Poor Sean Hannity

King ^ | April 22, 2003 | Charley Reese

[Beenliedto]

Poor Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity, a radio talk-show host and Fox News whiner, has a one-rut mind. Every criticism or dissent, no matter what the subject, the topic or the source, is a left-wing attack against his hero, George W. Bush.

Well, what can you expect from an immature groupie? Every time he tries to think, his face reflects the pain of the effort. But he really showed his emptiness recently when he said that criticism of the United States failing to guard the Iraqi National Museum was — you guessed it — just left-wing soreheads who are mad that President Bush's war has been so successful.

Give me a break. That museum is one of the five greatest museums on Earth. It contained treasures that are the heritage of mankind. There are 140,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq. We've protected all the oil fields, north and south. Do you really believe we couldn't have spared two fire teams to guard the irreplaceable artifacts of the beginnings of Western civilization? Of course we could have. Somebody just goofed.

This is not a left/right, liberal/conservative issue. It's not a question of patriots versus traitors, as the morons among the neoconservative crowd try to paint every human being who refuses to click his heels and salute their guru, Richard Perle, and their emperor, George Bush. This is a cultural issue. Three great treasures — the museum, the National Library and the largest collection of Koranic writings in the world — were looted and burned. Since we had destroyed the Iraqi government, it was our responsibility to protect them.

I don't blame President Bush. I'm sure he's unaware of their existence. After all, he brags about not reading. But what would we say if the crowds who have rioted in Washington in the past had been allowed to loot and burn the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress? Do you think we would have accepted an excuse that there weren't enough cops to protect those two treasures?

One hates to disillusion the permanently adolescent among us, but this tiny sliver of life in which we are participating is a dot on a long line of human civilization. One day, we will be as forgotten as the Assyrians, and hopefully some museum will have artifacts from our brief stay on the stage of history.

There is a definitely a whiff of anti-intellectualism — so characteristic of fascist states — in the air. Beware of bully boys who worship the military and scoff at museums and libraries. Beware of people whose limited brains see everyone as either an ally or an enemy. Beware of people who can't tell the difference between patriotism and military conquest. Beware of people so stupid and ignorant that they accept anything and everything the political and the media demagogues tell them.

Thomas Jefferson, who would have been outraged by the loss of the museum and the library, said, "Those who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be." Amen cubed.

I'm no longer concerned about liberals or conservatives, leftists or rightists. I just pray to God for a non-ideologue with a three-digit IQ. If we don't elevate the level of intelligence and integrity of our government, we are going to end up floating on the cesspool of history.

As for anyone being disappointed that the war was conducted rapidly and successfully, that's bull. I was opposed to the war, but I'm damned glad it was quick and there were as few casualties as there have been. Every anti-war person I know of or have read feels the same way. You have to be a really sick puppy to imagine that anyone would want to see Americans die just because they disagree with the policy that put them in harm's way. Let me spell it out for the mentally impaired: People are anti-war because they do not wish to see anyone die — our soldiers, their soldiers, our civilians or their civilians. Anti-war is pro-life.

© 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

[Twinkie]

Generally speaking, it's likely that the run of the mill ordinary Iraqi citizen didn't have the time or the money
that the Iraqi elite did to pay the museum admission fee
and spend hours emoting over the pots and shards of
pottery that had once belonged to their ancestors. So,
feeling a bit slighted from years of deprivation, maybe
they, rightly or wrongly, decided to reclaim the pots and
bowls that had been in great-great-great-great-great-great
etc. grammammas kitchen centuries ago.

[Twinkie]

Generally speaking, it's likely that the run of the mill ordinary Iraqi citizen didn't have the time or the money
that the Iraqi elite did to pay the museum admission fee
and spend hours emoting over the pots and shards of
pottery that had once belonged to their ancestors. So,
feeling a bit slighted from years of deprivation, maybe
they, rightly or wrongly, decided to reclaim the pots and
bowls that had been in great-great-great-great-great-great
etc. grammammas kitchen centuries ago.

[stands2reason]

They are protecting their pocketbook.

I see. So are you of the "No Blood For Oil" school of thought?

[Mark17]

Ya thinks it's POSSIBLE, that all this crying about the museum is coming from those on the left because there's NOTHING ELSE THEY CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT, OR TAKE ISSUE WITH?

Yes it is possible. I think it would have been nice to save it, but I think there was still a fight going on too.

[stands2reason]

Before we got FNC here, Matthews was -it-.

[NYC Republican]

Savage just made the following comment...

"Talk radio rules, and Savage rules the rulers"...

Some ego, huh?

[cyncooper]

Our reporters even asked our soldiers to do something about the looting, and learned that they have no orders to prevent the looting.

Yeah, the so-concerned reporters. (hahahahahaha)

I'm hoping to learn the identities of what was reported as journalists caught trying to smuggle paintings into Jordan over the weekend. Unfortunately, it seems the pictures and paintings were seized and the attempted smuggler or smugglers let go due to some supposed lack in the law. Conveniently, the identity of the person or people has been withheld.

[cyncooper]

but you will surely agree we look bad when we say this is not about oil, then ensure the oil fields are protected and ignore everything else.

No, I will NOT agree we are ignoring everything else.

Rolling my eyes.

[johnb838]

Savage said the other day that out of respect to both peoples he never says Kurds and Turks in the same sentence. I thought that was funny.

[madrastex]

Reasonable people should feel sorry for our mistake, and request an investigation in the defense department decision making. Heads MUST roll in the military pecking order to illustrate to the rest of the world that we have no room in our military for negligence......
HUH?!!

[cyncooper]

The open-mouthed-breathers (who are rapidly making up the majority of posters here) will eat you alive.

Hey, your mouth is gaping.

[cicero's_son]

Are you sure you have not embelished his quote a little?

I've taken pains to point out that it's not a quote. It's a paraphrase.

And no, I really don't think it's embellished at all. Did you hear the program too?

[Deb]

What nonsense.

The logistics of the city prevented any cover for the museum until the city was secured.

Wall Street Journal reported that our guys were being fired on from inside the museum and refused to fire back for fear of hitting something.

There were reports that witnesses who live behind the museum saw NO LOOTING OF ANTIQUTIES, just chairs and office furniture.

The people who are constantly charging the administration with negligence don't even know what, if anything, is missing.

The museum heads stashed the most important pieces without advising the staff. It was the staff who reported the "looting".

You and Charlie need to wait till the whole thing shakes out before jumping on the bandwagon built by the Left.

[Deb]

Ya see, the "Monday morning quarterbacks" were losing the game when they were playing the "administration has no war plan" offense, so they quickly went to the "administration had no post-war plan" offense. They are now in the middle of the "adminstration has no peace plan" offense, but senile, straggle-butts like Charley are a few plays behind.

Bush always beat 'em, but that doesn't stop them from playing dirty.

[Deb]

You may not like Hannity, but his argument about the Left using every issue as a way to beat Bush up, is obviously true. Here is a perfect example of Charley Reese using his hatred of Hannity and FOX as an intro to bashing Bush and instead of seeing the hypocrisy and irony of Reese's piece, you totally buy into the entire premise.

You don't even know what (if anything) was looted and yet it's "a tragedy".

[tuna_battle_slight_return]

"That museum is one of the five greatest museums on Earth. It contained treasures that are the heritage of mankind."

Archeologist on O'Reilly last week was asked to name ONE THING of significant importance in that museum and the archeologist fell silent. She was tripping over her words. SHE COULD NOT NAME ONE THING OF IMPORTANCE.

She finished by saying something general and uninformative like, "Well, Bill, all the stuff in there was important". Right -- all the "stuff" you can't even name and decide to call "stuff" in the first place.

<\ turn shouting switch off >

[Hammerhead]

tell you the truth, given the choice of whom to have a beer with, I'd have to take Colmes.

[Wormwood]

I honestly believe that Hannity is a fairly primitive animatronic, containing a short spool of audio tape.

I could write a 'Sean Hannidy' PERL script that would be completely indistinguishable from the real thing.

I estimate it would be about 20 lines.

He may be honest and enthusiastic, but so is my dog.

[FirstTomato]

Sorry you disagree. I never charged the administration with "negligence" so don't start.

My point is that we know that the military wanted the antiquities protected, somehow it just wasn't done for a variety of reasons. Now, in that there is a lesson to be learned about how to conduct operations in the future. There is no reason to get defensive, its simply a matter of admitting that sometimes things don't go the way you plan, and to learn from it.

Why is that so hard? The military at this very moment is going over the facts and figures and the reports in order to learn what they did great and what could be improved. Obviously some of you are WAY too defensive about this.

[Badray]

"tell you the truth, given the choice of whom to have a beer with, I'd have to take Colmes."

While I cheer when Colmes 'gets it', I'm not sure that I'm prepared to have a drink with him. Maybe when his conversion from the dark side is a little more complete.