: Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh. Back in April, each program was called ten times (5 with a point of view compatible with the host and most of the callers and 5 that were not). In the August-September follow up survey, we called each show 15 times with a point of view which was not compatible with the host and most of the callers. We decided not to do any calls with compatible view points because the April survey showed that those callers with compatible views with the host and most of the callers were able to get through and on the air between 15-30 minutes with each of the hosts.
The rank order below is based on how accessible it was for one to get through to the host with both a liberal and conservative point of view.
Once again, there was no significant differences between the Laura Ingraham, Stephanie Miller and Randi Rhodes shows in terms of getting on the air if one had a dissenting view point. In all cases, callers with dissenting views were able to get on the air with the host. The wait on hold was longest for the Laura Ingraham show and that averaged 40 minutes to one hour and fifteen minutes. For Miller it was 35 minutes to one hour and for Rhodes it was 30 minutes to 40 minutes.The difference between number 2 and 4 are slight and the rank order is based purely on the amount of time one was on hold. Both Ingraham’s and Miller’s wait on hold increased slightly from April, while Rhodes had a slight decrease.
Only two callers of fifteen dissenting view points was successful in getting on the Rush Limbaugh show. Both callers went through three screeners on the show before getting on the air with the host. However, the other thirteen callers with dissenting view points were told politely that the host would not be taking calls on either the subject matter or a dissenting point of view.