GOP Cheerleader Hannity Offers McCain Adultery Excuses That McCain Rejected
On a recent (8/12/08) “Hannity & Colmes” program the topic was John Edwards’ admission that he had committed adultery. Hannity made many good and correct points about the untrustworthiness of public officials who violate their wedding vows. But, when Alan Colmes raised the issue of John McCain having cheated on his first wife, Republican Party cheerleader Hannity went bananas. It was beautiful the way Colmes allowed Hannity to get several coils of rope around his neck before he sprung the trapdoor leaving hypocrite Hannity swinging in mid-air, waving his partisan pom-poms, babbling away abo ut how the two adulteries were very, very different when - as adultery — they are not. Colmes’ timing was exquisite. He pounced at just the right moment. It was beautiful.
In his pathetic, partisan attempt to defend the indefensible, to excuse McCain’s adultery, Hannity did what even McCain has not done. At the recent Rick Warren “Forum,” McCain said of his greatest moral failing: “My greatest moral failing — and I have been a very imperfect person — is the failure of my first marriage. It’s my greatest moral failure.” Period. No excuses. In his book “Worth Fighting For,” McCain says of his first marriage: “My marriage’s collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam. The blame was entirely mine.” Again, period,20no excuses.
Hannity’s hysterical, unreal spin to find “extenuating circumstances” for McCain’s adultery reminded me of the court room scene in “The Caine Mutiny” starring Humphrey Bogart as the paranoid’s paranoid “Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg.” Remember “Queeg” on the witness stand? Remember his maniacal, wild-eyed look as he spoke and we heard the clicking sound of the small metal balls he repeatedly fondled in his right hand?
But, back to Hannity’s shameless performance. Early on in this program, he had criticized a guest he accused of thinking that personal behavior was private and not for public consumption. He said, correctly, regarding cheating on o ne’s wife: “But if you take a vow, a promise, a pledge, a solemn vow, and you promise to love, honor, cherish, be faithful to, in good times and in bad, richer or poorer, better or worse, and be faithful, you know, till death do you part, if you don’t — if you can’t keep that vow, why should people not be suspect that you keep a vow to, you know, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States?”
Noting at one point that conservatives “have a higher standard, a higher bar because they actually take a stand on moral issues,” Hannity said: “And I’m wondering if you can’t keep the promise to your family, can’t keep your promise to your wife, you’re having an affair, you’re lying about the affair repeatedly, why should the American people trust you when you say you’re not going to lie to them? Why should we trust you?”
Colmes pounces. Hannity’s hanging of himself begins.
Colmes: “By the way, that’s a great question Sean asked. So, if that’s true, you can’t trust somebody who had an affair, how can we trust John McCain to be president of the United States, since he cheated, by his own admission, on his first wife? He didn’t keep his marital vows. He didn’t keep his pledge to his first family.”
Hannity: “Thirty years ago after five and a half years in a prisoner of war camp.”
Colmes: “That has nothing to do with it. So, how do we trust John McCain to be president of the United States?….He cheated on his wife, right?”
Hannity: “Five and a half years after being in a prisoner of war camp.”
Colmes: “That has nothing to do with it. He cheated…”
Hannity: “Five and a half years in a prisoner of war camp.”
Colmes: “It has nothing to do with it. He cheated on — John McCain cheated on his wife. John McCain cheated on his wife. Where’s the — why do you have a double standard? And John McCain’s running for president. John Edwards is not…..John McCain’s wife was in a car accident, and he came back. And all of a sudden, he decided he didn’t love her anymore. And he saw another woman. And his timeline that he talked about in his book isn’t vetted by20the actual events of when he actually got a divorce. So…what about his affair?….Will you admit that John McCain was wrong to have an affair? Can we trust him to run for president, since he cheated on his wife?
Hannity: “After five and a half years of a Vietnam camp getting beaten every day. There’s a difference.”
Colmes: “It has nothing to do with the…
Hannity: “Five and a half years.”
Colmes: “So it’s OK he had an affair on his wife?”
Hannity: “No. You know what? There’s circumstances. You ought to consider.”
Colmes: “That lets him off the hook?”
Hannity: “We’ll see how you act after you get beaten.”
The program breaks for commercials.
Hannity: “Can I explain something in the las t segment?”
Colmes: “Sure.”
Hannity: “Senator McCain spent 5.5 years of his life for his country being tortured, beaten on a daily basis with broken bones and broken body.
Colmes: “War hero.”
Hannity (referring to John Edwards): “Excuse me. The fact that it didn’t break his spirit — if you can’t see the difference between him and Mr. Two Americas in his 28,000-square-foot mansion with his, you know, doing his hair, $1,000 hair cut…
Colmes: “Excuse me. Let me ask you a question.”
Hannity: “Excuse me. If you don’t see the difference than I can’t…
Colmes: “Let me ask you a question. With all due respect, and I’ve never denounced John McCain for his service to his country. He’s a true American hero. However, does that give him — does that mean it’s OK to have an affair when he comes back from war?”
Hannity: “No, but there are extenuating circumstances. And he is the first to admit that when he came back after five and a half years being tortured for his country, that he was not the person that he is now, 30 years ago. And for you to make the same thing about Mr. Hair Cut, I’m sorry…
Colmes: “No, no. I do not equate his being a war hero with cheating on his wife. I don’t conflate the two.”
End of show.
Nice job, Alan - though Hannity did the heavy lifting by hanging himself.
