While reckless home borrowing represented a slice of the current crisis - if this were truly the drag on the economy Hannity says it is, the original "rescue" bill Bush signed could have covered bailing out all those mortgages overnight. The problem is much deeper - these bad mortgages were deliberately mixed in with as many as ten times more sound loans, compiled into packaged investment instruments and sold all over the world with no government agency overseeing the potential for disaster.
Unregulated credit bets like default swaps and CDOs were the real culprit behind the collapse of the largest financial institutions in the country, according to Wall Street itself. These policies encouraged profit-seeking by gambling on the failure of a financial instrument, such as a mortgage-backed security not-so-secretly infected with sub-prime loans.
Unlike risky loans made without income verification, there was no guesswork to sub-prime loans - everyone involved knew the payments would exceed the homeowners ability to pay on a certain date. This predictability proves there was no agency watching over (reaffirmed by the failure to catch Bernie Madoff). When banks and investment firms crumbled, the dominoes began to fall and the last three months have seen devastating job losses.
Hannity's "Conservatism" is therefore only lip service. He had no interest in fiscal responsibility during the long tenure of Bush/Cheney, too busy talking up the war on terror and how afraid we should be of radical Islamic extremists seeking to attack us while we spent aimlessly on security and deployments, blind to Osama bin Laden's vow to bleed our economy dry.
Hannity has no interest in restoring ethics to government - unless it is to singularly spotlight Democratic hypocrisy. For example, he rails against Obama's lobbyist appointments but never mentions Bush's shockingly blatant revolving door policies. If you are a religious or simply ethical person, this proves Sean's aim is partisanship and there are no underlying moral principles guiding his hand.
Besides fiscal responsibility and strict ethics, the last tenet of traditional Conservatism is small government. Hannity is 0 for 3 then - despite his rants, he has supported Bush/Cheney's massive increases in debt-spending using pricey privatized contractors who outnumbered our troops, collecting extra "combat zone" pay for peeling potatoes in the Green Zone when we used to do it for pennies through the traditional KP detail. Hannity insisted all Americans get on board for Bush's war appropriations, or else they aren't supporting the troops.
Again, Hannity's preachy diatribes are at odds with the facts - following the money (some of which was completely lost), we saw rampant fraud, waste and criminal abuse by numerous crony contractors through no-bid contracts without Congressional oversight. Halliburton and Blackwater were examples of profiteers paid cost-plus premiums to do the same job our troops did, but after scandals showed they murdered and tortured some Iraqis (and raped their own employees), it made our military's job even harder. This is not small government, this is corruption.
But if Hannity cannot defend these practices in an openly public argument, he can make sure no one ever brings it up on the air. He still schedules guests who parrot his views, even after being criticized for his unprofessional bias - you may never hear an informed, articulate liberal pundit or elected official on his show.
Finally, there is Hannity's troubling associations. We all know Hannity has been attending St. Patrick's Day parades and festivals since he was a youth. In these massive, densely-populated demonstrations, he must have surely been in close proximity to undocumented Irish immigrants, IRA sympathizers and perhaps even weapons smugglers or munitions experts. If Hannity's earliest memories were shaped by this sort of radical element, cozying up with church and car bombers and terrorists, how can we be sure these murderous beliefs aren't still shaping his views?
Indeed, what if Hannity's closest circle of advisers are the very same extremists who carried out assassinations, bombings and decades-long terror campaigns, targeting innocent fresh-faced children for slaughter to advance their radical views? Who is the real Sean Hannity? With his lifelong participation in these rallies and rituals signaling his radical associations, isn't it more accurate to say his very heart beats like a ticking bomb and that every hair on his head is like a burning fuse fueled by the desire to commit brutal atrocities against schoolchildren?
Though I haven't cited evidence, sourcing or rational analysis for the previous two paragraphs, I must offer that my writing of late has been greatly influenced by Sean Hannity. He represents the leadership in American talk and political discourse in radio and TV today and serves as a model for us all.
So ask yourself, would you like to see your children one day become a devotee of a talk host who intentionally hides relevant facts from his own countrymen? Who manipulates arguments using repetition and talking points secretly supplied by the White House?
As a parent, educator and media watcher, I used to decry Hannity's tactics, but I now see how effective they actually are - I get more readers now, including you. Until Americans see that money and ratings shouldn't trump accuracy or balance, I'll do what Sean does. Heck, doing research only slows down the amazing narratives you can construct via fearmongering and salacious, unproven smears.
Remember, the legal requirement for balance in reporting was abolished by Reagan in 1984 (it was actually 1987, but 1984 sounds so much more appropriate) so it's no wonder trickle-down economic theories got major air time.
And specifically in reference to the Fairness Doctrine, I applaud the decision to abolish government enforcement of balance in broadcasting, but I regret the day guys like Sean Hannity decided to stop policing basic balance and professional integrity on their own. It has made America a more divided, misinformed, angry, fearful place. I'd love to hear Hannity's arguments vetted in intelligent, open debate, defending his media manipulation methods, his contact with Karl Rove's Office of Strategic Initiatives, the Iraq war, Bush's legacy and especially the dramatic failure of Bush's tax cuts and long-term borrowing policies started by Reagan.
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