Watch Sean Hannity for more than 5 minutes and it's evident that he's just a dick.

He's one of those people that, no matter the case, it's all about him. How this vain, intellectual lightweight ever got on the air is beyond me. Half the readers here could school his ass.

'Course, if the dumbfuck were a Democrat, you'd never hear a whiff of criticism from anyone on the Left.

Wow, that's some substantive criticism.

Hannity pulled out all the stops in 04 to help W get elected. He travelled constantly in the final months and attracted large audiences. On election day he begged, pleaded, and prodded his listeners to get out and vote. He may be vain, but having him on our side is a good thing.

Vin,
Kind of agree but I wondered at the time would these people be voting Republican anyway? He always seemed like dumb jock to me.

Well, what did AS's reader say that isn't true? Hannity's not that bright, and he sure as hell isn't funny. When I do happen across his show, it always seems to be on commercial break.

Agreeing with Sullivan in attacking a fellow conservative? I think you need to butch up, Ace.

Kidding.

I just loved that line so much that I wanted to use it on someone.

Hannity is OK. I used to listen to him, but found that his ideas were utterly conventional. Limbaugh -- in the day -- was clever and funny in a way Hannity can't match.

And he has an ego, no doubt. But I don't think he's quite reached O'Reilly levels of megalomania.

All this as way of saying that right-wing radio has no clear heir apparent when Rush finally retires. And that, my friend, is an opening for you . . .

Hannity, Savage and O'Reilly. They may be on the same side of the issue as me a lot of the time but they sure do not present it in a way that makes me proud. If I had to make a choice of who to listen to in regard to the non deep political thought genre, I'd dump all of them for a Dennis Miller.

O'Reilly's meglomania at least makes for compelling television.

Sean makes valid points from time to time. He just beat them to the point of boredom for viewers and listeners. I do applaud him for pushing for answers to his questions . Liberals tend to redirect to a topic less painful and ignore the initial question. Hannity is definitely not all bad.

He is a little bombastic for my taste, and I can't help but think he'd be better in a Crossfire format on another network. After all, sure we've heard all these arguments before but folks who don't watch Fox likely have not.

I like Hannity more that the others here, I guess, but he's definitely an attack dog. He has his place in the scheme of things. Somebody's got ta do it.

O'Reilly's meglomania at least makes for compelling television.

True ...but it overshadows anything he has to say, much like the great Dr. Dean.

Not everything. O'Reilly does make some decent points on occasion; he does actually do a little reporting and reveal stories you haven't heard about.

And the megalomania is, well, annoying, but it's compelling.

I don't hate Sean Hannity, but I can't listen to him. It's the same old talking points repeated ad nauseum.

I find O'Reilly entertaining, or compelling, to use Ace's expression.

I'm ambivalent about Hannity, mostly because I don't really learn anything from the guy.

Picky, aren't I?

In my opinion, Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved are far more intelligent and entertaining than Hannity or O'Reilly.

Hannity comes across as dumb n' doctrinaire. I watch his show some nights on Fox...actually don't watch it so much as let it drone in the background. Actually, his "Tales from the Crypt" cohort Allan Colmes can be pretty funny, witty for a Democrat at times - but he too falls into Hannity's habit of asking stupid inquisitorial questions and turning on the blind true-believer rants as a counterpoint to Hannity.

The height of Hannity's embarassment was when he physically joined the psychotic Terri Schiavo circus outside the hospice and swallowed every lie put out by the "Save Terri" fanatics unquestioningly - Terri talks all the time, she prays with RTL devotees visiting her, she would be on the road to recovery if only the Magic Swallow Test that would free her was done, doctors will fix her. Along with Hannity playing the Mickey Mouse balloon moment again & again and collaborating with scuzz like Bobby Schindler and Randall Terry/Frank Pavone in sliming the husband as a murderous Scott Peterson wannabe who blocked "Terri's cure" and was a tool of Satan seeking death for death's sake.

Why a moron like him has high numbers is probably only explainable by the existence of large numbers of Religious Right/blind conservatives who are also morons. In fairness, Michael Moore also is a moron who has millions of morons on the Left that are devoted to him.

Besides Limbaugh, the Right also has some other great articulate, thinking hosts that put "Terri's Fan" Hannity to shame. Cal Thomas, Neil Boortz, some bloggers that would do well if given a shot on TV, Newt, and Michelle Malkin if she would have time to do more than guest-host. O'Reilly is a world-class narcissist, but he is at least a good independent thinker who unlike Hannity, says what he thinks, not what he thinks Rove or James Dobson want him to say.

Savage and Coulter are smart & entertaining, but too strident and over the top...

Actually, O'Reilly is a populist, not a conservative. However, he can be entertaining. Hannity, while a conservative is entertaining only to the mouth-breathers. Rush is sublime.

Good topic, and it needs to be discussed by conservatives, sooner or later. Hannity is simply an embarrassing lightweight. He'll leave no mark whatever, anywhere as times goes on. His show is a prolonged Two Minute Hate against "liberals" (he means "leftisists"). How much of this can you listen to?

Limbaugh as a deeper problem for us. The man is clearly out of his depth from day. Without stock expressions and the same old aggressive self-promotion, the show would be dead air. There's too much hyperbole, too much simplicity, too much boilerplate and too many misconceptions. The guy lacks an education, and it shows.

Whenever I'm tempted to listen, within five minutes I'm bored, or angry or insulted. We're not going to win without popular thinkers, and neither Limbaugh nor Hannity fill the bill.

Wow. Spot-on.

I've had quite a few discussions with liberals where they've brought up Sean Hannity, and I've agreed that he's an ass and carries no authority with me. They're always shocked that I disown the guy.

Dave got dragged over the coals for linking to sully during his guest blogging stint, and now here you are doing the same thing.

It's just gob-smackingly vile, it is.

Hannity has a few good guest segments, gets some decent interviews and, if it's somebody he agrees with, can actually get good points out of them. BUT, if he has on a "lib"... well, the spittle can get a bit heavy. Makes me wish it were the same discussion, but on NPR (!) so nobody would put up with them trying to shout each other down. It's annoying personally, because he rarely takes a position I oppose, but he can be grating if he wants to -- and it seems like that's most of the time.

Don't slam Hannity, like Sullivan's emailer did, for not being William F. Buckley. If we only relied on Buckley and Tucker Carlson to be the official spokesmen for the conservative movement, we would be hailing President Kerry.

Rhod,

Rush simplifies issues. The ability to simplify complex issues or to show that seemingly complex issues are not quite so complex is not a problem. Your stating that he is clearly out of his depth does not make it clear. Oh, and Rush is one big reason that we are winning. French and German philosophy have been full of great thinkers who thought up a lot of bullshit that resulted in a lot of death and destruction. But you go on feeling good about how much more educated and thoughtful you are than Rush. Sounds to me like you are one of the douches on our side who likes to badmouth our leaders to the other side.

I'll agree with some of the comments here re: Hannity. I'll listen sometimes, but he's usually just repeating the same old stuff. Rush has gotten a bit stale too. Uh oh! He found another "SUV as Criminal!" story. Cue "Like a Yugo" song! Okay that's over. Read the story. Cue stock anti-anti SUV rant, oh, make it number 5 today. But he still gets monster ratings and stuff. And hey, you know some of this is new to some people. It was to me when I first started listening. Still you'll know when Rush has officially jumped the shark when Bo Snerdly gets an open mike and you get to hear his comments.

Savage, however is a different kettle of fish. The negetivism, pessimism, the whole "It's all over folks, we are in the handbasket heading down the road to Hell" thing is really annoying. Seriously, listen to him too long and you'll want to eat a bullet. And he's so mean, even to his own fans. I even heard him tell a caller off for having the temerity of asking ol' Doc Savage how he was doing. Meh - he's too impressed with himself.

Rhod, you say we need popular thinkers. I'm not sure I get your point. Rush has 20 million listeners a week. Hannity has 10 million and a million viewers of his cable show.

The point is that Hannity isn't a thinker.

Hannity is working in talk radio- it is not the kind of format for esoteric policy discussions. Nevertheless, I think you are unfairly maligning his intelligence. He is on the air four hours a day- that is a significant amount of time to have to come up with daily content. On top of that, he has to interview and debate extemporaneously. He also has to come up with a position on an issue, like a Supreme Court opinion, within minutes after it comes down. And he has to make it entertaining enough to get ratings.

Not every radio host is put on this earth to entertain you and you alone. (And by you, I mean who ever this applies to.) You don't like one of them? Well, enough other people obviously do. Isn't that evident? So, what's the big deal? Does everybody have to share your tastes?

Fair enough point on the fast-moving format of talk radio. Presumably he didn't have the same constraints while writing "Let Freedom Ring," which was poorly written and poorly argued.
And we're not talking about differing tastes, we're talking about whether single- and simple-minded, talking points spewing windbags like Hannity are good for the conservative movement.
In my opinion they're not.

Oh, and saying you can determine what is and is not good for the conservative movement is not "windbaggy"?

I have no doubt Hannity is leading a major and well deserved beat down of Durbin. At the moment I don't see too many bloggers doing the same.

Asshat Durbin just compared Gitmo to the Holocaust. Jeesh.

I don't know if I would qualify as a "douche", Chris. My first campaign effort was for Barry Goldwater. I'm sixty years old, never voted Democrat, and spent fourteen and a half months in the Iron Triangle with the 25th in 66 and 67. I turned very old very quickly.

My oldest son served in Afghanistan and Guantanamo and is going back. I have one son in the 101st and another in the 82nd, with the 82nd guy on tdy at West Point right now. Both of them, along with the oldest, are on their way to Iraq, Iraq and Afghanistan respectively. I paid my dues and I'm ready to lose one or more of them to fight this war....which will go on and on and on.

I have a degree, unfortunately in Poli Sci, Constitutional Law, and I've been arguing with leftists all my life. Liberalism is dead, leftism is the reanimated corpse and it's the most insidious set of ideas around today.

I don't like Limbaugh because we need something more than cliches, someone who can restate ideas in different ways for different people. Rush has opinions and information, but these are not the same as knowledge or conviction.

If he's your hero, Chris, good for you. I don't have heroes. I have expectations, and Rush isn't living up to them. I don't discount what he's done, but we need something more to claim the future.

I'm no "douche", asshsole. Screw you.

Matt:

What I mean by popular thinker is, say, Tony Snow. Conservativism is more than occasional references to Hayek and condemnation of "liberals". On that point alone, we need some differentiation.

Liberals are dead and gone. Something new has taken their place, something awful. Conservatives today are the liberals of the 19th century. LEFTISM is the intellectual distinction that has to be made, and leftism is nihilism. We ALL know how awful they can be, but three hours a day of sound bytes on the slugs of leftism is not going to educate the ignorant on conservativism.

Leftists are the only reactionaries in America today. They want, apart from an all-powerful State, to return to the pre-911 bullshit of chattering about school lunches and day care. They are anti-West, and unrestrained in their deconstruction of everything that matters to a cohesive society.

I argue with them elsewhere, on other blogs, and find them determined and, sometimes, smart. Limbaugh is not arming nascent conservatives with the stuff they need to defeat them and persuade others.

I'm not asking for a William Buckley to replace Limbaugh. But we do need someone who doesn't diminish our, and his, dignity with mocking and childish voices and the reduction of leftists to simple fools. They're worse than that.