Can you smell the fear?

This was the opening ten-minute monologue by Sean Hannity at the beginning of his 2^nd hour: (no emphasis added, even though he was strident throughout)

Hello. How are you. Welcome aboard. Thank you for tuning in. Glad you're with us. Write down our toll-free telephone number. By the way Tom McClintock was going to be on today but had to get on a plane. He's going to be on tomorrow. And we look forward to that. 800-941-SEAN if you want to be part of the program.

We've got to deal with this last caller.

I'm telling you what's going on here is Democrats and they're lying and saying oh I'm a conservative, I'm a Reagan guy. Every time I hear that I want to puke 'cause I know it's a lie. I just don't believe these people.

But with all that said and done, it doesn't matter. Robert Novak could not have been more clear in what it was that he was trying to say. "Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this."

Let me just repeat, "Nobody in the Bush administration". Here he is, a reporter, in that statement he is denying it was the White House. He does say, "I was interviewing a senior administration official". "Administration" being the entire government of George W. Bush, but not the White House. He was crystal clear in saying that it was not the White House.

The allegation about the White House is absolutely, fundamentally inaccurate. Not true. The executive branch. And he's clear in what he's saying when he's saying it wasn't that, in other words. And on the other side of this he's not going to give up his sources. This guy's been a reporter now for forty-plus years. He's not going to go out there and give up his sources and say who told him what.

Now look, if Andrea Mitchell is one of the quote "six reporters" Joe Wilson keeps telling us about, if there are five others that he can name, well let's get on with it. Because this can all be resolved in five minutes. All they have to do is come out and say who the person was that called them. There's no confidential source there. If somebody is peddling some type of story or some type of smear campaign - if in fact that were true - we'll let's get it on the record. All they have to do is go on the record and say who it was that called them from the White House and the issue is going to be solved. But I'm telling you, I don't think they'll be able to do it, because it's that simple and if they could do it they would do it. And if it was Karl Rove, it would have been out by now.

It's not Karl Rove in spite of the allegations by Joe Wilson and everybody.

Folks, if you sense frustration in my voice, this is cumulative for me. And we have now been bombarded with months of this nonstop Hate-George-W-Bush-campaign. I am sick of him being called a gang leader. I'm sick of him being called a liar. I am sick of being told that he intentionally lied to the American people. I am sick of them saying that somehow we have failed in Iraq. I'm sick of them saying we've failed in Afghanistan. I am sick of them saying this country is in an economic mess when in fact the numbers keep reinforcing the aspect that we're going to have unprecedented growth in the final quarter of this year and into next year. I am just sick and tired of what you are witnessing here is a non-stop political campaign. And sadly, there are some people out there - probably not in this audience - the weak minded among us that whenever the propaganda gets retched up into whatever extent, they want to buy into the big lie.

You are looking at a non story.

The person responsible for breaking the story has confirmed it has not come from the White House. What part of that does not the media and the liberals in the Congress and in the Senate understand?

They're trying to score political points, just like Ted Kennedy is trying to score political points when he comes up with a big black helicopters theory that, in fact, "This war was concocted in Texas because the administration wanted to score political points". How does he get away with that madness? That is insanity. And the fact that he himself has talked in the past about the nature of the threat of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein.

The fact that these guys are so concerned about leaks from the White House and smear campaigns - they were silent when they went after Paula Jones and released her tax returns; Linda Tripp, when they released her personnel file; Kathleen Wiley when they released her personal correspondence to the president. None of those things mattered in the least to those people.

Yet now this has taken on a significance and importance that we need independent council after independent council.

Do you not see how transparent this is? Do you not see what it is at work here? Do you not see the campaign that has been orchestrated here? Do you not concede there has been a propaganda assault against this president because they cannot stand him. They've underestimated him. He has beaten them at every turn. The economy is turning around. He's won two wars in record time. Their predictions at every single level, every single step of the way, have been as wrong as they ever have been. And they don't want to admit they are on the wrong side of history, so this is all we've got left. This is all this party has left. Do you understand there is hardly a single substantive idea that we ever hear from these guys anymore.

How are they going to deal in a post-9/11 world, with the threat of radical Islam. The threat of fundamentalism. The threat of terrorism. What is their plan? If all they have is criticism for this president, what would they do differently? What are they going to do better on the economy besides take back your tax cut?

It is ... and I'm going to tell ya, before it is said and done, folks, there is so much at stake in this election it is only going to get worse and this is just the beginning. It's just the beginning.

And I'm going to have to find a way to reach down deep inside me and gather a little bit more patience, 'cause I've frankly had it.

We're at a point in our history where we ought to be united. We're at a point in our history where you'd like to think people understand what it is that's at stake here. We're at a point in history where - by golly - two years ago the nation came under fire in a way we never dreamed possible. And they weren't attacking liberals or conservatives, Republicans or Democrats, white, black, Hispanic. They were attacking Americans. And the idea that we don't unite even after that attack is just one sad reality, that after the president did what he had to do to combat this. He is under fire for the steps and the measures taken. That is a sad thing.

How does any American president deal with future threats, knowing what is waiting for him politically on the other side - even if he's successful. Forget about if he failed. I mean there were great risks associated with the attack against Iraq. Everything could have gone wrong. Thousands could have been dead. Chemical weapons could have been used. Perhaps even a nuke could have been dropped. Who knows? But none of that happened. We did it in record time with a minimum of casualties. We're still cleaning up the mess but life is getting back to normal - slowly but surely. And people have been freed.

But people won't recognize and give the president credit even on this. "Well, where's Osama? We didn't get Osama so he can't be successful. Saddam isn't dead, he can't be successful."

You know, what are we going to do? How does the president take further risks? What are we going to do now that Iran is now clearly building a nuclear bomb? What are we going to do? Is the president going to lay all his political capital on the line again so that he can be called a liar? So he'll be accused of concocting this in Texas? So he can bribe other nations? So he could do all these things? How do we expect him to deal with the nature of the threat when all he's going to get as a result is one political attack after another, and watch the American people's support wither away. Because clearly, there's a percentage of people in this country influenced by the non-stop haranguing and harping and demonization and propaganda and misinformation put out by liberals. It is beyond frustrating. It is sad because the risk of inaction here folks, means that our way of life is put in further jeopardy. Do you know what this does to embolden terrorists around the world, knowing that they can divide this country as strongly as they see us presently divided? Knowing that there is a battle and a struggle about whether of not we're going to confront them? Whether or not we have the will and the desire to defeat them?

It is clear in this country we do not have - there is a party, there is a group of people that do not deserve to be in power. They must be defeated politically, because if they are not it is our entire way of life that is ultimately put in jeopardy. Do you not see that? It's frustrating. I'm going to build up my patience. I have the capacity, I've done it before. Every once in a while it hits a breaking point with me and I just can't take it any more.

800-941-SEAN is our toll-free telephone number if you want to be a part of the program.

NOTE: To reassure readers that the transcript above is accurate, we make the audio available for a limited time (about one week) here. It is a 4.6 meg .wav file (8bit, 8KHz sample rate, mono).

posted by Quiddity at 9/30/2003 05:17:00 PM