Sean Hannity Hypocrisy -- An Earth Ball Weighs In

Just outside Baltimore, an Earth Ball -- "a large inflatable ball most often seen in junior-high-school locker rooms" -- may be the most trenchant voice about the utter distaste that is Sean Hannity. Ben Greenman's been compiling the Earth Ball's views. It isn't pretty.

Earth Ball first brought pen to paper a few years ago, in the wake of Hannity's bizarre and hypocritical take on the post-Katrina situation. Here's an excerpt on the bizarre part (go to the full letter for the hypocritical part):

There are hundreds upon hundreds of examples of Hannity's abysmal behavior. I would like to select just one. The other day, he was talking about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For weeks, he has been defending the president against charges that he was partly responsible for the failed relief effort. He has said that it isn't really the president's responsibility to save New Orleans, or even to lift up the city's spirits. I don't agree. I think that since the president can't be conversant with the dangers facing every single state and every single municipality, furnishing symbolic leadership in the wake of a massive crisis such as Hurricane Katrina is among his most important duties. But I am just an Earth Ball and I could be wrong.

After that, Earth Ball later returned to letter-writing upon feeling the sting of Hannity's commentary on racist language and sentiment, a commentary Earth Ball found absurdly lacking in self-reflexivity. I won't blurb it; but you can read it here.

And then, to be honest, I'd forgotten about Earth Ball's pain.

But a few months ago it wrote again. This time, sadly, it had been subjected to the double whammy of a Coulter-Hannity ensemble, perhaps the most destructive, least grounded, most intellectually vacuous barrage any listener, let alone a helpless piece of gym equipment, should have to deal with. Here, I'll copy some here from that March 07 letter:

A week or so ago, the conservative commentator Ann Coulter caused a stir when she joked to a crowd of young conservatives that she couldn't talk about John Edwards, a Democratic nominee for president, because "you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot.'" Sean Hannity gave Coulter at least two days of time, on the radio and on television, to defend herself, and along the way he made a number of entertaining moves, if by entertaining I mean intellectually dishonest. First, he said that the Republican candidates who spoke at the same event as Coulter should not be judged by her words. True enough as arguments go, but is it true when it comes from the man who gleefully attacked Democrats for sitting on the same stage as Michael Moore, or for that matter went after Nancy Pelosi for participating in the same parade as NAMBLA member Harry Hey? In Earth Ball land, we call a person who talks from both sides of his mouth a "hypocrite."

So today, May 14, it wrote again. And, I'm sorry to say, the situation has not approved. This letter addresses a recent Bush defense by Hannity, one that went like this (this is Hannity being quoted, via Earth Ball, so I'll keep it in quotes):

"You take the Iraq-war controversy out of this presidency ... in every other aspect the Bush presidency has been successful."

Earth Ball wonders:

If you take the Iraq-war controversy out of the Bush presidency, then it's successful? Well, sure. And if you take the big out of an elephant, it's tiny. And if you take the meat out of a steak, it's a salad. And if you take the beauty out of Sophia Loren, she's an eyesore. I mean, are you kidding me?

I don't know. It's not a happy situation at that gym. I hope for the best, that the power goes out, that the radio station fades away, I don't know. Let's just try to stay strong for all gym equipment, I guess.