CNN’s Begala: Tea Party Goers ‘Wimpy, Whiny, Weasels Who Don’t Love Their Country’

On Friday’s Hannity show on FNC, host Sean Hannity played an audio clip of liberal CNN contributor Paul Begala as he was interviewed on the April 15 Imus in the Morning, in which Begala engaged in name-calling against Tax Day Tea Party participants: "Why are they out there whining with this Tea Party thing? Just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country and don't want to support – there are guys at Walter Reed who gave their legs for my country, and they're whining because they have to write a check?" He went on to single out FNC’s Hannity and Neil Cavuto before Imus stepped in to defend them. Begala: "Mr. Cavuto, Mr. Hannity, all the rest of those guys, they have representation, they just lost an election – that's not tyranny, that's democracy." After Imus defended Cavuto and Hannity, and called Hannity a patriot, Begala shot back: "Then tell him to pay his taxes and support our country and stop whining about it."

After playing the clip, Hannity held a discussion with FNC’s Kimberly Guilfoyle and conservative columnist S.E. Cupp. Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, April 17, Hannity show on FNC:

SEAN HANNITY: And tonight in "Your America," now, for many Americans, the anti-tax Tea Parties, earlier this week, represented a great moment for our country in which people came together to have their voices heard, but the idea of uniting for a common cause, well, it doesn't seem to be sitting well with liberals like the CNN reporter who berated that man just for attending the Chicago tea party, or this guy, former Clinton hack, Paul Begala. He was on Imus. Listen to this.

PAUL BEGALA: Why are they out there whining with this Tea Party thing?

DON IMUS: I don’t – but because we're-

BEGALA: Just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels-

IMUS: Now you're making me feel bad because-

BEGALA: -who don't love their country and don't want to support – there are guys at Walter Reed who gave their legs for my country, and they're whining because they have to write a check? Mr. Cavuto, Mr. Hannity, all the rest of those guys, they have representation, they just lost an election – that's not tyranny, that's democracy.

IMUS: I wouldn't put Neil Cavuto in that category, and Sean Hannity is one of the great patriots in the history of our country, one of the great Americans.

BEGALA: Then tell him to pay his taxes and support our country and stop whining about it.

HANNITY: Oh, okay, we're not paying enough. Sorry we have First Amendment rights here, Paul. And here with reaction to all of this, is Fox News’s Kimberly Guilfoyle and columnist S.E. Cupp. All right, "wimpy, whining, weasels." We don't – he said we don't love this country.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE: Right. It's outrageous, and I have to tell you it was a shining example of how wonderful the people are in this country, Americans that do pay their taxes that were civilized, it was very orderly, and they're allowed to have their voice and be heard.

HANNITY: You know, and I had said this one on Imus' show. I said, you know, Don, the reason they don't mind raising taxes, Democrats, is because they don't pay them, including tax cheat Geithner and a whole series of other, you know, Obama nominees.

S.E. CUPP, CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST: Yeah, first of all, congrats to Paul Begala who managed to make Don Imus look restrained. You know, job well-done. I don't, what I don't understand is liberals love a good protest. You know, you get five Code Pink members, in a square mile of one other, and you better believe MSNBC will have someone on it, but when average Americans, non-Hollywood Americans, get together around a national cause, forget it, they're whiners. Stop whining, Sean.

HANNITY: Yeah, you know, look at this Jan Schakowsky, whatever he name is, this congresswoman that's calling it despicable and shameful. And I'm thinking did liberals ever listen to what they said during the Bush years and called him every name in the book, and they accused our troops of terrorizing women and children in the dark at night, and killing innocent civilians in cold blood and we're going to get lectures on the First Amendment from hacks like Paul Begala?

GUILFOYLE: A little two-faced, don't you think?

HANNITY: Yeah, I think.

GUILFOYLE: That's the problem.

CUPP: It's a little hypocritical, I mean, the New York Times wrote seven pieces in two months on the Proposition 8 protest. Where were they during the 2,000 Tea Parties that cropped up over the country? Nowhere.