My beef with talk radio, part III: Sean Hannity

This is probably the end of this series. I’d thought about going on to Michael Savage, but he’s far more of a fringe character, and so my real problem with the Big Three — Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity — doesn’t apply as much.

Still, here we are. Of these three, I feel the least objection to Mr. Hannity. Unlike Beck, who is basically crazy; and Limbaugh, who will say anything to make sure that he keeps his buzz going; I think that Hannity has the potential to be reasonable. I think that, generally, he believes what he says.

What he doesn’t do, though, is give a lot of thought to his positions. Hannity is pretty reliably a spokesman for the conventional wisdom. This is too bad, because I think that Hannity has the potential to stand out among these three as one who is honest and committed to what’s really right, rather than just what’s Right.

Instead, though, he is overly and overtly partisan. Hannity is loyal to the Republican Party, despite his protests that he’s “a conservative, not a Republican.” He’s a Republican, but involved in the in-fighting. What he won’t do, though, is criticize those he has branded as on his side.

I’ve mentioned this before … His refusal, for example, to engage with a caller about pro-life issues within the Republican Party. Plainly, he chose partisan loyalty over his professed pro-life principles. Hannity spent a lot of time covering for Mayor Giuliani during the 2008 primaries, in complete defiance of what a pro-lifer should have done. He did what a Republican who wanted to stay popular would do.

He didn’t want to offend those voters that, according to the Real Clear Politics polling data, favored Giuliani for a while.

Hannity was nearly crusading over John Edwards and his affair with a campaign staff worker. He spent a great deal of time ranting about the fact that only the Enquirer was covering the story, and went on and on. Ironically, Hannity routinely features adulterers Newt Gingrich and Dick Morris as guests on his show. This leads me to think that he isn’t really concerned about marital fidelity as a measure of integrity as he is willing to use it as a weapon if it helps him attack.

That is partisan thinking. In one of his first appearances on Hannity’s show, Mike Huckabee remarked that the Republican Party needed to decide whether it was really serious about whether adultery mattered. Either it did, or the GOP owed Bill Clinton an apology. Gov. Huckabee didn’t name names, but at that time there was a lot of buzz about Gingrich running for President, and Giuliani was already in the fray. Hannity, again, covered for the Republicans by talking about the impeachment. This ignores, of course, the fact that Gennifer Flowers had been brought up as an issue in 1992.

I think that the single biggest evidence that Hannity doesn’t have strongly-founded positions is how he handles dissenting callers. He doesn’t deal well with them at all. Simply, he badgers them with yes/no questions and then hangs up if they try to answer so much as “yes, but ….”

I think that the biggest danger in terms of what Hannity means to Christians is that he equates conservatism and Christianity. He’s willing to cover for the offenses of others if, but only if, they’re politically acceptable. This is simply not honest. If moral standards apply, then they should apply to everyone — not just those who have the right letters after their names.

I’d like for Hannity to take a good, long look at what he says and discover his integrity. I’d like for him to turn away from partisan loyalty and take his positions and his principles on-air and defend them against all comers, whether it scores him points with Republicans or not.

Hannity seems to be a devout Catholic. I’d like to see him take more positions consistent with the Catholic Church, even when those are in defiance of Republican conventional thinking. If he demonstrated that — or, (frankly) just about any, courage — I could see myself being a real fan of Sean Hannity. As it is, though, he’s subordinated his faith to his politics. Desperate to maintain his audience, he carefully avoids offending his listener base, rather than standing up.

Ultimately, that makes him very uninteresting, but very dangerous to believers without discernment.