Betty Freauf -- Fair & Balanced Sean Hannity Melts Down

FAIR AND BALANCED SEAN HANNITY MELTS DOWN

By Betty Freauf

October 24, 2007

NewsWithViews.com

I watched the Florida GOP debate the evening of October 21, 2007. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when the first poll results showed Ron Paul leading the presidential pack and I heard the GOP's lapdog Sean Hannity in the background saying the Ron Paul folks were �stacking the deck.� I worried he might turn into an Ellen Degeneres like-melt down like she did on her TV show over a pooch. His complaining was also reminiscent of Hillary Clinton always blaming the right-wingers for her husband�s problems.

A person had to have a cell phone to vote. I wonder how many older people who can still remember what America used to be like, watching the debate and who would probably favor Ron Paul don�t have cell phones and couldn�t vote so claiming the Ron Paul supporters were �stacking the deck� was nonsense on Sean�s part. By the time he and Colmes �stacked the deck� and finally put Ron Paul on the air near the end when many listeners probably had turned them off, he had composed himself and seemed gracious on the outside to Ron but I�m sure he was steaming on the inside and Ron was enjoying every minute of Sean�s discomfort. The deck was also �stacked� during the question and answer debate. The top tier candidates got the most time, as usual, but Paul made points given the few minutes he was allowed and I was appalled the obviously �stacked� GOP audience who favored the top tier candidates booed him on two occasions and Ron Paul said if he�d been given 2,000 tickets, the audience would have been �stacked� differently.

And then there was the 23-member pre-debate focus group. One member with a Sean Hannity mentality called Ron Paul �certifiably insane.� The few focus group members allowed to speak said they wanted someone with a backbone. They wanted someone to stand up and take charge. He was right under their noses but I don�t recall anyone mentioned Ron Paul; however, if I had been the one to hand out 23-tickets to �undecided� GOP voters to appear on TV, would I have �stacked the deck?� Sounds to me like the pot calling the kettle black. But I did get the idea that Alan Colmes likes Ron and not once but twice refuted the irresponsible �certifiably insane� remark. Why not take the test as this website to see who you should vote for president. [Read]

Earlier in the week, talk show hostess Laura Ingraham said, �I�m just trying to find the real conservative in the (GOP presidential race). That�s all I�m trying to do. The real conservative. Who is it? Where is he?� She makes this remark after her producer plays an earlier clip from 1996 of Rudy Giuliani where he says, �I�m a Republican mayor but I�m really not. I�m the mayor of New York City. I ran as a Republican. I ran as a liberal, which really confuses all kinds of people, and I ran as an Independent, part of the Independent party that is now supporting Ross Perot. So I ran as a fusion candidate like my predecessor�so I�m not the most partisan of Republicans.�

Another clip she ran was when Rudy spoke to the Jewish Republican Coalition meeting and said, �When they want to know are you a real Republican, I gave my blood for the Republican Party in New York. I often say I was the first Republican Mayor of New York in 25 years. I was the first one to remain a Republican in 50 years.� Orwell would be proud of this guy.

Through several segments Laura talked about how the Democrats raised more money than the Republicans by a two to one margin in the third quarter and wondered if some �political savior� would come around the corner mentioning that possibility might be in the second tier candidates and naming names but again avoiding mentioning Ron Paul. Later she choked on his name when she had to admit he had raised $5.2 million in the third quarter, more than any one of the second tier candidates and equal to some first tier and had to admit, �that�s pretty good.� That was the extent of her mention of Ron Paul. While many big-time contributors to the first tier candidates are beginning to max out for the primary, Ron Paul�s many small-amount supporters keep on giving She later interviewed Ann Romney, Mitt Romney�s wife, thereby giving Romney more air time exposure as his wife told what a great guy he was but Alan Stang sees Romney in a different light. I�m continually amused at how these first tier candidates feel an obligation to put their trophy wives into the public spotlight.

These conservative talk show pundits must think we, the people, have all fallen off some turnip truck and we won�t see past their obvious preferences for the president but with the Internet and all the information they can now gather on their own without having to read the slanted versions in many local Communist-leaning newspaper, they are waking up. Laura toured 29 cities in a month promoting her book and she said people go ballistic because the immigration issue is not being addressed. Someone from her staff said they made phone calls for the Republican National Committee four years ago and people were hanging up on him. So long as the border was open, their wallets were closed and Laura says the candidate that stands up and acknowledges this fact is going to do very well. She says, �They can�t dance around the edges on this one� and who is the only one capable of getting this illegal immigration problem under control methodically and conclusively just as I�m confident he will extricate America from the war in Iraq as diplomatically as possible? Ron Paul won�t do anything unconstitutionally.

Laura wrote a book Power to the People and had been on the road promoting it recently but doesn�t seem to recognize that it is THE PEOPLE POWER behind Ron Paul�s popularity. His revolution is gathering momentum like no other in recent election cycles and it�s all because he is pleasing those �single issue voters� which Rudy Giuliani nearly discounted when Sean Hannity interviewed him and his newest wife, Judith, recently. At one point he was talking about single-issue voters and said something like, �If you are a single issue voter, well, but if that is important to you, you should be one.� He was beginning to dismiss these voters and then he caught himself and quickly switched gears. Didn�t Ronald Reagan get swept into the White House not once but twice in 1980 and 1984 with the help of these �single issue voters� i.e. pro-life, less government, lower taxes? Laura ponders why ALL the candidates are afraid to challenge the Bush Administration on issues and then, like Giuliani and his near slip about single-issue voters, she quickly says �Not all of them are (afraid to challenge) but the top four certainly are.�

It should also be noted that she had an unscientific �online poll� and Ron Paul was identified as �other� because her poll only had five options. Fred Thompson, her choice for president, got 42% but the �others� got 31% while Romney got 19%, Rudy 5% and McCain 3%. This suggests that Ron Paul may have easily come in higher second if the actual numbers had been calculated and, of course, all other polls are showing that Ron Paul is gaining rapidly.

And then there was our �no spin� TV personality, Bill O�Reilly, for the purpose of trying to humiliate Ron Paul when he interviewed him. In his Patriot and Pinhead segment recently he called Ron a Pinhead after playing a clip back where Ron was talking to an audience telling how Bill didn�t want a history lesson when he interviewed him and the audience laughed. O�Reilly said he only had an eight minute segment and he, being a has-been English and History teacher, said he didn�t need to be filibustered by Ron about history. Ron has been in government more years than O�Reilly was ever a teacher so Ron has probably forgotten more than O�Reilly will ever have learned from the revised history books. O�Reilly still thinks FDR was a great president. There�s no better teacher than on-the-job training and that Ron Paul has proven with his continual 100% Constitutional voting record. Unlike the other candidates who flip-flop when they find it convenient, Ron Paul upholds his Constitutional oath of office. So where�s the beef with these right-wing talk show people? The best choice for president is right under their noses and yet they do their best to either ignore Ron or try to humiliate him. In either case, it backfires, because people have grown smarter over the years. They�ve learned voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil.

I also find it hard to believe that the Council for National Policy (CNP), the James Dobson and Tim LaHaye, et al crowd, also fail to recognize Ron Paul as the only candidate that meets all their criteria with the exception of the unconstitutional war in Iraq that, for some strange reason, doesn�t seem to concern these so-called conservative leaders. I suspect it has something to do with Israel. I wonder how many of them have sons or daughters in the military? Could Ron�s aversion to the unconstitutional United Nations war be the problem?

This CNP gathered in Washington, D.C. from October 19-21 for �The Values Voter Summit.� I wonder if Ron Paul was put in the �others� category again for their straw polling? Gary Bauer, Bill Bennett, Ken Blackwell, Judge Robert Bork, Chuck Colson, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity from FOX, a number of Congressmen and a plethora of others unknown to me were speakers as well. Dobson called them �luminaries� (a celestial body). Special honor was bestowed upon Dobson.

You can read Devvy Kidd�s article about Dr. James Dobson on Ron Paul. She gives a thumbnail sketch on GOP candidates. Another good article is by Pastor Chuck Baldwin where he asks why evangelicals are ignoring Ron Paul. Mary Starrett also has a good article on the GOP presidential candidates. Readers have no excuse for not being informed and my article.

Laura Ingraham tells her listeners they should not become demoralized. �Whatever you stand for, whatever you believe in, whatever is most important to you, examine these candidates. See which one matches up best with your viewpoints�and support that candidate. That is all any of us can do.� It�s time for her to put her advice where her mouth is as well as all the other talk show pundits, which include the liberals who like Ron Paul except�he�s pro-life! Talk show personalities of all stripes could be the key to this next election. The destiny of our country may very well rest with them because so many people have become talk-show addicted. The buck stops at their microphones.

Lately I�ve been listening to the �progressive� (liberal) stations and I�m amazed at the turf battles. Randi Rhodes, a liberal, foul-mouthed Democrat and ex-Air Force turned talk show hostess says that a cover story in a big news magazine was to be published about Rush Limbaugh. Feeling the article may have mischaracterized him, Rush called the reporter and said he�d find where the reporter�s children went to school, who he knocked up in high school, what drugs he used, where he drinks, how he paid for his house and O�Reilly has been echoing similar sentiments that �every corrupt media person in America� is going to be hunted down by him. I�m ashamed that so-called right-wing talk show hosts that I once admired and respected are now stooping to the level of intimidation. O�Reilly announced months ago Air America was going broke and would soon be off the air. Not so! They are still on the airwaves.

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Yes, we have a revolution! May the best side win! But for me and my house, we refuse to be sidelined and distracted by these very serious Hegelian dialectical games. The controlled opposition comes in different forms.

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Betty is a former Oregon Republican party activist having served as state party secretary, county chairman, 5th congressional vice chairman and then elected chairman, and a precinct worker for many years but Betty gave up on the two-party system in 2004 and joined the Constitutional Party.

Betty is a researcher specializing in education, a freelance journalist and a regular contributor to www.NewsWithViews.com

E-Mail: bettyboot@wvi.com

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