Hannity and Andy Martin, cont'd
I wrote three weeks ago about Sean Hannity featuring the longtime anti-Semitic propagandist Andy Martin in his hour-long screed against Obama on Fox News. Now here's Howard Kurtz in Monday's WP:
Martin said on the show that Obama's community-organizing work in Chicago was "training for a radical overthrow of the government." The onetime political candidate has a history of making controversial statements. In a 1983 personal bankruptcy case, according to the Chicago Tribune, he referred to a judge as a "crooked, slimy Jew" and described Holocaust survivors in a filing as "operating as a wolf pack." Martin has denied holding anti-Semitic views....
Fox, which initially defended the show, now expresses regret for booking Martin, who was interviewed by a producer. Shine says Hannity disagrees with some of Martin's past comments. "Having that guy on was a mistake," Shine says. "We obviously didn't do enough research on who the guest was."
It took me a few seconds on Google to find out who Andy Martin is. In the time it takes to type the word "controversial," I can pull up his quotes. "Research"? One wonders to what lengths the Fox apparatus goes to research anything it does. Anything.
P. S. "Controversial"--don't you love the punctilio? "The controversial chancellor of Germany today declared that Jews were a plague on the human race....." This is the word the WP press critic chooses to characterize unbridled, straight-from-the-bottom, pure-spleened anti-Semitism. Reels the mind, and the language.
Google? I think their primary research tool is the fax machine. Stuff shows up and they read it.
October 29, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Longtime Chicagoans will remember Andy Martin as a nut job from back in the seventies. He is the same person as Anthony Robert Martin-Trigona who was a nut job when ran for mayor back in the seventies. He had a lot of money and used to run a lot of ads that whined "Why won't Bilandic debate me? Why won't Bilandic debate me?" It's obvious why, in retrospect.
Bilandic? Let's see - that's pre-Harold Washington, pre-Jane Byrne, practically pre-historic. I was amazed to learn his subsequent history which is even more checkered and disgusting.
October 29, 2008 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
And by "nutjob" we are talking literally, certifiable:
"He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” "
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13martin.html
Judging by Martin's subsequent behavior, one wonders if there is a Noble Prize for psychiatry. This guy's shrink just might be a prime candidate.
And needless to say, this guy is the perfect standard bearer for the modern GOP - 16% of McCain's supporters believe this Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim crap.
http://blogs.wsj.com/politicalperceptions/2008/10/21/republicans-fuel-rumor-that-obama-is-muslim/
October 30, 2008 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Even worse, Fox showed the Hannity special with Martin (reviewed by the LA Times here) after Obama spokesman Gibbs pointed out Martin's anti-Semitism to Hannity. Any pretense of ignorance of Martin's nasty past should be ridiculed.
October 29, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Twin Planets,
Do you have a source for this time sequence?
October 29, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I went back and looked, and (yuck) I owe Fox an apology. It appears that the Hannity special originally aired on 5 Oct, 2 days before the Gibbs interview. There was a Hannity special on 12 Oct, but it appears to be a different installment (third of a three part anti-Obama screed). My mistake.
I haven't the stomach to review the 12 October tsoye, so no idea if Martin appears there. Web link to it.
October 29, 2008 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't pass the smell test. Who in their right mind would believe that Sean Hannity really had good intentions, but was just uninformed about the subject matter? If Andy Martin hadn't suggested Obama was a terrorist, Sean Hannity would have!
October 29, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
He appeared on FOX, on Hannity, he found a home.
October 29, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 29, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would somebody please explain to me what the deal is with Howard Kurtz? Is he just flat-out dumb or is there something else going on?
October 29, 2008 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
It all depends upon whom Mrs. Kurtz, erstwhile Republican strategist, consultant, and all around dog's body, is doing PR for on any given day.
October 29, 2008 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now your comment, Ellen, is the kinda political process coverage I likey. Just sayin' because I was sort of pontificating on another thread here about the uselessness of much of spin wars available in the blogosphere. But poop on why someone might be spinning what, now that's valuable info.
October 30, 2008 12:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
For what its worth, Howard Kurtz's wife, Sheri Annis, is a Republican consultant and commentator.
http://www.fourthestatestrategies.com/html/biography.html
October 30, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
That voice! That Voice! The shrillness! make it stop!!!!
The Tell-Tale Voice!
http://thetruthburns.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/the-tell-tale-voice/
October 30, 2008 3:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's why Howie's middle name is "The Putz".
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=putz+site%3Arogerailes.blogspot.com&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=
October 31, 2008 2:05 AM | Reply | Permalink