Crazy Like A Fox: Chapter Five

“Hannity & Colmes”

Whether “Hannity & Colmes,” “Fox & Friends,” or “O’Reilly & Lucifer,” Fox News is clearly the kingdom of the ampersand. Graphic designers know that ampersands are simultaneously warm and professional. Dick Morris, H&C’s first guest, is simultaneously neither. And I thought Newt Gingrich was the single biggest gasbag currently making the rounds on the talk show circuit. It amazes me whenever anyone claims to know how “most American people” think. Given the last several elections, it amazes me whenever anyone claims “most American people” think at all.

The format of “Hannity & Colmes” appears to be:

- Either Hannity or Colmes will mention a fact (fact being a relative term)
- Show clip of somebody stating the fact
- Analyze the fact
- Invite a guest on the show to analyze the fact
- Analyze the guest’s analysis
- Analyze each others’ analysis of the guest’s analysis
- Hannity is right

Hannity’s “facts” from tonight’s show:

- Obama was flustered during his interview with O’Reilly
- New polls show Sarah Palin is God
- Sarah Palin is good people
- Sarah Palin is qualified to run the country
- Community organizers are bad people
- Russell Brand is the devil, but great for the McCain campaign
- Chuck Norris is not as tough as Hannity
- The New York Post is a quality newspaper (owned by News Corp., as is Fox News)

What stood out in this show was the complete lack of issues. The above “facts” were really all that were discussed. They wasted three segments on the “character” of Sarah Palin, without ever discussing specifics. It was a wasted hour of punditry.

I did learn that Barack Obama is friends with, to use Hannity’s words, “an unrepentant terrorist.” Though Hannity never said who that was, my money is on Sheryl Crow.

I have watched enough Fox News programs today to detect a pattern when it comes to their coverage of Barack Obama: Fox News does not like to use his name. It reminds me of the second season episode of “The West Wing” when Bartlett was being coached to refer to the frontrunner as “my opponent” or “the other guy” in a futile attempt to belittle the frontrunner’s status. To parrot the character, it makes them look adleminded and it is a stupid idea. The folks at Fox News don’t seem to want to risk a pull quote by the opposition media, and try very hard not to connect Obama’s name to a criticism of him.

One last item of housekeeping: Andrea Tantaros is cute as a button. Actually, she isn’t, but she seems to be the sort of woman who would be offended if a man calls her cute, and she strikes me as someone who needs to be offended as often as possible. So, Andrea… cutie-pie… how about you scoot off to the kitchen and bake me something sweet?