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By Gustav Wynn (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)
Instead, Sean's discussion focuses on the evil intentions of liberals to create cradle-to-grave government dependency and the bias of of the left-wing "Obama-mania media". Hannity bemoans what he says is tilted reporting, but at the same time feels there should be no regulation to encourage fairness, that America is supposed to be a see-saw of deception and distortion. Facing the reality that he seems to be fighting against the majority sentiment of his country, Hannity searches for scapegoats and enemies to blame, seeking to cram-fit cherrypicked facts and news of the day into his existing neocon precepts.
For instance, Hannity has been defending General Motors, a long-time sponsor. The company is truly in dire straits with sales plunging alongside the economy and available credit. But GM management refuses to make more fuel-efficient cars in order to compete. Hannity, an unabashed Escalade driver, fails to cite stats that show fuel efficiency and profitability have dovetailed for market leading automakers. Hannity continues to assert that GM makes the best cars in the world and is failing because of crushing external government regulation, leaving out the important counter-argument that Toyota and Honda adhere to the same domestic regulations in assembling 85% of their fleets here in the U.S.
Hannity is a major cheerleader for domestic drilling, claiming the short-term relief of our energy problem lie in immediate exploration and extraction of offshore oil, but lies by omission in not telling you the major commercial and environmental studies see no significant relief in domestic drilling unless the U.S. first reduces its oil-guzzling ways.
The biggest, most glaring example of this is the collapse of every major financial institution on Wall Street just in the last few months. Hannity has theorized for years that free market deregulation is key to prosperity in America, cutting taxes and reducing government spending, monitoring and interference to allow businesses to grow, innovate and create jobs. This is exactly what the Bush administration enacted, relaxing rules for reporting or verifying the viability of speculative financial instruments.
The result? Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, AIG and others oversold credit default swap policies for trillions more then could be covered. The risky sub-prime mortgages, hidden within much larger mortgage-backed securities triggered mammoth implosion of the unregulated CDS markets and when called, busted the firms for trillions. This is a clear-cut case in which government deregulation led to an urgent and widespread economic crisis which will now affect all Americans and perhaps everyone in the civilized world.
Hannity continues unrepentant however, claiming that Reagan's trickle-down economics are still what we need. This is after the middle class has given Bush's rich-skewed tax cuts every chance to work, but as a result has seen their quality of life go downhill. This is after Bush allowed rampant government spending with ballooning annual and federal deficits. This is after the preventable collapse of Wall Street. This is after the majority of Americans chose Obama's economic proposals to spread the tax cuts more widely across the middle-class.
Hannity was called out on Veteran's Day by a listener named Lisa from Georgia who tried to explain to him that the people had spoken and his negativity is palpable. Hannity simply couldn't relate to the woman because he has made $100 million by sticking to his script, putting him in the top one-tenth of 1% of taxpayers who would continue to save hundreds of thousands per year under Bush's tax cuts.
This is why Hannity is fighting hard to continue Bush's economic and military policies - he has such a large personal financial stake in trickle-down and receives such acclaim and rewards from military-industrial profiteers, he has become an opponent of the average American taxpayers who have clearly exercised their rights and voted for a change.
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