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Mediamatters.Org - On the August 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity
said to Fox News contributor Geraldine Ferraro: "[Y]ou've been one
of the Clinton supporters that have been very vocal, very unhappy about the way
[Sen. Barack] Obama treated [Sen. Hillary] Clinton." Ferraro responded:
"And the media treated Clinton."
Hannity said: "No, I think I was more fair to the Clintons." Hannity did not explain what he meant by "fair," but during the Democratic presidential primaries, Hannity asserted:
"I'm leading the Stop Hillary Express." According to a July
16 American Spectator piece by
Robert Stacy McCain, "[F]or months, Hannity opened his daily radio show
by welcoming his 12 million listeners aboard the 'Stop Hillary
Express.' "
Also:
On the July 22, 2007,
edition of Fox News' Hannity's America,
teasing a segment on "the mysterious death of [former deputy White House
counsel] Vince Foster," Hannity asked: "Did a
close friend of Hillary Clinton commit suicide, or was it a massive
cover-up?" During the segment, Hannity asserted that on July 20, 1993:
"Vince Foster got in his car and drove to Fort Marcy Park in Virginia. And he
supposedly walked through the woods, and depending on which version of the
story you believe, he took his own life." Hannity billed this segment as
"one of the darkest and most mysterious" of "The Clinton
Chapters," a regular series on Hannity's
America whose
assertions Media Matters for America
has repeatedly debunked. A week earlier,
Hannity baselessly asserted on Hannity's
America that "there are still many chapters remaining open from
her [Hillary Clinton's] time
at the Rose Law Firm. Take Whitewater and the death of Vince Foster." As Media Matters documented, Foster's death
was conclusively determined by several investigations to have been a suicide.
On the December 2, 2007, edition of Hannity's
America, Hannity asserted:
"[T]onight, we travel back in time to the early 70's, and based on
reporting from New York Sun
reporter Josh Gerstein, we take a rare look at Hillary Clinton's affiliation
with a group of radicals more than three decades ago." Hannity was
referring to Clinton's
time as a law clerk for the then-California law firm Treuhaft, Walker, and
Burnstein in the early 1970s. However, during the following segment, which was
supposedly "based on reporting from" Gerstein, Hannity omitted key
points from Gerstein's own reporting. Specifically, Hannity reported that Jessica Mitford, who
was married to Robert Treuhaft, one of the partners at the firm, tried to get
the state of Arkansas to pardon Arkansas prison escapee
James Dean Walker after Bill Clinton became governor of the state. But Hannity
did not report that, according to Gerstein, Clinton rebuffed the request. Further,
Hannity questioned whether Clinton had "sympathy with the communist
Party" in deciding to clerk at the firm but did not note Gerstein's report
quoting one of the firm's partners, who said Clinton was "much more of a
classic liberal than the rest of us."
On the November 13, 2007, edition of Hannity
& Colmes, co-host Hannity said: "All
year long, publications like The New York
Times, Washington Post,
Time, and Newsweek have all reported what they call
[Republican presidential candidate] Rudy Giuliani's temper. Well, the
subjectiveness aside, couldn't the same questions be asked about Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton?" Hannity then asked Fox News contributor Kirsten
Powers and Sirius Satellite Radio host Andrew Wilkow whether Clinton has "the temperament to be
president." Powers responded: "I think she does. I think she has a
temper, as do many politicians. And Rudy Giuliani, your favorite,
has a temper, as ... do many people." Powers later asserted: "I think
you've got to keep it in the context of what she does ... and who she is. And
I'm just telling you -- first of all, I do have to say that while there are
people who say that she has a bad temper, she had almost no turnover on her
staff in the White House, so that says something." Hannity responded,
" '[C]ause they were scared to probably leave," to which Powers
replied, "No, I know a lot of them and they like her."
On the July 1, 2007,
edition of Hannity's America,
Hannity played
a clip from a May 29 speech
by Clinton -- in which she
said it is time for America "to reject the idea of an on-your-own society
and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity" -- and
added, "This isn't the first time Hillary has made her socialist views and
intentions so apparent." Hannity also characterized the speech as Clinton "blast[ing]
the free market." In fact, Clinton
said in the same speech that "there is no greater force for economic
growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules
that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to
succeed."
On the June 17, 2007,
edition of Hannity's America,
Hannity cropped
a December 2003 speech by Clinton
before the Council on Foreign Relations to accuse her of "hypocrisy."
Hannity claimed that after demonstrating support for the war in Iraq and voting to authorize
the use of military force, Clinton "quickly changed beats" after
opposition to the war grew and claimed that, in June 2006, "[a]lmost out
of nowhere," Clinton "started to blame the president for misleading
Congress." In making the claim, Hannity quoted portions of Clinton's December 2003 speech, but not
passages in which she criticized the Bush administration's use of that
authority. Moreover, as Media Matters has noted,
Clinton accused Bush of misusing the authority given him in the Authorization for Use of
Military Force Against Iraq long before the June 2006 speech.
After playing a clip of Clinton stating, "If anybody tells you there is no
vast right-wing conspiracy, tell them that New Hampshire has proven it in court. We
have the -- we have the facts, and we're going to make that a crime," on the March 13,
2007, edition of Hannity & Colmes,
Hannity immediately denounced her
comments as "hate speech." Yet Hannity did not explain that Clinton
was referring to felony
convictions of a Republican National Committee regional political
director, a GOP operative, and a former
executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party
stemming from a 2002 phone-jamming scandal
that sought to immobilize Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts and, according to
a May 17, 2006, Washington Post article,
"helped John E. Sununu [R-NH] win his Senate seat by 51 to 47 percent, a
19,151-vote margin."
On the January 3, 2007,
edition of Hannity & Colmes,
Hannity insinuated
that the Clinton campaign was behind a "leak[]" to The Washington Post
about Obama's drug use, when
in fact the Post article
Hannity was citing was about Obama's admitting to having used cocaine in his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My
Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Crown).
From the August 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
HANNITY: All right. That's -- you've
been one of the Clinton supporters that have
been very vocal, very unhappy about the way Obama treated Clinton. Who are you voting for?
FERRARO: And the media treated Clinton.
HANNITY: No, I think I was more fair
to the Clintons.
FERRARO: I know. I know. It's
amazing how many people have said, "We -- we're now watching Fox because
they're fair and balanced." But
it is just amazing.
HANNITY: Well, what do you mean
amazing? We've always -- I've always had him --
FERRARO: It's amazing to me.
HANNITY: [pointing to co-host Alan Colmes] --
burning me here.
COLMES: Don't point.
Media Matters - Sean Hannity: "I think I was more fair to the Clintons" {...} On Hannity & Colmes , Sean Hannity said to Fox News contributor Geraldine Ferraro: "[Y]ou've been one of the Clinton supporters that have been very vocal, very unhappy about the way [Sen. Barack] Obama treated [Sen. Hillary] Clinton." Ferraro responded: "And the media treated Clinton." Hannity said: "No, I think I was more fair to the Clintons." In fact, during the Democratic presidential primaries, Hannity asserted: "I'm leading the Stop Hillary Express." Hannity also reportedly referred to his nationally syndicated radio program as "The Stop Hillary Express" during the time and has repeatedly advanced smears of the Clintons. {...} Published: August 26, 2008, 12:34 am - Indexed: August 26, 2008, 9:28 pm - Page Size: 27KB |