Saturday, May 26, 2007

Fox Outfoxed In Falwell Death Debate?

The (ultra-)liberals and I think differently on many issues, but distaste for Sean Hannity types is not one of them. Hannity, for those who don't know about him, is the pompous and obnoxious host of "Hannity and Colmes" program on Fox News, who is the toast of the right-wingers, the narrow-minded, the Creationists, the Bushies and the Evangelicals (all these terms describe the same group of people. :-)) His sparring partner on the show is poor Alan Colmes who generally offers fairly weak rebuttals (by Fox design, I'm sure) meant to reflect the leftist view.

Well, following religious idealogue Falwell's recent death, the atheist Christopher Hitchens basically said "good riddance" about him and "Hannity and Colmes" brought him to defend such mean spirited comments. Hannity (like Bill O'Reilly, another Fox host) generally manages to beat down guests who hold views different from him. But Hitchens seems to have withstood his attacks quite well and land in some choice comments of his own. All without raising his voice like Hannity does.

My daughter Rubina sent me this link covering the exchange on YouTube. Hope you can see this before Fox compels YouTube to pull it.

By the way, Fox insists it is "Fair and Balanced" and not a right-wing / Bushy apparatchik. Then how do you explain or justify this show being called "Hannity and Colmes" when the names should be switched per alphabetic order?

2 comments:

kenrod said...

I don't have a big problem with Falwell's religious views. In fact, most religions are okay if they stick to principles of teaching people to be honest etc.


Where Falwell becomes distasteful is when he makes religion into a business. And that is the problem with all religions. First, they get a bunch of converts so they can get more money into the coffers. Then they tell the converts they are going to heaven, something no one can prove. Then they tell them you will only find their own believers in heaven, which makes the whole thing bigoted. Every other type is excluded.

Remember, religion is about making money. Look at the Crystal cathedrals, Vaticans etc. All hypocritical.

It was interesting how Hannity totally butchered Hitchens without letting his guest respond to the questions. He must work for Faux news.

SandipM said...

Well said, Kenrod. I didn't think much of Falwell though I don't paint all religious figures with the same brush. For example I have a lot of respect for Pope John Paul II, and may be even for his successor, though I don't subscribe to all their views.

I think Hitchens managed to get the better of Hannity even though Hannity had the host's advantage and tried the tactics you speak of.

"Faux news" - good one. :-)