Sean Hannity, Misinformer of the Year

Image from source, Media Matters

Sean Hannity is one of the primary sources of ire for this blog. Though I've pretty much banished him from my TV since the debut of The Rachel Maddow Show (which airs at the same time as Hannity & Colmes), I've seen and heard enough of him the last few months to remind myself how awful he is.

Hannity is different from many of the other arch-right-wing blowhards. Rush Limbaugh seems smart enough to know that the crap he shovels is just that. He knows exactly what he's doing. Michael Weiner Savage is certifiably insane, and may not be responsible for what he spews. But Hannity seems just dumb enough to actually be sincere when lying. He's rather a conservative savant, with the singular talent to rattle off the same statistics on his fingers, over and over. The talking points don't have to be true, Hannity believes they are, and that's enough.

If liberal talker Randi Rhodes is to be believed (and I do believe her), Hannity is fed his points by Mark Levin, "the great one" as Hannity has dubbed him, a somewhat less famous right-wing talker. Levin is definitely smart enough to know he's making stuff up--and almost as nuts as Weiner--but I'm pretty sure Hannity believes every word he says. And he's making a great living doing it.

Now that Alan Colmes is leaving the show, and Hannity will just be Hannity, I wonder if his luster will fade. Repetition works on radio, but "Just Hannity" is going to very quickly become tedious.

[Excerpt]

Sean Hannity: Media Matters' 2008 Misinformer of the Year

As Media Matters for America has demonstrated time and again, Fox News' Sean Hannity has been a prolific and influential purveyor of conservative misinformation. But never has he so enthusiastically applied his talents for spreading misinformation as he did to the 2008 presidential race, focusing his energies primarily on President-elect Barack Obama. Day after day, Hannity devoted his two Fox News shows and his three-hour ABC Radio Networks program to "demonizing" the Democratic presidential candidates, starkly explaining in August: "That's my job. ... I led the 'Stop Hillary Express.' By the way, now it's the 'Stop Obama Express. . .'"

Read more at: MediaMatters