Launching his book tour several days ago, Sean Hannity met with California Congressmen Kevin McCarthy and David Dreier in front of a live audience of Republican and Teabagger fans. The three men spend a good deal of their time venerating Ronald Reagan, dissing the current administration and being standard Republican talking-heads.
Seven and a half minutes into their adulation of Reagan, Hannity says this.
HANNITY: See, can I add one thing? I think we won the debate.
DREIER: We did win the debate.
HANNITY: When you think about the vast majorities that they have in Congress and they had to bribe, backroom deals, corruption, that’s all because the tea party movement, the people — all these Tim McVeigh wannabes here.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: Guys, thank you for being here.
What in the holy hell? You would think he was being sarcastic, but at no point do they discuss anything remotely having to do with Conservative threats of violence or anything similar. It is completely out of the blue. He simply calls his audience "Tim McVeigh wannabe's", they cheer and cut to commercial.
Disgusting, inappropriate, untimely and extremely ignorant. It is bad enough of a thing for Hannity to say, but the fact that it is cheered is doubly upsetting. Given the recent arrest of the "Hutaree 8," an apocalyptic Christian militia organization planning to attack federal officials with improvised explosives, the surge in vandalism against Democratic offices, and the upcoming Second Amendment March - scheduled for the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing this April 19th. That act of terrorism was in turn performed on the anniversary of the final assault on the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas.
So what the hell was this? A joke? Sarcasm? Simple stupidity on a level not even Glenn Beck could manage?
If it wasn't a joke, but a sincere compliment given to American citizens, that is something far worse. Timothy McVeigh was a lone-wolf terrorist driven by resentment of the federal government, extreme libertarian political views and a fascination with organized Militia movements. He killed 168 people, including 19 children.
This is not a person to cheer. This is not a person to idolize. This is not a person to emulate.
Update:
Apparently the comment was not entirely "out of the blue", but did lack a greater context. On his radio program the day before, Hannity spoke of the Tea Party movement saying "We've got veterans, we've got stay-at-home moms, people who really don't like the direction of the country. They're speaking out and they've been compared to terrorists, Tim McVeigh-wannabes. They've been called un-American. They've been called every name in the book. Now, the latest attack is that these people are violent..."
From this it is much easier to answer the questions posed above. It was most definitely sarcasm. It was also extremely stupid.
Comments
McVeigh's views were about as far away on the political spectrum as you could possibly get from libertarian. He was fascinated by Radical Islam, and held many Fascist views, particularly in support of Islamic regimes overseas, most particularly Saddam Hussein.
To even associate McVeigh in any way with libertarians is a gross absurdity.
Take that up with McVeigh, he's the one who identified himself as such.
Yeah, McVeigh was an Islamofascist.....riiiiight! Nice revisionism.
I sort of figured it was sarcasm. Badly out of place sarcasm, sure, but still sarcasm.
Better question, though. Did the cheering audience know it was sarcasm?
"Timothy McVeigh was a lone-wolf terrorist "
Not true. As Eric D. points out, his Gulf War experiences made him sympathetic to the plight of Arabs in general. I urge everyone to read "The Third Terrorist" which presents solid evidence that McVeigh and his "lone wolf" partner Terry Nichols were working with Palestinians and Iraqi National Guard members to do the deed. This is another cover-up. Better for the populace to imagine a lone-nut then a conspiracy.
Davis' book has some serious flaws, starting with the clear lies by some of her primary sources.
It's far more likely McVeigh had help from the Elohim City extremists - something the Feds have been genuinely embarassed about.
Maybe Sean is just trying to divert attention from his "charity".
Sarcastic or not, it's accurate.
The sheer irresponsibility of Hannity's statement is staggering, especially in this day when so many others are out there spouting violent rhetoric.
Regardless of any John Doe #3s, McVeigh is still defined as a Lone-Wolf Terrorist. Because he committed his acts outside of a larger command structure, he is one (no one ordered him to do it, it was his idea, plan, etc).
All of this misses the point however. His deed was motivated by precisely the same hatreds shared by the Teabaggers - consider this quote. "We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight... Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might." He was a member of the Gun Show trade culture and active in the Patriot movement. He is precisely the type of person to become a Teabagger.
The psychology here is fairly basic, and rather scary.
Hannity was clearly referring to the level of hostility with which 'progressives,' i.e. people like you, regard the tea party protestors. Particularly, your willingness to smear them with false claims of violent intent - like you're doing right this minute, in fact.
People applauded because they know it's true. You despise them, you do not wish to hear them, and you are willing to make stuff up about them.
First and foremost false claim is that this is about race, not the size and reach of the government. I don't care what Obama looks like - but you do.
Liberals only get sarcasm when its deployed by Jeanne Garafalo or Bill Maher. When Sean does it they go into fuax rage mode....pathetic, performative and instructive all at the same time. Your clown shoes tuck.
Question for Tucker. Since you state that the same thing that motivates tea partiers motivated Timothy, then what is that motivation? On what do you base YOUR knowledge of what motivates tea-partiers? Where specifically do you draw parallels between Timothy and tea-partiers?
I understand their motivations from their rhetoric John C
I'll illustrate this with a puzzle. Your job is to determine which quote comes from Timothy McVeigh, and which comes from a website/op-ed/speech from a modern day Tea Partier
"Every day brings a brand new threat against our very basic rights as an American citizen. We MUST draw a line in the sand somewhere and reclaim the privileges our forefathers fought and died for and then penned so eloquently into a document we call the United States Constitution"
"They are just taking it from you at night. Your freedoms, your economic freedom, the idea of capitalism, the idea that you control your own life and you make your own decisions, it's all going away"
"The government is afraid of the guns people have because they have to have control of the people at all times. Once you take away the guns, you can do anything to the people. You give them an inch and they take a mile. I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist gove
Interestingly, while looking up those quotes, I found this. "We certainly do not advocate or condone the blowing up of large buildings filled with people that one does not even know. You might kill a future Libertarian." from the website Worldlibertarianorder.
Extremist libertarian indeed.
Tim McVeigh was motivated by hatred of the 'ZOG,' Zionist Occupation Government. He was a Jew hater, and a racist, and a freaking lunatic. And you are explicitly comparing us to him. What a god damned insult.
What these Democrats are doing is bad. Bad policy, ruinously bad economics. And they are in fact shoving it down our throats. About 2/3 of the voting-age population did not want this healthcare bill. It isn't going to do what they claimed it would do, and we can't freaking afford it - Medicare and SS are already broke, and now a new gigantic entitlement? They crammed it through anyway. What can we do now except get out and remind them that they work for us?
I think we will see a return of other garbage legislation they couldn't pass before. Like, Cap and Trade, which is a gigantic tax on fuel use that its own proponents acknowledge wont't create any significant reduction in CO2 emissions.
They don't listen, and they lie about who we are and what we do.
Tucker = tool.
This is freakin ridiculous. Of course it was sarcasm. It was clearly sarcasm to every last man, woman, and child in the audience, and it's clearly sarcasm to every "normal" person out there. The only people who are unsure whether it is sarcasm or not are those that truly believe that the Tea Partiers are full of Tim McVeigh wannabe's. Here's a clue.. the joke is on YOU. You're the one they are subtly (not!) referring to as being completely out of touch with the Tea Partiers.
The author of this little rant has backed off of his original statements accusing Hannity and his 'followers' of being ideological bedfellows with Tim McVeigh. But the truth remains that this rant reveals more about the author's bigotry than it does about any prejudices held by the Right. This little screed was nothing more than instinctual emotional projection and emotional validation and is dead center to the Liberal mind set. Anyone who is not a screaming Marxist is reviled as a hate monger, sexist, homophobe, racist, holocaust denier, adulter, heretic and witch. Look in the mirror, Tuck. We all have hatred in our souls. The key is to realize and accept that you have it too and not let it make your decisions about how you treat, or think of, or what you say about other people. That is the only way we as a species can get out of the trap of instinctual behavior and achieve a true brotherhood of man.
Everyone loses if just one person believes that their hatred is justified.
"I'll illustrate this with a puzzle. Your job is to determine which quote comes from Timothy McVeigh, and which comes from a website/op-ed/speech from a modern day Tea Partier."
Intellectual dishonesty. The reason you can't tell which is which is because you didn't include any characteristic McVeigh quotes about secret Jew governments and black helicopters.
Here's a puzzle. Which quotes come from Tucker Phelps, and which ones from Timothy McVeigh?
"Thank you."
"Milk, no sugar."
"I've often thought so."
"Tell me about it."
"Ain't that the truth."
"Back off, man!"
------------------------------------------------------
I can't tell which is which! You're just like him!
Then there's the guilt by association thing you're attempting. Say, a progressive threatened to kill Eric Cantor. You're a progressive, so you bear some responsibility for that. Because I say so.
By the way, I don't even like Hannity. I never listen to him.
Tucker = tool.
The first quote comes from the website of the Kentucky Patriots District 5, as linked to from TeaPartPatriots.com. The second quote comes from Blenn Beck. The third comes from Timothy McVeigh.
As for not including characteristic language, simply untrue. McVeigh was deeply involved in the Patriot movement, thought the NRA was too liberal and advocated stockpiling weaponry. A quote from him specifically discussing guns is perfectly characteristic of him. It's also characteristic of the Tea Party movement.
Hence the comparison. McVeigh was a socially maladjusted sociopath with violent conspiritorial beliefs. The vast majority of Teabaggers are socially adjusted, reasonable people with violent conspiritorial beliefs.
Both display a strong wish for an extremely limited federal government, both stress the concept of the "sovereign citizen", both view taxation with extreme disregard. Making the analogy between them is easier than Tree:Water::Person:Food
This is freakin ridiculous. Of course it was sarcasm. It was clearly sarcasm to every last man, woman, and child in the audience, and it's clearly sarcasm to every "normal" person out there. The only people who are unsure whether it is sarcasm or not are those that truly believe that the Tea Partiers are full of Tim McVeigh wannabe's. Here's a clue.. the joke is on YOU. You're the one they are subtly (not!) referring to as being completely out of touch with the Tea Partiers.
These guys aren't libertarians of any kind, extreme or not. They're neocons. There's kind of a big difference, and it would mean a lot to me if you quit listening to Glenn Beck and the rest of these guys when they classify themselves as libertarians. They lie about the facts, they mislead when it comes to trends, and they certainly aren't telling the truth when they say they're libertarians, which is a movement that is for minimizing government, not eliminating the influence of the godless and drug-addicted liberals.
What I'm trying to say is that libertarians are against any kind of legislation--they're anti-war, anti drug control, and for separation of church of state. None of these are issues the teabaggers support.
That said, I also dislike the libertarians, but I think it's important we call a horse a horse. This way we don't look like idiots the next time a Republican takes office and we shout about how the "libertarians" are increasing the wiretapping budget.
Fox news needs too stop. This is not reality TV. They are trying to create violence.
See Todd, the thing about sarcasm is, it is often recognizable by the tone of voice the speaker is using. If you haven't heard the audio, you should give it a listen and tell me if you hear anything even closely resembling a sarcastic tone.
Home grown Terrorist militias and Tim McVeigh'a wanna be's. That's all Hannity is creating. They keep filling his pockets with millions and the gullible, hate monger hillbillies keep buying his act
.How ignorant can these people be.
He was making fun of the media. I see no problem with what he said, because he didn't say it first. A media member referred to a group of people that way, so we was showing how stupid a comment that was. I like how he did it.
Youre an idiot! My 1st cousin died in the Okla City Bombing! Anyone that listens to Shawn Hannity knows you're taking this out of context!!! Tea-baggers??? Moms, Military Members, Democrats and Independants belong to this movement! You just insulted a lot of Americans!! The truth is, we are tired of the left and your President completely ignoring the will of the people, not adhering to the constitution and running the defecit so high that we will never be able to pay it!!
Yes, Hannity was being sarcastic, but there's also a lot of truth buried in that humor.
It was obvious sarcasm. The point was the people at the event all knew that the charge that people like them were like "Timothy McVeigh" is absurd on its face as the thought of domestic terrorist violence from most of is downright silly. Their response was simply there understanding that they have been falsely accused of such nonsense by major media commentary in an attempt to discredit the group.
You are just clueless if you think they were cheering because they thought they liked the speaker encouraging them to commit illegal acts. The fact you could even suspect that say a lot about your biases.
Like you said to us when Bush was in, if you don't like it get out. Besides, Obama follows the Constitution perfectly well, he understands it better than anyone, he did teach it at Harvard. Bush ran up the deficit, Obama inherited it, he also understood that the only way to fix a struggling economy is an influx of capital dispensed in the correct locations in order to create jobs. Bush was the one who blew 700B on the banks. The solution over time pays for itself by the people working in the newly formed jobs. The problem with you idiot right-wingers is you don't have the patience or the capacity to do your homework and understand the long term benefits of anything he's done. The ironic thing though is that you will benefit from it whether you know it or not. Just like those tax cuts for you last year and the Dow now steady up over 11,000. Bush drove it down to 6500 remember? Of course you don't, you pathetic whiners.
Regardless of the spin you put on it and where you take your stand, what ever your view point on this merry go round, more are waking up to the nightmare, a government and media hijacked by corperate organized crime, with the dominant parties corrupted, bought off and the elections fixed, and generally Americans are begining to feel that the only thing left of our constitutional safegaurds against remaining in this state of being infiltrated and overthrown from within is the right to bear arms and use them, citizens arrest of the president and members of both houses for violations of RICO and being seditious traitors, followed by something along the lines of another french revolution. There just comes a point when the people get fed up with the sophistry... talkin about it all in ever tightening circles endlessly and really do something effective. Whether its a joke, sarcasm or a smeer doesnt matter, talkers. Secretly, they are McVie wannabees. Shhhh....
Timothy McVeigh's OKC bombing is just a grain of sand compared to the beach that is the atrocities committed by the US Army overseas. Where do you think he learned the term "collateral damage"? How many non-combatants, including plenty of children, have been murdered in Iraq? (Oh that's right, it's OK because we call it "war" and not "terrorism")
Your bio says you are "skeptical by nature."
Really? That's certainly not the sense one would get reading this article. Your initial contention -- that a congressman sincerely suggested his audience was a bunch of MURDEROUS DOMESTIC TERRORISTS; and that in response, THEY ALL CHEERED -- should have instantly set your BS detector flashing.
You may want to think you're skeptical, but the evidence here pegs you more at the gullible end of the scale.
- Alaska Jack
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