Why Hannity Trounced Anderson

Recent polls have suggested that Hannity dominated Rocky Anderson in their debate in Salt Lake City, Utah. For example, here is a poll that was recently posted at the KSL site. KSL is a TV station in Utah. ( http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=1193626 )

I totally agree with the poll's verdict. Hannity clearly won the debate, and Rocky received a butt whipping of royal proportions. Yet Rocky supporters continue to try to put makeup on the proverbial pig; that is they stubbornly try to spin Rocky's humiliating loss into victory.

What possible basis do they have for saying that Rocky won?

Rocky's supporters attack the polls. They say, "What did you expect? After all, Utah is a conservative state." They are forgetting that Hannity flew into Anderson's backyard. Anderson supposedly has a significant political base in Utah, which is why he was elected mayor of Salt Lake City. Hannity has no political base or political organization in Utah. Since Anderson is a "favorite son" of Utah and Hannity is not, Anderson should have a polling advantage. Also, people will not always vote a winner of a debate based on who agrees with their ideas. For example, I can remember seeing presidential debates when I have conceded the other guy (the guy whose positions I disagreed with) won. In fact, the following blog was written by a person who says that while he agrees more with Anderson, he believes that Hannity won the debate: http://www.slweekly.com/article.cfm/rockykosself. Had Hannity fallen on his face as badly as Anderson did there is no way that fifty eight percent of those questioned would have said that Hannity won.

Certainly, only the most biased observer could possibly think that Rocky won on style. For the first segment of the debate, Anderson had a relatively easy task. He did not have to worry about rebutting anything (Hannity had yet to debate), and he did not need to do any impromptu speaking. All he had to do was to deliver a persuasive address in thirty minutes. However, there was no finish to that meandering pontifical mess Anderson called a speech. Why? Because the moderator told Anderson his time had expired long before he seemed to have any inclination to finish. In other words, Anderson is much too stupid to compose a thirty minute speech and then deliver a that speech in . . . thirty minutes.

To make matters worse, Anderson actually tried to finesse giving the rest of his speech during the question and answer period. When asked for his first question, Rocky awkwardly showed a PowerPoint slide and attempted to drone on and on . . . as if he were continuing his speech. This was after the moderator had called upon the questions to be short and answerable in one minute. Of course, Hannity would not let Rocky play his little game. "What's your question"? Hannity kept asking the mayor. Once again Rocky made an utter fool of himself. One commentator (a liberal) said that he believed that Rocky lost the debate right there, through his awkward bungling of the question and answer session.

Rocky and his fans whine that Hannity resorted to name calling, while the good mayor never stooped so low. That is just nonsense. In fact, the opposite was true: Rocky was the one who engaged in the most savage name calling of the evening. In his very first oration (I won't call it a speech), he likened George Bush and those who support him to the criminals who were tried at Nuremberg. In other words, Rocky called Hannity and Bush the worst name that you can call someone in non vulgar discourse. He called them Nazis. Of course, Hannity made Rocky eat those strong words before the debate was over, but we will get to that later. My point is that Rocky called Hannity and Bush a far worse name than Hannity ever called him.

The one attack that Hannity made on the mayor that might be even be considered personal was the following: Hannity accused Rocky . . . are you ready for this? . . . of being an absent mayor. I know, I know . . . after Rocky accused Hannity (among others) of being a Nazi war criminal, the charge of Rocky's being an absent mayor must (to Rocky and his fans) have been shocking and truly heartbreaking. However, Rocky actually opened the door for Hannity's little jab. Earlier Rocky had pompously denigrated Bush for his long (working) vacation at Bush's ranch in Texas. [I guess if Bush had spent his time away from the Capitol in Camp David, as other presidents have done, that would have been somehow better.] Under those circumstances, Hannity was right to say that Rocky should be judged by the same judgment that he judges other people. If it was wrong for Bush to have a working vacation away from the White House, then how much more wrong is it for Mayor Anderson to be spending a much longer time away from Salt Lake City's city hall and the business of the city?

Some of Rocky's supporters have said that Hannity offered no defense of Bush. As usual, those supporters are totally wrong; Hannity's defense was, in fact, masterful. Rocky said that the war with Iraq is illegal and that those who support it are similar to war criminals. So, Hannity played clip after clip after clip of the leadership of the Democratic Party’s leadership saying that Saadam Hussein is a dangerous man who has or is attempting to gain weapons of mass destruction and justifying their support for armed intervention in Iraq. Those clips contained quotations from Bill Clinton; Hillary Clinton; John Kerry; Ted Kennedy among others. Hannity got Anderson to concede that the Democratic members of Congress in the clips (not to mention former President Clinton) had the same intelligence material as the Bush and were therefore as culpable as Bush for any possible misrepresentations of that information.

Hannity asked Rocky, "Are you willing to be consistent and call for the ouster of Democratic members of Congress who supported the war?" "No," replied Rocky, "I am perfectly willing for these other Nazi war criminals to stay in office. I only want to impeach the President."

Immediately after the debate, reporters asked Rocky why he was not calling for the ouster of the other war criminals. Rocky said, "Yes these others are guilty. But you can't impeach a member of Congress. You can only impeach the President."

Well, yeah Rocky, you are technically correct. Congressmen cannot be impeached. However, when a member of Congress commits war crimes that are similar to the war crimes committed by the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg . . . this is a matter that could certainly be reviewed by the Senate and House ethics committees, and those committees have the power to recommend that the guilty party be removed from Congress. So why are you not calling for an ethics review? Also, I suspect that each state has a recall mechanism for its Congressional Representatives. If you really believe that these people are war criminals, why are you not agitating for their recall?

As a practical matter, calling for Bush's impeachment seems futile. Even if the way were paved, the impeachment machinery runs so slow that you might find it difficult to oust Bush before his term is ended. But, that disgusting war criminal, Hillary Clinton, is running first in polls for the Democratic nomination for President. If you believe what you say, why are you not trying to turn members of your party away from that evil woman? Why are you not feverishly working for someone like Obama, who opposed the war from the beginning? Surely you don't want your party lead again by another war criminal? You might not be able to vote for Ralph Nader next time.

The fact that Mayor Anderson is not doing those things reveals that he is a man of limited integrity; that he does not really believe what he is saying; and that he is shamelessly and cynically exploiting the war in Iraq for political purposes. No wonder this pompous, little man was so completely dominated and humiliated in his debate with Sean Hannity!