In such instances, one better strap oneself in tightly, for you're in for a bumpy, no holds barred ride.
Such was certainly the case Sunday evening when the outspoken conservative did a ten minute segment on “Hannity’s America” (h/t Tim Graham) about how the Democrat Party has been taken hostage by extreme left-wing forces on the Internet (video available here).
First, Hannity addressed the recent blog posting by Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on the website that last year got itself into a bit of a brouhaha for publishing a blackfaced picture of Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut):
Now, earlier this week Senator Clinton posted a statement on a left wing blog called firedoglake.com. Now, the posting itself was not controversial. It's about observance of equal pay day.
But as the "Washington Post" reported, it is her choice of Web sites that has some Democrats even upset. Now, last summer, the same person who runs the Web site posted this photo of Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman in black face along side of Bill Clinton.
Hannity offered a rather ominous scenario:
In nine short months voters across America will go to the polls to nominate the next crop of presidential candidates. For the Democratic Party, the candidates aren't just campaigning in coffee shops in Des Moines and diners in New Hampshire. For the first time in history real life voters pulling a lever may not determine who the nominee of the party is.
And that's because the Democratic Party is under siege by a group of left wing fanatics who are holding their candidates hostage. Now this isn't a new battle. In many ways it has been fought for decades. Will the soul of the party continue to drift into the left wing wilderness or will it appeal to a broader spectrum of Americans?
Next, Hannity exposed the tactics by one of the main financers of extreme left-wing causes in America, George Soros and Moveon.org:
They have run campaign ads that accuse Republicans of being criminals but the ads were pulled after stations around the country questioned their accuracy.
And once, during a competition on their Web site, a television commercial was posted comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler.
How marvelous. Fortunately, Hannity was just getting warmed up, for he next demonstrated how tied at the hip the Democrat leadership is to this organization and its merry band of extremists in the blogosphere:
HANNITY: Now it should therefore come as no surprise that it was at a podium bought and paid for by Moveon.org that Al Gore launched into the most famous of his bitter post defeat tirades in 2003 accusing the Bush administration of lying to America.
AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people?
HANNITY: If you are the vanquished vice president of the United States and you want back in the spotlight, well, who else would you want to cater to? By the summer and fall of 2003 former Vermont Governor Howard Dean had become the new face of the Democratic Party.
He took a commanding lead in the early presidential polls and raised large sums of money on the Internet, a new phenomenon in presidential politics.
HOWARD DEAN, (D) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yeaaaarrrghhh.
HANNITY: In the end, though, it wasn't enough for the good doctor. Al Gore's endorsement in September of 2003 and the Dean campaign's completely disastrous performance in the Iowa caucuses gave the nomination to John Kerry.
But the nut roots weren't dead. They had been defeated this time around but they knew the Democratic Party was theirs and they were going to take it back.
In April of 2004 the Kerry campaign even hired Moveon.org's Zack Exley (ph) as director of online communications. And the money kept flowing.
During the 2004 campaign cycle, Moveon.org and other so-called grassroots contributors donated $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Even though Kerry lost the election Moveon.org wasn't done.
According to the "Los Angeles Times," when several Democratic senators, including Barbara Boxer of California tried unsuccessfully to challenge the electoral college votes from Ohio, moveon.org posted an on- line petition thanking them for their effort and providing them with the names of 100,000 signees, information that could be used for more fundraising.
Just a few months later in March of 2005 Moveon.org held a rally in Washington, DC and several prominent leaders of the Democratic Party spoke and heaped praise on their net root friends.
SEN. HARRY REID, (D) NV: We are depending on you. We are depending on you to make sure that this country stands for what we learned many years ago when Mr. Smith went to Washington.
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN, (D) IL: Moveon.org and everybody gathered here today, you are changing America for the better.
And, Hannity reported on one of the biggest successes – or failures – of this movement since its inception:
But raising money isn't enough. The blog nuts want to purge the Democratic Party of all but the most extreme voices. In one of the most highly publicized moments of fratricide in American history, the nut roots teamed up, tossed their weight behind a wealthy antiwar candidate with almost no experience in public service.
His name was Ned Lamont and their target was Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who had been the party's nominee for vice president just six years before but Lieberman had broken with much of his party over the war in Iraq and that singular unforgivable sin put him on the top of the liberal hit list.
Hannity demonstrated that any Democrat who doesn’t walk in lock-step with all of their extreme viewpoints is in jeopardy:
Now the nut roots have let it be known if you are not in line with the most far left leanings of an obsessed minority, well, you are vulnerable to attack.
Earlier this year, "The Washington Post" reported a similar effort to attack moderate Democratic Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher from California.
Moveon.org activists have protested at her office and someone created a Web site called Dump Ellen Tauscher. And why? This is a woman who votes over 90 percent of the time with the Democratic Party. Because she has taken moderate positions on issues like the estate tax and free trade. Well, basically, she isn't a left wing lunatic so, well, there isn't room in the party for her.
Hannity concluded:
And that's why the bloggers are in control now. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have taken a back seat to a bunch of activists who spent all of their time shouting at the rain (ph).
Even Howard Dean, the original facilitator of this movement has been marginalized. Perhaps they gave the Web site the wrong name. Maybe they should have called it "Move Over."
What follows is a full transcript of this segment.
SEAN HANNITY: Welcome to HANNITY'S AMERICA. Thank you for being with us. I am Sean Hannity. And we get right to the state of America tonight. And if you are a Democrat it is a nation dominated by left wing Internet advocates.
Now, earlier this week Senator Clinton posted a statement on a left wing blog called firedoglake.com. Now, the posting itself was not controversial. It's about observance of equal pay day.
But as the "Washington Post" reported, it is her choice of Web sites that has some Democrats even upset. Now, last summer, the same person who runs the Web site posted this photo of Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman in black face along side of Bill Clinton.
Now, it came at a time when the left wing Internet interests were attacking the senator during his primary run against Ned Lamont. Now, the Clinton campaign responded to concerns this week about the blogger named Jane Hamsher by saying that she had apologized for the photo and the Clinton campaign was trying to reach people on a popular Web site.
But it is telling that the whole thing happened just days after the senator thanked the Rutgers University basketball team for standing up for Don Imus. And it is proof of just how far will the Democrats will go to appease the bloggers and left radical interests who are now running the Democratic Party.
And that is the state of America. And it brings us to our special report this week, the bending over backwards to appease these left wing interests is nothing new for the Democrats. In fact it is a phenomenon that is getting worse. And as you will see tonight it is no longer the party leaders who are in charge.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY (voice-over): In nine short months voters across America will go to the polls to nominate the next crop of presidential candidates. For the Democratic Party, the candidates aren't just campaigning in coffee shops in Des Moines and diners in New Hampshire. For the first time in history real life voters pulling a lever may not determine who the nominee of the party is.
And that's because the Democratic Party is under siege by a group of left wing fanatics who are holding their candidates hostage. Now this isn't a new battle. In many ways it has been fought for decades. Will the soul of the party continue to drift into the left wing wilderness or will it appeal to a broader spectrum of Americans.
Now, since the invention of the Internet, this war has been largely fought over the Web. And over the past few election cycles the most vocal left wing organization has been a group called moveon.org.
And as you will see tonight moveon.org has been successful not only in pushing the party of Franklin Roosevelt and Scoop Jackson further to the left but increasingly they control the Democratic Party itself through fear and intimidation. It is in some ways ironic that moveon.org was founded in 1998 with a petition supporting the censure of President Clinton.
And that's where the name came from. They wanted an end to the impeachment drama so that the country could just move on. Shortly thereafter the group expanded its reach, having a political action committee to, quote, "influence the outcome of congressional elections."
After September 11th, moveon.org posted a petition on their Web site calling for restraint and response to the attacks that killed 3,000 Americans.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney.
HANNITY: They have run campaign ads that accuse Republicans of being criminals but the ads were pulled after stations around the country questioned their accuracy.
And once, during a competition on their Web site, a television commercial was posted comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler.
ADOLF HITLER, DECEASED NAZI DICTATOR: (German)
HANNITY: Their biggest patron over the years has been a billionaire financier George Soros. And one of their biggest beneficiaries has been film maker Michael Moore whose 2004 hit piece on President Bush was promoted extensively on the Move On Web site.
Through the years of funneling money, running Internet smear campaigns and now through a reign of terror, a relatively small group of Berkeley bloggers have co-opted the leadership of the Democratic Party.
And we know that because moveon.org has shouted it from their mountaintop. In an e-mail like a big booming voice in the sky, the leaders of moveon.org have proclaimed, quote, "Now it's our party. We bought it, we own it and we are going to take it back."
Now it should therefore come as no surprise that it was at a podium bought and paid for by moveon.org that Al Gore launched into the most famous of his bitter post defeat tirades in 2003 accusing the Bush administration of lying to America.
AL GORE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people?
HANNITY: If you are the vanquished vice president of the United States and you want back in the spotlight, well, who else would you want to cater to? By the summer and fall of 2003 former Vermont Governor Howard Dean had become the new face of the Democratic Party.
He took a commanding lead in the early presidential polls and raised large sums of money on the Internet, a new phenomenon in presidential politics.
HOWARD DEAN, (D) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yeaaaarrrghhh.
HANNITY: In the end, though, it wasn't enough for the good doctor. Al Gore's endorsement in September of 2003 and the Dean campaign's completely disastrous performance in the Iowa caucuses gave the nomination to John Kerry.
But the nut roots weren't dead. They had been defeated this time around but they knew the Democratic Party was theirs and they were going to take it back.
In April of 2004 the Kerry campaign even hired moveon.org's Zack Exley (ph) as director of online communications. And the money kept flowing.
During the 2004 campaign cycle, moveon.org and other so-called grassroots contributors donated $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Even though Kerry lost the election move on.org wasn't done.
According to the "Los Angeles Times," when several Democratic senators, including Barbara Boxer of California tried unsuccessfully to challenge the electoral college votes from Ohio, moveon.org posted an on- line petition thanking them for their effort and providing them with the names of 100,000 signees, information that could be used for more fundraising.
Just a few months later in March of 2005 moveon.org held a rally in Washington, DC and several prominent leaders of the Democratic Party spoke and heaped praise on their net root friends.
SEN. HARRY REID, (D) NV: We are depending on you. We are depending on you to make sure that this country stands for what we learned many years ago when Mr. Smith went to Washington.
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN, (D) IL: Moveon.org and everybody gathered here today, you are changing America for the better.
HANNITY: Even the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates have bent over backwards to appease the Internet crowd. In 2005, Senator Barack Obama, now a favorite of the Move On crowd, raised $800,000 for Senator Robert Byrd through a Moveon.org fundraising e-mail.
How much influence must one group have in order to convince one of the few African American senators in American history to campaign on behalf of a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.
But raising money isn't enough. The blog nuts want to purge the Democratic Party of all but the most extreme voices. In one of the most highly publicized moments of fratricide in American history, the nut roots teamed up, tossed their weight behind a wealthy antiwar candidate with almost no experience in public service.
His name was Ned Lamont and their target was Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who had been the party's nominee for vice president just six years before but Lieberman had broken with much of his party over the war in Iraq and that singular unforgivable sin put him on the top of the liberal hit list.
Although the primary campaign targeting Lieberman was successful, more reasonable heads prevailed and the senator defeated Lamont in the general election as an independent.
But the far left blogosphere wasn't finished. Sine his reelection, they continued to tar and feather the senator. A blog posting screened on dailykos.com screamed, quote, "It's official, Lieberman is not a donkey, he's a jackass."
The die has been cast. There's blood in the water. Now the nut roots have let it be known if you are not in line with the most far left leanings of an obsessed minority, well, you are vulnerable to attack.
Earlier this year, "The Washington Post" reported a similar effort to attack moderate Democratic Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher from California.
Moveon.org activists have protested at her office and someone created a Web site called Dump Ellen Tauscher. And why? This is a woman who votes over 90 percent of the time with the Democratic Party. Because she has taken moderate positions on issues like the estate tax and free trade. Well, basically, she isn't a left wing lunatic so, well, there isn't room in the party for her.
And that's why the bloggers are in control now. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have taken a back seat to a bunch of activists who spent all of their time shouting at the rain (ph).
Even Howard Dean, the original facilitator of this movement has been marginalized. Perhaps they gave the Web site the wrong name. Maybe they should have called it "Move Over."
