Alan ColmesFrom The Rational Radical's Blog: Contemporaneous Musings About That Conservative Stomp-fest, Hannity & Colmes Friday, October 01, 2004 Did you see the pathetic Alan Colmes interviewing Karen Hughes right after the debate? Colmes got run over by Hughes's non-stop barrage of "Bush did great and Kerry failed the test" spin. Why does Colmes even bother? [Friday, September 24, 2004] Did someone give Colmes
a shot of testosterone Thursday night right before his show? He came
out aggressive as hell and barely let up the entire show. Whoever's
sticking in the syringe, keep doing it! [Tuesday, September 14, 2004] Alan Colmes has been unusually aggressive
lately. He'll often set up the guest properly for the kill.
Unfortunately, he still lacks the go-for-the-jugular instinct
which would have Colmes explicitly and disparagingly summarize the
guest's failure before the end of the segment. Also, Colmes still
apparently has no control over the guest list, since they had on
for a double segment tonight the Swift Boat Liars for Bush head
guy, with the lead-in question of, has the Bush National Guard
controversy taken the heat off John Kerry regarding his Swift boat
experiences. Well, not if Hannity & Colmes has anything
to do with it. [ Tue Apr 27, 08:53:58 PM ]The other night Alan Colmes repeated two times in teasers that "thousands" rallied in DC in the pro-choice march. Why does Colmes do this stuff? There were hundreds of thousands there. Why couldn't he be accurate? Even the Fox news crawler on the bottom of the screen said estimates were between 500,000 and 800,000. Have you even seen Colmes be inaccurate in favor of a liberal position?[ Fri Apr 09, 03:13:08 PM ]Last night, Fox's token eunuch, oops, I mean liberal, Alan "The Doormat"Colmes, was so happy to say that Condomskeezer Lice's testimony was "credible and articulate." Is Rupert now giving Colmes a script to read?[ Wed Mar 24, 08:02:47 PM ]Pat Halpern substituted for Alan Colmes tonight. Halpern is so laid back, non-confrontational and ineffective in his questioning, he makes Colmes seem as aggressive and effective as Sean Hannity![ Wed Mar 24, 08:01:07 PM ]Greta sank to a new low tonight (not something easy for her to accomplish given where she has already been in her stint at Fox!). A pathetic practice on her program is that at the beginning, the Fox News Alert music will come on, and then Greta will breathlessly relate one of the day's top stories, which isn't in an alert stage at all, but just the facts that have been known all day, and usually discussed ad nauseum already on O'Reilly and Hannity & Colmes directly before her. Tonight, the end of H&C was devoted to live coverage of Bush giving a speech. Then at the time Greta was scheduled to go on, she appeared in the corner of the screen with the Fox News Alert music, and told us that Bush was giving this speech, and that Fox would continue to cover it. This was not an address to the nation. It was a yearly appearance before a broadcasting group. The speech was not even worthy of live coverage, let alone a News Alert. But then this is Fox, not an actual news channel.[ Tue Mar 16, 09:20:37 PM ]Alan Colmes last night said he was happy to do all he could to help Sean Hannity sell as many copies of his book as possible. The title of Hannity's book is "Deliver Us from Evil : Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism". If someone wrote a book which said my political ideology was as bad as terrorism and despotism, that would not be a book I'd be eager to promote. But then, unlike Alan Colmes, I have some self-respect.[ Fri Jan 23, 01:26:57 PM]It's bad enough when Alan Colmes proclaims the Fox slogan "Fair and Balanced" with a straight face. He seems to really believe it. Even more amazing is the teaser he read the other night: "Dick Cheny answers tough questions about Iraq" Who was interviewing Cheney, you wonder, that would pose tough questions to the ultra-right VP? The answer: Sean Hannity was conducting the interview. Just the person to ask Dick Cheny tough questions about anything. And as could be expected, the questions about Iraq were powder puffs.[ Tue Dec 30, 07:34:02 PM]An Aggressive Conservative vs. a "Liberal to be Determined" Great article on the lack of balance on Hannity & Colmes. One quibble with the article:The numbers interruptions attributed to Hannity compared to Colmes didn't seem lopsided enough. I figure out why: when Hannity interrupts, it's after the liberal guest has not even finished his first sentence, and Hannity often never lets the guest complete even one point. When Colmes interrupts, it's almost always after the guest has spoken quite a bit. So Hannity's interruptions seem, and are, far more damaging to the other side's ability to express themselves. In addition, Hannity will virtually never interrupt a conservative, but I've seen Colmes engage in repeated interruptions of liberals who don't seem to be agreeing with his "let's be nice" approach to things. So while the pure numbers show an imbalance, adding in the how, when and against whom elements makes the picture far more lopsided. [ Sat Dec 27, 07:30:29 PM]Alan "The Doormat" Colmes was at it again last night.Hannity & Colmes deigned to allow an actual representative of a group organizing anti-Iraq War protests to appear on the program. It was the day after Christmas, probably one of the least watched programs, but still an appearance. So what does Colmes do? He spends virtually his entire portion of the segment criticizing the protests and asking aren't they a waste of time, since Bush didn't listen. Instead of using this valuable air time to educate the audience about a war that at one point, in a rare fit of balls, Colmes called "illegal", "immoral" and "imperialistic", Colmes helps the pro-war propaganda effort by denigrating the protests. And the guest, Leslie Cagan of United for Peace & Justice was a disaster in her own right. How can a national group let people go on the air without even the most minimal preparation for the type of forum they'll be appearing on?! Hannity started out by asking her if she were in charge, how would she have handled the response to 9/11. Hannity (and other right-wing hosts) have been asking this question of progressive guests since 9/12, and virtually all of the them stumble and hem and haw and have no coherent answer. Cagan was like that in spades. What I got from her is that she would have convened an international forum of some sort. Hannity mocked her and pounded her, and she looked foolish. The entire segment was taken up with her futilely trying to answer this question. Then to top it all off, at the end of the segment, she whined that she didn't even get to discuss the topic, a Washington, DC demonstration planned for March. Well of course she didn't, since that is Hannity's tactic from way back, avoid the topic and put the guest on the defensive. This entire portion of the program was most disheartening to watch. [ Sun Dec 21, 08:09:02 PM]Noam Chomsky describes a phenomenon that drives me crazy, the way limp liberals like Alan Colmes allow right-wingers to dismiss with a wave of the hand past U.S. atrocities. Chomsky calls itOn another major point, Jefferson as quoted by Chomsky certainly got this right: Not Neo-Con, Just Plain Greed makes the same point: Yup, those who set the rules, set rules to enrich themselves. How much more basic could it be? [ Thu Dec 04, 09:56:46 PM ]Alan "The Doormat" Colmes, in one of his patented attacks on "fellow liberals," noted that "some liberals" are mad at him for not being "mean-spirited" enough. Must be more than "some" liberals, since virtually none apparently bought his recent book, which tonight was at 3,104 on Amazon.com's best-seller list.Colmes is right of course. The reason Democrats are out of power is that they have been too aggressive and mean-spirited. And the reason Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency is because they have been so polite and respectful towards those with whom they disagree. Finally, it seems something is going on where Hannity is saying how he could pummel Colmes in a celebrity boxing match. So now Hannity's adding physical intimidation to the psychological terror-hold he has over Colmes. [ Thu Nov 27, 09:44:30 PM ]There he goes again! Alan "The Doormat" Colmes was rhapsodizing tonight about what he called the "political masterstroke" of Bush's stunt dinner at the Baghdad airport. He breathlessly asked if this "trip" will make it harder for Democrats to criticize the present on the mess in Iraq (?!!). Segment after segment of the program tonight was devoted to Colmes asking inane questions about the meaningless journey. Of course, Hannity was doing the same thing. Maybe Colmes should pull a Dennis Miller and shed all pretense of being a committed liberal. Oh wait, he can't do that, because then he wouldn't be able to continue as the purportedly "liberal" side of the program.[ Wed Nov 19, 09:25:43 PM ]Alan Colmes was so thrilled the other night when G. Gordon Liddy (G. Gordon Liddy!) told him that he was the nicest guy he ever met. So to his accolades from the right such as "favorite liberal," we can now add "nicest guy." Great job, Alan![ Wed Nov 12, 06:02:20 PM]What the f**k is wrong with Alan Colmes?! He's on right now with a horrible case of laryngitis. You can barely hear him, and it's painful to listen to someone like that trying to talk. Is he so desperate not to miss a night of the program for fear his already failed book with sell even fewer copies? Update: so he stopped trying to talk, and just sat there, with Sean making a reference to him once in a while. And you know what, the liberal position wasn't any worse represented by him being totally silent![ Sun Nov 02, 11:54:42 PM]Geraldo: Enviros Planted Time Bomb in Calif. Forests This Newsmax.com article calls Geraldo "Fox News Channel's leading liberal field reporter." WRONG!! Geraldo is still a liberal like Dennis Miller is still a liberal. He's not. Gerald's been more hawkish than Oliver North on the Iraq War, and you'd be hard-pressed to locate a liberal sentiment coming out of Geraldo's mouth since he came to Fox. But Fox can claim he's a liberal, a part of their "fair and balanced" network -- along with the other ex-liberal Greta, and the non-performing, voted-for-Giuiani liberal Alan "The Doormat" Colmes. [PS: If Newsmax thinks Geraldo is the "leading" liberal field reporter, that implies there are others. I wonder who on earth they might be? Oliver North perhaps?][ Fri Oct 17, 09:53:36 PM] You ever notice that when Hannity is absent, the guest list, discussion topics and/or teasers on Hannity & Colmes often skew much less heavily rightward? Such was the case tonight. Just more evidence of how Colmes can't stand up to Hannity. [ Thu Oct 02, 10:21:09 PM]Did you see the Nuremberg-style rally on Fox tonight, otherwise know as the Hannity & Colmes show live from Philly? A rabidly pro-Fox, right-wing audience roared in approval whenever a right-wing cliche was uttered. Susan Estrich showed how low she is willing to go to land a spot as host of a Fox News talk show: I've never seen her as mad as tonight, and why was she mad? Because the LA Times had printed a negative story about Arnold 5 days before the election. That's certainly what in the world Estrich should be most mad about. And overall, how bold for the ultimate practitioners of character assassination ("traitors," "appeasers," "Neville Chamberlain," "fomenting class warfare," "un-American," "un-patriotic," etc etc) to be so upset at the language Democrats are using to describe Bush and others in his administration. And how sad that Alan Colmes and Estrich and their ilk seem more enthusiastic in condeming their fellow Democrats about using "inappropriate" language than in condemning the Bushian policies that have killed and maimed thousands and impoverished millions. [ Mon Sep 29, 10:13:56 PM]Hannity & Colmes continued its Arnold-fest with 18 minutes of Hannity solo soft-balling questions at him. Colmes said they offered Davis time with just Colmes and Davis refused. I find that hard to believe. What about Busatmente, Huffington and Camejo? Was time offered to them also without Hannity? [ Fri Sep 26, 03:40:28 PM]
Fair and balanced Hannity & Colmes
started out last night with a 30 minute broadcast of an Arnold
campaign rally hosted by Sean Hannity. (The program called it an
"exclusive interview" and a "town meeting." No
way). Alleged "co-host" Alan Colmes seems not to have much
control over the program's content. On that thought, it was especially
pathetic when -- as he interviewed conservative Chuck Norris -- Colmes
asked for the second time this week, where were all the Hollywood
liberals, because all Colmes sees on the program are Hollywood
conservatives. Bizarre. Why doesn't Colmes simply stand up for himself
and insist that more Hollywood liberals, and liberal musical guests,
and liberal comedians (as a fair and balanced counterweight to the
appearances every week of Dennis Miller) be on the program?! [ Mon Sep 22, 10:11:18 PM]Alan Colmes said tonight that he doesn't understand why everyone says Hollywood is full of liberals, since all he talks to are Hollywood conservatives. Well duh, Alan! That's whom Hannity's program invites on. Just like it only has on (terrible, treacly) conservative singers. And a conservative comedian (Dennis Miller) every Friday. And only conservatives for single person double segments. You apparently have no say at all on the show's guests or their terrible imbalance toward the fringe right-wing side. [ Wed Sep 10, 10:23:45 PM]
What's with Jay Leno giving Dennis Miller
two full segments to rant away uninterrupted? Miller spent an entire
segment praising Arnold. The rest of the time he bashed liberals and
Democrats. Miller seems like he's on that show every two weeks (he is
on Hannity & Colmes every Friday where they let him also
rant away, and of course there is no progressive comedian given any
time to create fairness and balance). [ Fri Aug 15, 09:33:57 PM]Wow, Alan Colmes tonight got real, real brave and told Sean Hannity to "Let him speak" when Hannity kept interrupting a guest that Colmes was interviewing. In the past, Colmes had gotten up the nerve to once in a blue moon tell Hannity "I didn't know your name was [guest's name]" when Hannity wouldn't let a guest Colmes was interviewing speak. I wish Colmes would simply say "Sean, shut the fuck up." [ Fri Aug 15, 03:36:41 PM]You've probably heard of the belief that married couples grow to look like each other more and more. I don't know if it's a similar process, but on Fox News, Alan Colmes and Greta van Susteren increasingly wear the same hangdog, subservient expression. I guess that must come with being immersed in a far-right environment where any view less than significantly right of center is considered treasonous. [ Wed Jul 30, 09:08:05 PM]What's with Susan Estrich's face on Fox? I'm not writing about her having had about a million makeovers since her first appearance. That's fine, she and they want her to look her best. What I'm talking about is her smiling. Apparently some Foxian advisor told her to smile more. So when she's not speaking but on camera, she forces this expression on her face that varies from a incongruous grin to a teeth-fully-exposed Joker's smile. Why can't she just sit there with a neutral expression on her face like everyone else? I wonder if they're grooming her to have her own talk show. She could join Alan Colmes and become the second house liberal. She certainly kisses Hannity's butt enough to qualify. [ Fri Jul 25, 09:19:14 PM]New Merle Haggard Tune Blasts US Media Coverage of Iraq War Let's see if "fair and balanced" Hannity & Colmes, who have had country star after country star come on and sing pro-war songs, will have Merle Haggard sing his new song. I tend to doubt it, since the show's agenda, including its musical guests, seems set by and tailored to Hannity, not Colmes. Colmes may get stopwatch accurate equal time with Hannity, but the guest list shows it's really Hannity's show, with Colmes a sort of equal-time but clearly second banana Ed McMahon. [ Thu Jul 17, 09:42:26 PM]Pat Robertson Loses It in Attack on High Court
Nice to see a prominent religious figure speak so bluntly about the moronic Robertson (whom the Fox News Hannity-interruption-fest Hannity & Colmes welcomes as a respected guest all the time!). [ Mon Jul 14, 10:19:58 PM]Sean Hannity's interrupting of guests on Hannity & Colmes seems to be reaching new heights. He'll ask an extremely long question which includes multiple factual assertions, then before the guest gets out two words, Hannity interrupts and starts filibustering again. Someone should really take a stopwatch and compare how much time Hannity takes up vs. how much time he gives a guest. [ Thu Jun 19, 09:52:17 PM]Why do right-wingers continue to claim that Geraldo and Greta, not just Alan Colmes, are the "liberal balance" on Fox? Whatever they were before they came aboard Fox, since then nary a left-of-center word has passed either of their lips. Quite the contrary. Geraldo has been a Bushier-than-Bush warmonger, and Greta has sycophantically played host to every right-wing mass murderer like Kissinger whom Fox puts on her program. And of course, slightly left-of-center, overly polite Colmes is no match even on that one program for the far, far right, hyper-aggressive pitbull, Sean Hannity. Fox does have liberals debate conservatives in its debate segments, but almost all the time, whenever there's a double-segment with a single "analyst," the analyst is a right-winger. No fairness and no balance in that either. [ Tue Jun 17, 09:57:34 PM]It's amazing how Alan Colmes, supposed to be a "liberal," can sit next to the Shah of Iran's son and listen to the son bloviate about the son's comittment to democracy and freedom. The son's father was a brutal dictator who came to power in Iran in a CIA coup and whose secret police, the Savak, was known for horrific torture procedures that I won't get into here. I'm not saying the son had anything to do with implementing his father's rule, but if Hitler's son had appeared 24 years after the end of WWII and started talking about how the son was committed to democracy and freedom, it would be a sad journalist indeed who wouldn't bring up his father's record. [ Tue Jun 10, 09:34:05 PM | Jack Clark | edit ]It's amazing to see the absolute hysteria on the far-right caused by Hillary's book. Newmax.com's front page, which you can see here absent graphics, epitomizes the hysteria.I don't particularly like her myself, she's not very progressive on many issues. But if she upsets the far-right so much, terrific! Hannity devoted the entire hour of Hannity & Colmes tonight to Bill&Hillary-bashing. He aired three long segments of a rape accuser. He got to repeat his reading of the other sexual allegations against Bill. I think Hannity gets a sexual thrill reading aloud about that. He should title his program "Bill Clinton's Penis" since Hannity seems obsessed by the doings of that Clintonian appendage.
[ Thu May 29, 10:03:28 PM ]
Did I hear correctly? Did Sean Hannity actually ask in a teaser on tonight's program something like "Where was Amnesty International while Saddam was filling his mass graves?" As the Amnesty International rep pointed out in the actual segment, AI has consistently condemned Hussein's human rights abuses ever since Saddam came to power -- in marked contrast, he noted, to the Reagan administration and Rumsfeld, who supported Saddam during the period of Saddam's worst human rights violations. Unfortunately, the AI rep made that point to Alan Colmes, and not being a go-for-the-jugular debater, didn't directly condemn Hannity to his face for his slanderous earlier teaser implication. [ Fri May 23, 09:53:11 PM ]After repeatedly forcing myself to watch O'Reilly and Hannity & Colmes every night (I say I want to know what the other side is thinking, but maybe I'm really a masochist), I've come to one solid conclusion: FoxNews is the greatest terrorist recruiting weapon in the world. If you sat down the average citizen of any country and let them watch a day of Fox programming -- making sure to include Hannity and O'Reilly -- that would be enough to make them strap on a suicide bomber's belt and be chomping at the bit to blow up some Americans.
[ Fri Dec 06, 10:06:10 PM ]
It's simply amazing to watch what Sean Hannity repeatedly gets away with on Hannity & Colmes when "interviewing" someone he disagrees with. Hannity will pose a question in which he makes two, three, four or even more "factual" assertions -- often sweeping generalizations about events many years ago -- then draw a conclusion based on them, and challenge his guest to prove him wrong. Then before the guest can speak for more than 10 or 20 seconds, Hannity will interrupt, and keep doing so, never letting the guest give a complete answer. Even if the guest was given the entire rest of the segment after Hannity's question, there wouldn't be time to address the factual assertions, let alone the conclusion, contained in Hannity's question. Yet Hannity is so insecure that he won't even let the guest attempt to do so.
[ Mon Oct 07, 07:43:12 PM ]
A Disastrous appearance by Nathan
Britton of California Peace Action on Hannity & Colmes [ Mon Oct 07, 02:18:14 PM] I bet if you took a stopwatch and checked, Hannity speaks twice as many minutes as Colmes on their show, where they are supposedly co-hosts. When Hannity is questioning a non-conservative guest, I bet he speaks for more minutes than he allows the guest.And, Hannity asks long multi-part questions of the form: Given Fact A, and given Fact B, and Given Fact C, isn't it true that Conclusion D? Since his Facts A, B and C are wrong, his conclusion doesn't follow. But as soon as the guest starts to explain, Hannity interrupts and says "I asked you a simple 'yes or no' question." Further, Hannity constantly interrupts non-conservative guests even when it is Colmes doing the questioning, as we hear Hannity off-camera bleating "That's not true" or "That's a lie" over and over again. [ Tue Sep 17, 09:49:40 PM]
Hannity & Colmes is really
shameless. Today they had solo political analyst segments with Robert
MacFarland, Reagan's national security advisor; Peggy Noonan, Reagan's
speechwriter; and Dick Morris, who though he deviated and worked for
Clinton, is now back to being, in his post-toe-sucking reincarnation,
a confirmed liberal basher. [ Mon Sep 16, 08:19:06 PM]Continuing my intrepid attempt to document the terrible imbalance in the selection of political commentators on Hannity & Colmes who appear in solo segments, last week Gen. Alexander Haig was on for a double solo segment, while today Donna Brazile appeared solo on only one segment. And of course, Haig is far more right-wing than Brazile is progressive (I won't even raise the issue of whether anyone managing Al "Pro-Contra" Gore's campaign should still be considered progressive at all). [ Tue Sep 10, 08:38:40 PM]Hannity & Colmes continued their string of "fair and balanced" solo commentaries tonight: Bill Bennet got two segments, Dan Quayle got two segments, and Democratic Harold Ford got one segment. Four to one, Republican. Very fair and balanced, isn't it? [ Thu Sep 05, 08:51:29 PM]Hannity & Colmes continued their "fair and balanced" presentation of political analysts tonight, by having J.C. Watts solo in what I believe were at least two segments. There was not even one solo segment with a left-wing analyst. [ Wed Sep 04, 08:25:30 PM]Fox's "fair and balanced" was certainly in evidence tonight with respect to political analysts on Hannity & Colmes. On the one side, there were multiple segments with first Newt Gingrich, then Ed Meese. To present opposing analysis, there was.... NO ONE. |