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Hannity Compares Democrats to bin Laden

By Leslie on September 9, 2007 at 6:13 PM in Current Affairs

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Via Newshounds:

Perhaps at a loss as to how to spin the new video of Osama Bin Laden in favor of President Bush, Sean Hannity decided he’d use it to attack his fellow Americans. The self-styled “Great American” proved just what kind of patriot and freedom lover he truly is by twice likening Democrats to Osama Bin Laden.

Think Progress notes here and here that the corporate media continues to equate terrorism with Democrats and progressive bloggers, slandering millions of Americans as traitors:

Last night on PBS’ The NewsHour, New York Times columnist David Brooks compared 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden’s latest video message to “lefty blogs,” saying the al Qaeda head is like “one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom of the page.” 

Via Salon’s Glenn Greenwald:

The extent to which Osama bin Laden is able to scare right-wing Bush followers simply by producing a video is hard to overstate. The minute it was reported that he would speak, the reaction was as predictable as it is sad.

Jim Henley examines the dynamic underlying this simultaneous fear and glorification of bin Laden by Bush followers. It should be noted that many of them are truly scared by bin Laden, while others gleefully and cynically exploit what they believe — and what Hillary Clinton bizarrely believes — are the political benefits to Republicans from invoking his Scary Image.

  • mudkitty

    Mudkitty compares Hannity to Bin Laden.

  • Blunt Force Trauma

    Oh, the banality of it all. I’m going to get all ‘school yard’ here and advocate that Hannity and the rest of the FOX cabal that fearmonger and warmonger really are in dire need of a good dick punch!

  • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

    Glad you mentioned David Brooks. It’s time for Larry to get on his back again. He has a stinking air of superiority about him that my olfactory senses can’t stand.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

      As Booman says, “I’m beyond taking bin-Laden tapes at face value. I simply suspend belief when I see these things. They always show up at opportune times (like a couple days before the ’04 election, or before a vote on war spending) and they always say exactly what Dick Cheney wants them to say. And then tools like Brooks go out and say that bin-Laden sounds just like a Democrat.”

      If you listen to the Hannity/Colmes video, however, Colmes points out that bin Laden also sounds like the GOP when he argues against the separation of church and state. Here is a English transcript of bin Laden’s tape.

      Fighting al Qaeda isn’t a partisan issue. Yet it’s perpetually presented as one by these so-called pundits to the benefit of Republicans. How does it benefit Republicans that Bush could care less about finding bin laden?!

  • http://joyhollywood.blogspot.com Connie L

    David Brooks of the NYTimes op-ed is a regular on Fridays political comment part of The Newshour with host Jim Lehrer and the Democratic talking head Mark Shields and he said Bin Laden sounded like the lefty bloggers. Hannity must have gotten the same note that Brooks got from the war room set up at the Pentagon to boast the surge.

  • mudkitty

    They all get the same talking points from Norquist.

  • http://www.food4humanity.org hoosierhoops

    May I point out here…
    If we hadn’t have invaded Iraq..OBL would be dead right now and this conversation moot.
    This whole thing after 9-11 was about Bin Laden and he is still spouting off his mouth.

  • GR3

    And it’s not even an election year…
    Remember when the Republican Party had moderates? Now it’s okay to be an extremist and question your political opponents patriotism 24/7. Did FDR have PR flacks call the Republicans nazi sympathizers? Did Woodrow Wilson accuse his opponents of having royalist tendencies?
    If present day Democrats don’t want to be called names, they should resign. The fear and smear garbage has worked too long and too well. The media will report the emotional reactions to it much more heavily than any facts or logical retorts.
    Most Americans are really turned off by the crap. I’d focus attention on the enormous sums spent, stolen, and generally wasted by Bushes war. There was a backlash in the post WWI period to armament manufacturers and history could repeat itself.
    We are NOT safer, more secure, or better off believing the lies and following our unitary executive over a Middle Eastern cliff.

    • rugger9

      A great deal of that particular problem lies with Karl Rove. His policies and campaigns were designed (and the Club for Growth enforced with bare knuckles) to ensure a Congress totally dependent upon him. That’s why there was never any oversight all of those years. Karl would cut off the $$$ if anyone tried to go anywhere but in lockstep to the WH. So the instinct for spineless self-preservation won out in the GOP [kind of like girly-men, though we aren't sure where Coulter fits in that description]. There’s still enough left to block meaningful change under filibuster rules. The D’s need more of the all-nighters every time the R’s want to filibuster to remind everyone who are the obstacles here.

  • Delia

    Hannity get typed as a winger, but Brooks gets away with presenting himself as a sane, moderate conservative because he has a presence at the NYT and appears on the NewsHour. So the insane talking points get sanitized and mainstreamed and funneled into polite discourse by oh-so-mild-mannered Mr. Brooks. And the express train to hell continues to pick up speed.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      Exactly, Delia. And that train is fueled by Brooks’s constant, smarmy snark.

  • mudkitty

    With Bin Laden alive Bush still has the excuse to go after the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11…in perpetuity.

    • rugger9

      Exactly why he called off the dogs at Tora Bora, and less than 6 months after the “bullhorn moment” of 9/17/01, on 3/13/02, he didn’t ‘care where OBL was or even spent that much time on him’ [paraphrasing]. The press had him repeat the statement that day to be sure he meant it, and W did. I saw it on the WH website a couple of months ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were scrubbed by now.

  • raoul

    There is no cesspool that those neonazicons will not jump into in order to attack anyone who doesn’t march lockstep with them. Therefore, I pay no attention to any nonsense they spout. They are utterly despicable and beyond redemption.

  • Cee

    We need to ask the Rita Katz and SITE who I contend produced the video about this

    Osama Bin Laden’s widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

    http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/9/9/61032/95401

    Even Fox news said this wasn’t found on any Islamic websites. SITE was the source.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

      Cee,
      You believe that the people who gave us the tape may be misleading us with a deliberate, manufactured deception? Why would you think that? The same people who gave us the tape say it’s genuine, you know. :)

      It’s truly remarkable that alleged 9/11 mastermind bin Laden is as Chris Floyd says, “….still out there, plotting terror on the Homeland, directing the Iraqi insurgency, managing the Democratic Party (well, somebody has to!), and having a high old time chewing the fat with his nice Jewish friend Noam Chomsky.”

      Despite all the White House hype about al Qaeda in Iraq, bin Laden isn’t on the radar. That’s why Bush’s homeland security advisor Fran Townsend feels confident questioning bin Laden’s manhood by calling him “impotent.” Townsend knows al Qaeda in Iraq doesn’t pose a threat to our troops. Bring it on!

      • Cee

        I’m adjusting my tin hat before I answer. HELL YA!!

        It works too :D

        The belief that a tin-foil hat can significantly reduce the intensity of incident RF radiation on the wearer’s brain is not completely without a basis in scientific fact. A well constructed tin-foil enclosure would approximate a Faraday cage, reducing the amount of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation entering from outside. A common high school physics demonstration involves placing an AM radio on tinfoil, and then covering the radio with a metal bucket. This leads to a noticeable reduction in signal strength. The efficiency of such an enclosure in blocking such radiation depends on the thickness of the tin-foil, as dictated by the skin depth, the distance the radiation can propagate in a particular non-ideal conductor. For half-millimeter-thick tin-foil, radiation above about 20 kHz (i.e., including both AM and FM bands) would be partially blocked.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin-foil_hat

        • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

          Exactly Cee, that’s why my tin foil deflector beanie is always made of double-layered Reynolds Wrap.

          • Montag

            Well, Reynolds Wrap IS the gold standard for aluminum foil–even paranoids prefer best to second-best. Plus, they know that you can NEVER be too careful with this sort of thing!

  • Todd

    Sean Hannity is a sick sick fuck. His little snipe at the end about Sudan offering him on a silver platter? Please. So we should have given sanctuary to a terrorist? Oh yeah, Repubs would have supported Pres. Clinton on that; they would have said, yes, please, let’s give sanctuary to a well-known terrorist supporter and hater of America. Yes, that’s exactly what they would have done.

    And Andy Card really must be some character from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He looks so reasonable. Then he opens his mouth and just spews complete bullshit. And you know how serious a pundit alan colmes is by the fact that Hannity doesn’t feel the need to try and counter him. He knows alan will come home to Sean’s apron at the end of the day and bury his head in his mommy’s apron. No need to try and undercut colmes’ points. Uggh. I need a shower after all that.

  • Detroit Sam

    What I find hard to understand is why the Democrats in Congress or any of the Democratic presidential candidates don’t call these reich-wingers out.

    What is the problem with them?

  • Montag

    I was listening to Bill O’Reilly’s radio show once while he was “on assignment.” The substitute host was a LOCAL Rightwingnut radio host from Philadelphia. The guy became incensed because he disagreed with one of the Republican Talking Points that had been e-mailed to him that morning. And he came right out and admitted it–”The Republican Party e-mails me Talking Points every morning.” What’s interesting about this is that the guy is a local host, not syndicated like O’Reilly, etc. So they’re leaving no stone unturned with their propaganda.

    Reminds me of when Clinton’s HHS Secretary Donna Shalala said in a TV interview: “We didn’t send our best and brightest to Vietnam, we sent kids from working class neighborhoods like mine.” Well the Rightwingnut media had a hissy fit over the first half of her statement and ignored the second half–obviously because it hadn’t been included in their e-mailed Talking Points that morning. When they were told about the second half they dropped the issue like a hot rock–except for Rush Limbaugh, who STILL insisted that it was an insult to our Servicemen!

    • Cee

      Montag,

      Was the host named Smerconish? If so, he’s gone off the reservation.

      • Montag

        Cee,
        Possibly, I just remember that he was “a Polish guy from Philly,” but my thoughts exactly. I remembered that funny bit in the spy satire, “Top Secret,” where the head of the Secret Police receives a memo that an American Spy has just entered the country. So he calmly inks a rubber stamp and applies it to the memo: “FIND HIM AND KILL HIM”–like it happens so often that he needs a rubber stamp for the order! I could imagine a Republican Party apparatchik listening to this idiot babbling out a secret like that and calmly reaching for his Rubber Stamp of Doom!

  • Shirin

    This is for the person who tried to impersonate me earlier today:

    “On the eve of critical testimony to Congress by Gen. David Petraeus, most Americans are skeptical of what he will say and support setting a timetable to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq regardless of the military situation there.

    A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday and Saturday finds that a White House push to spotlight progress in Iraq…hasn’t fundamentally changed attitudes toward the war.

    “a majority calls the invasion a mistake and predicts the war will be lost.

    A record 60% say the United States should set a timetable to withdraw forces “and stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq.”

    Asked about Petraeus’ testimony, 53% of those surveyed say the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq will deliver “a biased report that reflects what the Bush administration wants the public to believe.”

  • readerOfTeaLeaves

    Just to clarify — Did Andrew Card’s cover letter for that Fox News job include the line: Does Not Speak Arabic, but Can Harrass Surgical Patients; Therefore, Am Fully Qualified to Explain Bin Laden.

    Fox is losing viewers, the markets are behaving oddly, the US is in debt to China (and heaven only knows who else), the mortgage mess is causing significant ‘economic disruptions’, the price of oil is still high, and Russia is evidently a criminal enterprise that is currently using ‘energy’ to put Europe over a barrel.

    With all these scary things going on in the world, Fox News offers up the following: flip out about Bin Laden. And if that doesn’t work, then Blame Bill Clinton. Blame Al Gore. Blame George Soros… Blame ‘lefty’ bloggers… The boogymen… they’re — they’re everywhere!

    Total. Waste. Of. Time.

  • lidia

    “and Russia is evidently a criminal enterprise that is currently using ‘energy’ to put Europe over a barrel”

    Sure, only USA has right to “use energy” to put Europe (Japan, China)over a barrel :)

    Of course, when drunk Elzin sold Russia for peanuts, it was OK and not a “criminal enterprise”

    • http://deleted readerOfTeaLeaves

      lidia, I follow your points; my comment was already far too long. But I agree that pots should avoid calling kettles ‘black’ ;-)

  • Truth Pundit

    It is the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

    The democrats HATE AMERICA.

    They are on the side of Islamists.

    The democrats want the war to be a FAILURE.
    The last thing they want is any form of success for America.

    The Democrats are Nazi’s and promote this through political correctness.

    It is more of an offence to be a racist than a murderer.

    “Freedom of expression is the first and last bastion of Liberty”

    • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

      Speaking of tin foil deflector beanies…you appear to have lost yours Truth Pundit.

      • Montag

        Leslie,
        You see what happens when you use an inferior aluminum foil instead of Reynolds Wrap? Oh sure, it LOOKS the same, but can you afford to find out that it doesn’t PROTECT the same? Let’s all profit from Truth Pundit’s sad example and for God’s sake spend the few extra pennies for the real thing!

  • graywolf

    Just how different is UBL’s latest pronouncement from the Dem Cong, or this blog for that matter?

    Not that much.

    You people celebrating today (9/11)?

  • Centrocitta

    Have you all heard Bin Laden’s new tape today? At the end he mentions Zarqawi. This proves the entire Bin Laden saga is a bonifide scam.

  • Shirin

    Looks like that idiot is pretending to be me again. What a moron!