Ok, maybe that title is a little sensationalist. But Sean Hannity does have a reputation for bullying the guests he disagrees with. He’s brutal. I’ve never seen anyone win an interview with him (except Sarah Palin). Makes you wonder if any guest has ever beat Sean Hannity at his own game? Roberts Gibbs, Obama campaign spokesman, did just that last night. And it was good (clip to follow).
Hannity was lecturing Gibbs on Obama’s willingness to sit in a room with Bill Ayers, and then all the sudden, Gibbs took over:
Gibbs: “Are you anti-Semitic?”
Hannity: Not at all.
Gibbs: On your show on Sunday, the show that’s named after you, right? The center piece of that show was a guy named Andy Martin.
Hannity: I know you’re reading your talking points. When I interviewed Al Sharpton, when I interviewed all these controversial figures, you see on FOX we actually interview people of all points of view whether we agree or disagree.
Gibbs: Andy Martin called a judge a crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to….Martin when on to write that he understood better why the Holocaust took place given that Jew survivors are acting like a wolf pack…
Hannity:I find those comments despicable…
Gibbs: You put him on your show. It’s the Hannity Show…Why am I not to believe that your’e anti-Semitic, why am I not to believe that everybody that works for the network is anti-Semitic cause Sean Hannity gives somebody a platform that thinks Jews are slimy?
Hannity: I’m a journalist that gives…
Gibbs: You put your whole show around him…
Gibbs:I don’t think your Jewish viewers are going to take it very well that you had somebody like that on your show.
There’s more, but you get the picture. But do watch the video (below), to see Hannity struggling to regain his usual upper hand. The clip, aired by Keith Olbermann of course, is followed by Rachel Maddow’s particularly astute analysis on what it takes to beat Sean Hannity at his own game.
According to Maddow:
[Gibbs] did it by showing instead of telling. The way you would have told that, is by saying, “Well the analogy here is that you had a bad guy on your show, and you having a bad guy on your show is something that could make me accuse you of all sort of exasperating things you don’t believe in, and that’s just like what you’ve done to Barack Obama.”
He didn’t explain it. He just did it. He showed Hannity how exasperating he could become by making those accusations based on what Hannity’s guests had done. And the more Hannity responded the more exasperated, and frustrated and unfair he thought it all was, the more he proved Robert Gibbs’ point. It was poetry.
Inform Your Consent 