Sean Hannity’s Veneration of Ignorance - WSJ op-ed

[question everything]

By Bret Stephens

(snip)

“If in 96 days Trump loses this election, I am pointing the finger directly at people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and John McCain and John Kasich and Ted Cruz,” Fox News host Sean Hannity told his radio audience last week. “I have watched these Republicans be more harsh toward Donald Trump than they’ve ever been in standing up to Barack Obama and his radical agenda.”

Mr. Hannity has never made a secret of his feelings for Mr. Trump, which is the love that dares to speak its name. But his comments were also a revelation, and not just that it has dawned on him that the Republican nominee is likely to lose and lose big. Like members of a cult who discover too late that their self-proclaimed messiah is mortal after all, rationalizations are required.

Mr. Trump has lately been road-testing one such rationalization, saying the election will be “rigged.” Voter fraud is a reality in American elections, but it is typical of the candidate to confuse anecdote with data and turn allegation into conspiracy. Mr. Trump also says the media is “rigged” against him, which is amusing coming from the beneficiary of the equivalent of $3 billion in free advertising.

Mr. Hannity’s other goal is to preserve the fiction—first cultivated by Ted Cruz and later adopted by the Trumpians—that a wan GOP “establishment” and its “Acela corridor” voters sat on their hands while Mr. Obama traduced the Constitution and sold us out to the enemy. “

(snip)

Maybe Mr. Hannity thinks that Messrs. Ryan and McConnell should have jumped the White House fence and stuck a pitchfork in the president. Or that they should have amended the Constitution to repeal Article One, Section Seven—the one that gives the president his veto. Otherwise, it’s hard to understand the constant lament about a do-nothing Congress except by wondering whether Mr. Hannity is stupid or dishonest.

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/sean-hannitys-veneration-of-ignorance-1470698528?tesla=y

[PJMcK]

1. Sean Hannity is both stupid and dishonest (n/t)

[Thinkingabout]

2. Hannity needs to point the finger at Trump before anyone else.

[Maru Kitteh]

4. "wondering whether Mr. Hannity is stupid or dishonest" I say why choose?

But if I must, I'm going with stupid.

[question everything]

6. LOL. Stephens himself put him to the test

From the same piece:

On Thursday evening I opted to give him the benefit of the doubt by writing on Twitter that he was Fox’s “dumbest anchor.” He immediately proved my point by re-tweeting me to his 1.5 million Twitter followers—an audience I could never have reached on my own. Later, on the radio, he called me a “dumba— with his head up his a—,” demonstrating he can’t even swear competently.

[Maru Kitteh]

7. Oh, that is perfect. nt

[LuvLoogie]

5. Ha! Both...