1. was that a typo? didn’t they mean to write ‘peanut’ not ‘pundit’

   Posted by Tim | May 6, 2008, 6:56 am

2. Number 3 most influential political pundit (according to the telegraph) and he doesn’t even know what a neo-conservative is, pretty unbelievable,… or is it ?

   Posted by Anders | May 6, 2008, 7:22 am

3. I don’t believe that Hannity did not know what a neocon was…… It may be asked to see what the guest understands the term to mean or for clarification for the viewing or listening audience….. Frankly, while I know some traits (concern with Israel, militaristic) I’d have a hard time DEFINING the term…. Like Pornography, I know what a neocon is when I see it - but would find it hard to define - except by examples…..

   Posted by stevec | May 6, 2008, 10:08 am

4. The President didn’t ask what a neocon was until August, ‘06.
   http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/04/18/andrew-cockburn-pt1/

   Posted by Scott | May 6, 2008, 10:21 am

5. Is the video dead? It won’t play for me

   Posted by evilpaul | May 6, 2008, 10:23 am

6. seems to be playing ok for me.

   Posted by Anders | May 6, 2008, 10:34 am

7. Joseph Goebbels was one of the most influential political pundits of the 20th century.
   Every time I hear Hannity I want to vomit…

   Posted by Jose | May 6, 2008, 11:49 am

8. Hey Scott…………….

   You ever think this ploy by Iran to withdraw from the IAEA is a plot to inflate oil prices based upon the shortage that would result from another Middle Eastern War?

   Maybe we’re being played……..

   Posted by stevec | May 6, 2008, 12:17 pm

9. Hamhannity is too damn stupid to know that he’s being played by the Straussians.

   Posted by mudshark | May 6, 2008, 12:45 pm

10. Regarding libertarian foreign policy, It would be an invitation for power blocks to form to meddle internationally for the benefit of some clique. It would be terrible, almost as bad as allowing the clique to capture the machinery of a nation and take the nation to war.
    I would prefer a confederation of small state-lets, like Jefferson wanted, smaller than a state even, canton size, each self ruled, maybe in a loose confederation with other cantons, but with a powerful powerful tradition of minding their own business
    internationally, and If an individual want to go overseas and save the world, they need to GO. It would be hard to make people leave, but some kind of mutually approved approbation would accrue to people who did mind their own business in this regard.
    This cantonized arrangement is very resistant foreign invasion as we are discovering now in Iraq, where they have aspects of this, and our attempt to compress all these cantons into a nation state is resisted. We think of them as backward, but the reality is, this
    arrangement is basically very positive in some ways. There is some internecine strife, but in Switzerland, where cantonization was the solution to Protestant Catholic wars, proved that with mutual respect, the cantons, can live peacefully with one another.
    The founders of this country had this in mind, but then Madison and other federalists made the terrible mistake. The anti-federalists were correct.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10
    Now we have the terrible prospect of being ruled by international capitalism and cliques that use the nation state as levers to affect the transition. Tyranny must be localized as much as possible if it is to be resisted, because it will always be with us, and the larger the scope of it, the harder it is to resist. The media can be purchased for chump change in this country (and most of the world) and the purveyors of one world capitalism are in a position to limit and shape any debate about the direction we are going as a nation.

    A cantonized confederation can allow one canton to be Amish, one LosVegas wide open, another maybe Muslim, another Conservative Catholic, but with a few iron clad rules. (1. you must rejoin every years, 2) no penalty is associated with leaving. 3) By mutual
    agreement, some trade and commerce issues can be negotiated by a congress of sorts, but with extremely limited iron clad limits on the right to determine internal canton policies. Maybe on the roads connecting the cantons together, they could make sure some
    bandits would not allowed to shoot people, and other such. Expulsion from the confederation would only carry only moral weight, and going it alone, being shunned as a leper for misbehavior, would be the enforcement. Every canton would have their own press, history, culture, and internal laws. One of the confederation rules would require the members to allow citizens of a canton to leave with their family at any time, so an individual can find one that suits them.
    One gives up the concept of group rights within the canton for the most part. One canton may look upon another a not bed of injustice, sin, local tyranny, etc, but the rule is, write them up in your local press, but leave the rifles in the rack. Its basically none of your business. Lots of details to be worked out, and detractors can find flaws, but this is a concrete proposal, and as with every concrete proposal, it is laid bare for criticism in the margins, but what we have now is on the road to international tyranny.

    http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13161
    Roger Kaplan thinks we can, in the name of - what maybe western civilization- seize the oil fields in the Middle East.

    The real problem is a culture steeped in self righteous certainty in the duty of country to spread this or that universal principle, making the world save from democracy etc. This culture is the root of the problem, and the thin edge of the wedge that will enslave everybody to the wordsmiths that can buy the media and craft their arguments to make what they want appear congruent to one “universal” principle or other.
    Very soon. the media of the country and even the world will be in the electronic hands of google or the successor to google. This international entity will be in a perfect position to impose whatever universal principles that the owners of google think the planet should adopt. With this very centralized control of discourse, the press, the lens of history, and the news, this powerful tool of global control is available for purchase , for chump change if you consider what is being purchased. Maybe google today is not so bad, Google and the collection of centralized mass media of the near future might not agree with your set of universal principles, and the very idea of universal principles may be wise to reconsider very soon.

    Posted by peter saker | May 6, 2008, 12:46 pm

11. being stupid and distorting history seems the minimum requirement if you want to work on fox news.

    Posted by Anders | May 6, 2008, 12:58 pm

12. (lmfao! what a tool) or a flat-out idolatrous hack. ; )

    Posted by mudshark | May 6, 2008, 1:36 pm

13. “glad you’re still with us” - Blitzer to Snow, probably not the best thing to say to a man with cancer.

    Posted by Anders | May 6, 2008, 1:57 pm

14. probably not, but the objective still stands.

    Posted by mudshark | May 6, 2008, 3:09 pm

15. lol

    Cnn couldn’t have picked a more bias political pundit if they tried, an ex fox news presenter and white house press secretary.

    Posted by Anders | May 6, 2008, 3:21 pm

16. He truly is a big faggot.

    Hey, I think I saw that sticker somewhere??

    Posted by phil | May 6, 2008, 3:56 pm

17. Laura Bush sounds like she’s gearing for regime change in Berma.

    By the end of that i thought she was going to say “the Burmese government has 48 hours to hand themselves over, ….. we shall strike at a time of our choosing”

    Posted by Anders | May 6, 2008, 4:01 pm

18. Sean Hannity shouldn’t try to repress himself. If he truly yearns to find himself thrusting his pelvic region into the thighs of other men, I think he’d be far less of a jerk if he just accepted himself as he is. (I got no problem with that. It’s just a kind of appetite, really.) I’m sure he’d even take on an even bigger fandom, and his popularity would balloon.

    Probably the biggest monstrosities of history probably relate to psychological issues of repressed homosexuality, i.e., Hitler. The oft-played George Carlin skit (c. 1992) comes to mind, too. There’s a lot of freudian territory to be explored.

    So Sean, pay no mind to that rude bumper sticker. Just be proud of what you are, and COME OUT for heaven’s sake. m-kay?

    Posted by Oscar Goldman | May 6, 2008, 9:54 pm

19. Idiot pundits are about as interesting to me as Obama’s bowling score, so I’ll respond to Peter Saker’s offtopic points.:

    1) Small statelets.

    Spot-on. Notice also that Switzerland has managed to stay out of the european wars of the past two centuries. How could such a system come into being? The pile of ‘large children’ with a high time-preference that constitutes modern society can’t seem to make sacrifices to ensure a comfortable retirement, much less engage in the committment required to ensure peace and prosperity for future generations.

    2) Google’s potential for ‘evil’.

    While it’s true that in an online world, the ability to search uncensored for content is criticial to a viable political and intellectual culture, and while it is true that Google has a large market share (~70% iirc), I see Peter’s fears as unjustifiably overblown. Google is not coercive government. Google can’t force you to use Google, and there are low barriers to entry with literally thousands of search engine alternatives. See: http://altsearchengines.com/2008/05/03/the-top-100-search-engines-according-to-you/

    Posted by pupnik | May 7, 2008, 2:04 am

20. the pup.
    offtopic regarding Hannity, but
    I was listening to the radio show, and the topic arose about libertarians making common cause with the left. The whole subject of universal principles came to mind, in that most left would not abandon their list of universal principles but they might have some common tactical alliance with libertarians. they are mostly not ready to abandon universal principles.
    Regarding Google, the point was not that some motivated individual can’t find out all sides of one issue or another. The point is that most citizens in the US get their political identity from the most readily available sources. They use them to figure out who they are politically. The problem is that the Mass Media is a Thing that can be bought. It’s for sale. In Chicago, the two main newspapers are owned by the same person. You will not get Scott Horton on the air in the metro chicago area. If you dig aground like I do, you can find stress blog on the internet, but the basic point I am making is the gross effect of media on the formation of political thought is not on the margins in the fringe press. My wife watches Opra, reads only available local media, and loves Obama. Political loyalty is a tribal thing, and the media in the US delivers the tribal drumbeat. Sam Zell can buy anything that grows large enough to threaten him. The free market says he can. If he has a political agenda, and his editorial pages read like propaganda, so what then. Libertarians often think everybody is basically like them. Mostly people read the local paper and watch the local tv and listen to local radio, and if thing go bad, the select from the political choices presented to them. They don’t want to be seen as descending into kookdom, which is what the non mainstream press is taken for. Ron Paul gets thrown in with Jeff Rense and flying saucers in their minds. What sticks to them is the history channel, -defending freedom- national greatness, American the last best hope of the World- slogans. Cast by the media all around them. This is what makes the existence of a large powerful multicultural country,(stitched together only by a media and both parties) so dangerous. A country of cantons, each with their own traditions and press and political posture would hard to cast into a unified fist to do the bidding of some super-national entity that wants to buy the services of the US in some foreign policy adventure. Libertarian principles applied the large scale entirely free purchase of media has made the US into a rogue state.

    Posted by peter saker | May 7, 2008, 9:12 am

21. I’m not necessarily concerned with Hannity per se, but i find it amazing that for someone who is supposedly the 3rd most influential ‘political’ pundit in the US and he doesn’t know what neo-conservative means. Might be one of the reasons so many republicans are completely misguided, i thought it worth pointing out.

    Posted by Anders | May 7, 2008, 9:50 am

22. Peter, you’re missing one thing: The National Government owns the broadcast airways. They license the corporatists on radio and TV, not property rights, not the market. Now, KAOS on the other hand; that’s free market radio. Other than that though, I say reinstate the Articles of Confederation.

    Posted by Scott | May 7, 2008, 10:46 am

23. Scot - you are a great men. I mean it. Absolutely correct on the articles of confederation or some even more loose confederation. But from Chicago. all I see is Clear Channel dominance, all main newspapers owned by Sam Zell, No mainstream voice of any kind like a Charles Goyette or yourself. People read the sports page, and listen to Opra, and she likes Obama, so thats good enough. The Govermnent does not per-se control the editorial policy of the radio stations. Money in the hands of the station owners does. Fringe stations like KAOS not withstanding, the truth is advertising works. What to be in the know with the media tribe- sure - don’t want to be a kook- no. better just select from the choices presented to you on the TV and newspapers, the ones you can get without surfing the nut channels on the internet. Well thats how it goes in Chicago and in most cities. Please please find some way to get your program carried even on the local college radio station. I called them once to try to get them to call you. Too far out I guess. Obama is within the envelope of allowed political discourse. Hell- do you want david duke show then too? thats the attitude. Media and opinion is shaped by the prevailing media. That stuff is for sale for chump change in Chicago.

    Posted by peter saker | May 7, 2008, 11:34 am

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