Monday, November 03, 2008

Newsflash: Sean Hannity Lies!

Here's a surprise - Sean Hannity lies.

One of the most difficult things about listening to Sean Hannity is that he lies, fairly often.  I have never blogged about it before because I usually hear the lie in the car or when I'm not near a computer, so I can't "prove" it happened.

Tonight, I am happy to say I can.

On tonight's Hannity & Colmes, Sean Hannity wanted to talk about comments made by Barack Obama back in January regarding energy policy and, in particular, coal.  In the interview, Obama says: "If somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

What Sean Hannity says, over, and over, and over tonight, is that Barack Obama said "if somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it's just that we will bankrupt them." (Emphasis added).

In a bizarre display of audacity (or desperation), Hannity repeated his knowing lie immediately after playing the clip of Obama's comment.  What, does he think nobody listened to the Obama clip?  Earlier in the program, Hannity kept holding up a copy of what he claimed was the Obama quote - "I've got it right here!" he yells.  Except he doesn't, because certainly if he did, he would be able to differentiate betweent he words "it" and "we."


So I guess there is a potential second option from calling Hannity a liar.  I guess you could blame it on illiteracy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your comment belies your stupidity. Who cares?--"we" or "it" both essentially refer to the SAME thing. Very clearly to anyone with a modicum of intelligence, Obama was referring to NEW legislation that would be cost prohibitive to energy producers. My point is that it is irrelevant to say that Obama said "it" in reference to legislation newly enacted while Hannity said "we" in reference to the people who enacted that legislation. When your electricity bill is $500-$600 per month, I would laugh and say that you got what you deserved except that I will unfortunately get what YOU deserve too.

Martin said...

Gee, "your comment belies your stupidy." Clearly, we're dealing with a mental giant here. Everybody duck.

I am unclear in what langauage "we" and "it" could ever mean the same thing, as one is self-descriptive and the other is third-party descriptive. But I guess really smart folks like Mr. Anonymous (who's so proud of himself that he's afraid to leave a name) don't really worry about things like specificity, meaning, language comprehension and, in particular, lying.

Because apparently lying is okay if the end result means what you want it to.

In fact, "we" will bankrupt you is not remotely similar, in any context, as "it" will bankrupt you when the "it" being refered to is the cost inherent in building new coal plants. Moreso when you incorporate the cost of carbon emission controls and penalties. That's one of the myths of "clean coal," that you can build a coal plant and effectively eliminate the emissions. You can, but at such a cost that you'll go bankrupt.

Anyhow, I suspect Mr. Anonymous lacks the ability to grasp this, what with his ears ringing from living the kool-aid-drinking right-wing wacko echo chamber.

Probably believes the government caused 9/11 and that Obama was born in Kenya.