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Hannity Abuses Boebert in Uniparty Propaganda Video
Here’s the much-discussed Hannity interview (at the bottom of the post) in which he verbally shoves and slaps Representative Lauren Boebert for not holding his own views. In this interview, you can see her struggle to make some of the points much better presented in this friendly interview by Michael Knowles, which I covered here yesterday. It’s a fascinating contrast, as we generally appreciate journalists who do not let people get away with weaselly answers, and we admit that Knowles’ interview is “on-side,” that is, designed to let her get her point across. Yet, Hannity’s appalling display of answer-the-question-ism is not a strong journalistic refusal to take no-but-yes for an answer — it is predicated on weaselly questions. It’s dishonest and abusive.
Hannity frames the issue as if this were a contest between candidates in which one selects a favorite and votes one time. This is not that. This House Speaker election is a different sort of contest, composed of a series of votes as needed. It’s not a one-and-done; there is no final answer until somebody wins. Many who might run will not say so early on, particularly if a presumptive front-runner is still in play, and particularly if the potential candidates already have agreements in place with that front-runner. This process is designed to put pressure on candidates to make concessions — this way, any view that gains sufficient traction is also represented. It is designed to help prevent domination by a 26.5% cabal.
Word is getting out that the Hannity interview was so over the top, so jump-the-shark, that it’s blowing up in his face. Good. Here’s how the YouTube auto-complete estimates the rest of the phrase “Hannity…”:
“Who’s your final pick, huh? Huh? Huh?” is just badgering, and for a tactical reason — Hannity’s job here is two-fold: to make it look like she has no answers, and to prevent her from getting her points across. “Final answer now now now” is not how this works at all, and Hannity knows this. It’s not a question — it’s a talking point, and the same one we’re being soaked with from media in every direction. Well, nobody has answers to stupid questions that miss the point, and we saw in the Knowles interview that she actually has a lot of great points. That Knowles interview has been converting people to the House Freedom Caucus (HFC, Boebert’s side) in droves, because their points are valid.
Judge Jeannine Pirro supposedly “ripped” Boebert with some ad hom — I haven’t watched. I’ve never liked her.
Fox News is an utter loss to the conservative fight, and may now safely be counted among the propaganda arms of the Deep State. I’m leery of the area close to “controlled opposition,” but Fox is ticking all the right boxes.
Please do watch the Hannity hatchet job, and as you do so, ask yourself, “Why is he so angry? Why does he push so hard for an answer that he knows can not be given? If he were trying to shut her up while making her look stupid, what would he do differently?”
I linked to the Fox channel post of the video because I don’t want the link to die. I want people to see this video.
Finally, this b-roll for a show trial, in contrast to the Knowles interview, shows why it has been so important for the HFC 20 to make such a stink. By holding out, they have brought enormous attention to McCarthy’s dirty anti-Representative and anti-conservative dealings, the media’s typical dumbed-down misrepresentation and outright propaganda duty, as well as Fox News’ utter partisanship even in an internal fight among Republicans. Fox is a wholly-owned subsidiary of McCain/McConnell/McCarthy, Inc. (And it turns out that Hannity was behind Tucker dropping the Hunter story, but that’s another post).
If McCarthy finally makes concessions in exchange for sufficient HFC support, yay! If he steps aside and somebody else gets grilled, yay! We would have neither of these options if the HFC had not stood their ground. Which is why this propaganda onslaught was designed to poison you against them.
Published in General
What an interesting contrast with the Knowles interview. Michael Knowles asked some clear and obvious questions and then let her talk. At one point, there was one question he didn’t think she answered so he asked it again at the end and then . . . let her talk.
Right from the start, Hannity won’t even let her complete a sentence and just keeps talking over her.
Let’s recognize that Hannity is a Trump loyalist to a fault. Trump wants McCarthy, ergo Hannity (and Levin) carries his water.
I couldn’t watch the whole thing. It was so unprofessional. Maybe Hannity has been taking lessons from his MSNBC colleagues.
Edit: I just watched the Knowles interview. McCarthy blew it.
I’m not sure I can stand to watch Hannity (haven’t done it years!), but the Knowles interview was a revelation to me. I’ve always known Boebert is cute as a button, but I did not know how intelligent and articulate she is. And I’m from Colorado!
Conservatives really have to stop lapping up the narrative from the MSM, including FOX. If you want to know who Trump or Matt Gaetz or Lauren Boebert is, you simply cannot get an honest impression from listening to Uniparty-driven agenda-promoting media. Lesson learned.
I quit watching and listening to him some time ago because he talks over and interrupts his guest. He is as bad as the left for that. I don’t hate him…just can’t enjoy listening.
He has gotten flack for his testimony in the Dominion Systems libel suit in which he stated that he did not really believe some of what he said about election fraud. My guess is that he’s somehow trying to make up for that by backing McCarthy.
Gave up on Hannity years and years ago. He grates on my nerves, I see him as a lefty’s parody of a conservative. Hannity is a little too close to what the left would like conservatives to be.
It was an interview with the guy that played BJ on MASH that finally did me in. BJ-actor was intelligent, alert, and ready for trouble – despite his absurd political positions, I was impressed. Hannity tried something that might impress the dull-witted, and actor dude cleaned his clock in 5 seconds.
I decided then that Hannity had his niche, and I wasn’t in it.
By the way, @philo covered some of this as it was just warming up, with Laura Ingraham in the same role as Hannity, as well as the appearance of the same sort of ignorant (if more sedate) nonsense-badgering here on our own esteemed pages. Glad to see that by and large, we police ourselves pretty well.
Memners-only post: https://ricochet.com/1370577/the-skewed-framing-of-the-speaker-debate-shameless-intellectual-un-seriousness-spreads-well-inside-our-perimeter/comment-page-2/#comment-6603785
Isn’t Paul Ryan on the Board of Directors or some advising committee?
Tucker is a Fox star, and “The Five” (I think) is its highest rated show. Neither of those fit the McCain, etc. narrative.
Frankly, those are the hold-outs. Those are the two usually cited by people who say “I never watch Fox anymore except for… ,” including me.
They are very prominent shows, not IMO “hold- outs.”
The two shows that give them the highest ratings. Fox needs them more than they need Fox.
I use the term in the sense that the whole network used to be much better; more like those two shows. While the rest have drifted (or skipped) into bed with the Uniparty types, these guys are popular enough with the crunchycons to stand against what seems like a dominant tide at Fox.
I used to listen to Hannity back in Rush’s day. I think that Rush’s influence and popularity must have had a moderating influence on him then. The attack on the congresswoman is disgraceful, but the program is called “The Hannity Hot Seat”. We need to be very careful of the media types. There are some people who just like to watch a verbal beat-down and the media counts on them for ratings.
Fox used to be a lot less shouty, and better than the other cable shouters (for that matter, even CNN used to be less shouty, with people who spoke well and were thoughtful, even if leftists). But I find that I have been saying “Fox used to be better” for so many years that my comment is no longer relevant. You know what else used to be better? Long-lasting candles to read by even at night.
No longer relevant.
When I first recognized I was a conservative, I listened to all the people conservatives were “supposed” to listen to. I came to realize, they’re not all equal. Hannity, and really most cable news pundits, became far too comfortable with the shouting monologue style of discourse, where he just chews up air time rehashing a long list of talking points while his guest waits for a chance to speak. It was easier to ignore during Obama’s term, when we all agreed on who the political enemy was.
For any serious discussion of a topic you have much better sources now than cable news. Long-form discussion is making a comeback in independent media and it’s a breath of fresh air after years of the increasingly short sound-bite, followed by outrage/mockery format.
I saw a later clip of Hannity with Boebert and he is exhibiting the effects of the aftermath from his first interview. It’s amusing.
By the way, if you are sick of Hannity-style garbage, you are already halfway to being described as “alt-right”.
I appreciate the deconstruction, BDB, it’s really good. The MSM stuff is basically what you described, and there’s no conservative vs. liberal here (like FOX vs. the View or whatever) – it’s just media, highly informed and influenced by the political process, that we choose to consume. Or choose not to, in this case.
I don’t say all this just to throw the “the hell with ’em” line out there – but to hell with them. They call it programming for a reason. You don’t have to consume it. The challenge in this comes from wanting to be informed, so you must read or watch the news from some source, somewhere. I care much less about bias (which I can generally see through) than I do about programming. It’s not hard to find clips of news shows all saying the same thing on their shows, word for word, on a specific news item. That’s not by accident.
It’s decades away from our current reality, but shows like Firing Line, back in the day, were long-form interviews, both sides of the aisle, long conversations. Conversations, not programming.
Well said. I stopped watching the news in early-mid 2020, as the legit COVID uncertainty turned into a hype panic. What you allow in your ears will eventually come out your mouth. I hung in there with Tucker and Gutfeld until Tucker squashed his own Hunter story. Now it turns out that Hannity was behind that, or at least pushing behind the scenes for the squash. I don’t even own a TV, so all I’m ever getting is clips anyway.
The urge to be informed drives us to be misinformed, and the reason news shows are all shouty and breathless, in incomplete present imperfect, is to drive a dopamine cycle. We are literally addicted to TV and to the news, and just like any Skinner box game or website, the mass media knows this and exploits it.
Pick your poison carefully — it’s your poison after all.
I saw a clip of a supposed former Congressman on MSNBC speaking about McCarthy’s concessions. He referred to the Freedom Caucus members as insurrectionists. Since my positions align with those members and I certainly don’t view myself as anything more than a conservative Constitutionalist, I totally discount the remarks.
I also don’t watch, listen to, or read any popular media. I try to search for and fit what I can find to my religious beliefs, my constitutional views, my search for truth and choosing the right way in my actions.
Here’s one example. I believe in a free enterprise market but I also believe that size can impair what this yields so I’m wary of growth for growth’s sake. I grew up in Georgia a big fan of Coca-cola and there were competitors. A factor that I consider in any support of a business enterprise is whether or not I have knowledge that the business is engaging in ways that violate my principles as outlined in the previous paragraph. Based on sources that I thought true at the time but have forgotten who they were, approaches were taken by vendors to persuade the FDA to include sodas on the list of approved nutritional items for ‘food stamp’ purchases. Enough said. This is why I have such an aversion to big, bigness facilitates control and control turns to evil in the wrong hands and is difficult then to effect change as we can see.