‘Sean?’

August 25, 2006

I’ve made a conscious effort to ignore Ann [tag]Coulter[/tag] more, but if you haven’t seen her appearance last night on Hannity & Colmes, you missed a real gem. C&L and TP have the video.

Sitting in for Alan [tag]Colmes[/tag] was guest host Kirsten Powers who did an exemplary job, not only on the substance, but in causing Coulter to effectively lose it on the air.

Towards the end of a longer segment, Powers asked Coulter about catching Osama [tag]bin Laden[/tag]. Coulter responded, “[A]s for catching Usama, it’s [tag]irrelevant[/tag]. Things are going swimmingly in Afghanistan…. I mean, it’s like a fading movie star now.”

Of course, things aren’t going “swimmingly” in Afghanistan. Not only is the Taliban expanding its influence, a senior British military commander last month described “the situation is close to anarchy,” and warned western forces were “running out of time” to meet expectations Afghanis have for their security.

As for Coulter, Powers turned her attention to the other guest, Democratic strategist Michael Brown, which led Coulter to throw something of an on-air fit. John Amato mockingly paraphrased Coulter saying, “Sean, help me–Sean, where are you? Sean, these mean people are talking. I can’t get my 10,000 words of liberal hate speech in. I’m melting.”

Looking over the transcript, that’s only a slight exaggeration.

Here it is, in its entirety. Pay particular attention to [tag]Hannity[/tag] when he jumps in.

POWERS: Ann, let’s talk about let’s talk Usama bin Laden. How about let’s kill Usama bin Laden? How about let’s find Usama bin Laden? You’re talking about how, you know, Democrats don’t want to do things on terrorism, which I actually will in a second go ahead and list the things they want to do, but how about the fact we invaded Iraq, when, you know, over in Afghanistan everything was falling apart? And the fact that we let Usama bin Laden get away, and the president said he doesn’t even think about him, he doesn’t care about him.

BROWN: What happened to “mission accomplished”?

POWERS: What about that?

COULTER: I look forward to hearing that list.

POWERS: OK, you will in a second.

COULTER: But as for catching Usama, it’s irrelevant. Things are going swimmingly in Afghanistan.

POWERS: No, they’re not.

COULTER: I mean, it’s like a fading movie star now.

BROWN: “Swimmingly”?

POWERS: Things in Afghanistan are going horribly. But this is interesting, Usama bin Laden is irrelevant. The person, the mastermind behind the Al Qaeda attacks on the United States is completely irrelevant. Is that what you’re saying?

COULTER: Right, it was handed to Bill Clinton twice.

POWERS: Oh, it’s Bill Clinton’s fault.

COULTER: And Bill Clinton said no…

POWERS: Yes, because I think that actually George Bush was president in 2001.

COULTER: I know you’re trying to imitate Alan Colmes, but at some point he does let me answer.

POWERS: Yes, OK. Let’s go — Michael, why don’t we talk about the things that the…

COULTER: OK, well, good night! It was nice being here.

(CROSSTALK)

POWERS: … Democrats actually arguing about the fact that all of the…

COULTER: Sean?

POWERS: … Republicans have voted against all the things the…

COULTER: I think I can leave.

POWERS: … Democrats have brought up, like increasing funding for border security, increasing funding for port security…

COULTER: I think I can leave now.

POWERS: … increasing funding for airline security. I mean, isn’t that true, Michael?

HANNITY: Hang on, Ann.

BROWN: Real homeland security starts at home. And as long as the Republicans continue to cut the budget relative to homeland security, these kind of things are going to continue. You’re exactly right with your question. That’s why most of the — remember, all of these things are getting cut and slashed to be able to pay for the Iraqi war. We’re forgetting about the war on terror.

And let’s keep in mind: The war on terror is just not just a foreign war. We have homeland folks here that want to cause our government harm, too. We have to watch out for the Timothy McVeighs of the world, as well as folks in different parts of the world. So let’s keep that in mind. This is not one kind of person we’re fighting against.

HANNITY: We’ve got to run.

I can only hope [tag]Fox News[/tag] keeps [tag]Kirsten Powers[/tag] around. Considering she wouldn’t let Coulter get a word in edgewise, FNC will probably ban her for life.

When I saw the title my first thought was “How does he know I read this?”

What ego?

  • Coulter says Osama is “like a fading movie star”, so catching him or killing him is “irrelevant”.

    Meanwhile, back in reality…

    Poll: Most think bin Laden planning another U.S. attack

    (CNN) — As the five-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, nearly three-fourths of those responding to a CNN poll said they believe Osama bin Laden is planning another significant attack against the United States…

    So a huge majority of Americans think the “fading movie star” is plotting a major terrorist attack, but Ann Coulter says catching or killing him is “irrelevant”

    THAT ought to get her kicked off the air. But where would she get such an idea? MAYBE FROM BUSH?…

    “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”
    – G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

    “I am truly not that concerned about him.”
    – G.W. Bush, repsonding to a question about bin Laden’s whereabouts,
    3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)

  • I would have loved to been behind the scenes. Sounds like Annie was going to blow a head valve off screen.

    Is there any real lib who takes Alan Colmes seriously? From the way he looks to the way he debates, he reminds me of a turtle.

    Good for Powers to get to Annie.

    .

  • Coulter does do well at all when there’s anyone present other than her and a sympathetic interviewer. I still remember seeing her involved in a debate about some constitutional issue a few years back. She was on the “conservative” side with Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ and David Limbaugh (Rush’s brother), and I can’t remember who the three “liberals” were (maybe Nadine Strosser of the ACLU was one). Coulter was completely unable to make any substantive points, and it was clear that she was far outclassed intellectually by all five of the other people present. If she had the capacity to be embarrassed she would have slunk off into obscurity after that performance.

  • COULTER: I think I can leave now.

    Please do. And don’t come back. And don’t let the door break your delicate ass bones on the way out. Hmmm, I think Anne’s testicles must’ve re-ascended or something; she’s not even funny anymore.

  • Osama bin Laden wasn’t Boy George II’s priority on 9/12/2001. He rushes back to the White House and the first thing he does is brace Richard Clarke and demand to know how Saddam Hussein was involved in the attack. Clarke informs him to his face that this was al Qaeda, and Boy George II persists on ‘knowing how Saddam was involved’. For good Bushites, that’s code for ‘make me the evidence I need to blame Saddam’. Of course, Clarke was a hold-over from previous administrations and thus not a ‘good Bushite’.

    Coulter is just a shril bitch and should not be given air time by any media outfit. That Faux News does so is proof of their Un-American activities.

  • I saw this and I loved it. Coulter is only effective in a vacuum, as KC pointed out, so of course she was looking around wildly for Hannity when the tide turned against her.

    And where the heck did Hannity go, for crying out loud? One second he was trying to shout down Michael Brown (who to his credit just kept talking and refused to be distracted by Hannity’s trademark rudeness), and the next second he had vanished without a trace leaving Coulter Witch twisting in the wind.

    Guess he doesn’t have the stomach for it when the going gets tough, either.

  • Now I sort of wish Michael Brown’s candidacy for DC mayor were doing a little better. He hasn’t been able to break out of single-digit percentages.

  • What is interesting, and when I ponder it, a bit disturbing, is that the pendulum seems to have begun swinging the other way. In other words, are the cable channels in the process of leaning toward the Democrats. At first blush, this would seem good. It certainly would be good if what happened was that they returned to where they belong, the disinterested center. What I fear is that we’ll end up with the same situation we’ve had only with the Democratic pundits in the ascendancy. That would be terrible. What the country needs, what every democracy needs is real debate. Now, I understand that participation in that debate will always be limited–many members of the nation, on both sides, have little interest in genuinely engaging the issues. But what has happened in the media over the last couple decades is that one side of the debate has been amplified, and the other dialed down.

    Doesn’t matter much which side gets the advantage if it ruins the process.

    Be that as it may, it certainly was tonic to see Coulter in a situation where she couldn’t bully anyone. Like all bullies, she was frightened because someone had changed the script and not informed her.

  • Would it make me a mysoginist if I pointed out the fact that Kirsten Powers is smokin’ hot? Not that being pretty makes one a better journalist or anything … just sayin’.

    On a more serious note, carwinrpc bring up a good point. For me, the media has failed to do its job for years. What they’re supposed to do is:

    1. Do some basic research on the issues they report.
    2. Separate fact from fiction
    3. Share the facts
    4. Call BS when some pundit/guest/official (gov’t or otherwise) puts forth spin, not fact.

    If they do those things, they’ll be neither liberal nor conservative — they’ll just be honest. And that’s what we need.

  • All this is interesting but what I want to know is why is anyone watching Fox News in the first place. It’s propaganda and should be boycotted. Fair and balanced?

  • The media corporations are set up to do one thing: make buckets of money. that’s all they care about.

    Research costs money. Separating fact from fiction makes sponsors nervous.

    Putting pundits on camera and letting them argue costs very little money. The rightwingers probably do it for free, getting paid by other sources.

    Until we have an informed electorate which demands the reimposition of limits upon media conglomeration, we will have cheap mudslinging events posing as news.

  • Carwinrpc, the cable channels have a long way to go before they’re leaning toward the Democrats. I seriously doubt we’ll ever have to worry about that, considering the politics of their corporate owners.

  • What I fear is that we’ll end up with the same situation we’ve had only with the Democratic pundits in the ascendancy.

    If it ever happens we can worry about it then.

    In reality, the right has a lock on a huge swath of the media landscape and will continue to absent either reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine or some sort of legally mandated divestiture. Scaife/Coors/Olin-funded wingnut training camps are humming, putting out a steady stream of new wingnut pundit-cadets, and a gravy train of wingnut welfare sustains them as they move up the chain into prepared slots of the rightwing noise machine. Worrying that scary lefty pundits will overwhelm the media environment is like worrying that hordes of siberian tigers will overrun downtown NYC; it’ll never happen. Worry about something more realistic.

  • If Sean Hannity sowed his foul seed in Ann Coulter, assuming she/he has the proper plumbing, would the resultant offspring be the anti-Christ signaling the end for all mankind?

  • Wow, Hannity didn’t step over anyone? That’s a first.
    And it took Ann only three sentences before she played the Clinton card.

    BTW, we talk about Godwin’s Law quite a bit here. I was wondering, is there a law or at least a theory that applies to any conservative argument that automatically blames Clinton for all the country’s problems?

    Also, of the few times I can stand H&C, I notice that whenever a liberal/Dem guest gets the best of Hannity’s argument, it’s suddenly commercial time, or there’s all of a sudden a “Fox News Alert” on some mundane tidbit.

  • Coulter is a bully. News media types and a goodly number of Democratic talking heads don’t know how to handle her and her bullying, Kirsten did and Coulter come out looking as stupid/foolish/delusional as she is. I doubt others will see this and learn some lessons, that seems to be too much to ask, but it is nice to see someone get what they deserve at least once.

  • BTW, we talk about Godwin’s Law quite a bit here. I was wondering, is there a law or at least a theory that applies to any conservative argument that automatically blames Clinton for all the country’s problems? -2Manchu

    We just call that ‘Consevatism.’ There’s no known cure.

  • It’s interesting that the comments veered off in the direction of the media’s responsibility to be impartial, and its total disavowal of responsibility for upholding it. The purpose of a media outlet, electronic or paper, is to educate and inform the public. Real news reporting is devoid of opinion or spin, it simply reports the facts that can be verified, and permits the viewer or reader to interpret those facts within their frame of reference.

    At some point, media seized the option of the frame of reference, and began to insert its own. This has resulted in “Talk TV” shows which inevitably devolve into something like “Jerry Springer”; homosexual grandmothers who are sleeping with their granddaughters’ boyfriends, punching each other out on the floor of the studio in front of a screaming, orgiastic audience. That’s not news, it’s not policy, and it isn’t even entertainment.

    On the print side, media bias has resulted in papers that are “safe” liberal or conservative forums – the reader is satisfied God is in his heaven, that He remains a conservative or a liberal, and all’s well with the world. Opposing viewpoints are seldom presented, and then only so they can be subjected to the Orwellian two minutes hate. Conservatives seldom read “Liberal” papers, and vice-versa.

    I highly recommend A.J. Cronin’s, “The Northern Light” for a refresher on what a newspaper is still supposed to be, and the lengths to which people with an agenda will go to bend it to their will, or wipe it out. Television wasn’t the far-flung empire in A.J. Cronin’s day that it is now, but the principle is the same.

    If all you have left when the dust settles is your integrity, and the knowledge you’re nobody’s whore, you’ve come out of it about as well as can be expected.

    Oh; and Anne Coulter is a twisted wreck of a human being, whose malice will one day cause her to simply burn up in an act of spontaneous human combustion , leaving nothing behind but the acrid odor of ozone.

  • Coulter is a limelight hog. Tthe light away from her; let a conversation take place that makes her an irrelevant cog in the overall machine of discussion, and she breaks down and “rusts on the spot.” What Powers did to that media-hog is the key to the final, irreversible destruction of Ann Coulter—and all her little act-alike clones. Ic could, if played heavily enough, even bring down the Tower of Faux—Hannity, O’Reilly, and all of them. Way to go, Ann—you just gave the free-thinking world the weapon it needed to end your little “I-know-best” charade….

  • The Coulter event was priceless but the part that was driving me absolutely crazy was Hannity continuing to talk over Brown.

    Good on Brown for keeping his cool and not letting Hannity trip him up. Someone asked where Hannity was during the Coulter bit? I think he was out in the parking lot kicking a puppy because he had nowhere else to take out his rage.

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