Sean Hannity

How do you cap off a multi-network prime-time special watched by millions? Well, if you're Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, you do a victory lap on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Senator Obama appeared on the Comedy Central show via satellite from Sunrise, Florida to tell Mr. Stewart, "I'm doing great... I think we've got a good shot at this thing."

A few of the Senator's jokes fell flat—a story about his daughter worrying that his "infomercial" will preempt her shows kinda went nowhere—but he showed good humor when he told Mr. Stewart that "There's a certain segment of hardcore Sean Hannity fans that probably wouldn't want to go have a beer with me."

He also deadpanned that he's been "going through therapy" to help him decide whom to vote for on election day.

In early October, The View's Elisabeth Hasselbeck denied rumors that she was considering moving to Fox News. But today on the show, during an interview with Richard Dreyfuss, Ms. Hasselbeck—who recently stumped for Sarah Palin in Florida—quipped that she'd "like" to work for Fox News' Sean Hannity.

In a clip provided by the Huffington Post, Mr. Dreyfuss describes working for W. director Oliver Stone by saying, "Imagine working for Sean Hannity."

As Mr. Dreyfuss pauses to let that image sink in, Ms. Hasselbeck chimes in, "I would like that!"

"Would you?" The actor asks. "Then you'd like working for Oliver... You know, you can be a fascist even when you're on the left."

Last week, a lot of people in the media were upset about Newsweek's un-retouched cover photograph of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

The cover showed an extreme close up of Governor Palin's face, illustrating a critical appraisal of the candidate by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham in the magazine.

It prompted Portfolio's Mixed Media blogger Jeff Bercovici to aks, "Did 'Newsweek' Have to Show Palin's 'stache?" Fox News devoted a segment to the cover on October 8, 2008, and CBS News' Bonnie Erbe had some thoughts about in her Washington Whispers column last week.

To make the controversy all the weirder, The Weekender is running a shocking cover that touts an "exclusive" view of the "First-Ever Unretouched Photos of the Weird Birthmark on Barack Obama's Face."  read more »

Earlier this week, Richard Huff of the New York Daily News broke the story that conservative pundit Sean Hannity had signed a new multimillion dollar contract with Fox News, which will keep him at the cable news network through 2012.

"The new deal will keep Hannity as one-half of the nightly show Hannity & Colmes, which he does with Allan Colmes," reported Mr. Huff. "Today, the nightly show he hosts with Colmes has been No. 1 at 9 p.m. among the cable news networks for the past 58 months."

How's Mr. Colmes doing?  read more »

As we noted last week, seemingly every journalist in America knows exactly what needs to be asked of Sarah Palin. Yesterday, Fox News' Sean Hannity became the second journalist, post-convention, to sit down with the governor of Alaska for an extended on-air interview.

Would Mr. Hannity, given his conservative beliefs, ask Ms. Palin tough questions?

Herein the abridged transcript (from Lexis Nexis) of the first part of the interview, which aired last night on Hannity & Colmes, edited down to just Mr. Hannity's questions:

Governor, thank you for being with us. All right. You said when you were asked to be Senator McCain's running mate that you didn't hesitate, you didn't blink.

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Yesterday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin sat down for her second post-convention interview. This one took place in Ohio. Sean Hannity of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes asked the questions.

At one point, Mr. Hannity asked Ms. Palin (who let her hair down for the interview) what she thought of Tina Fey's recent impression of her on Saturday Night Live. "I watched with the volume all the way down," said Ms. Palin. "I thought it was hilarious. I thought she was spot on. ... It was hilarious. Again, didn’t hear a word she said, but the visual, spot on."

"Did anyone ever say that before that there was a similarity in terms of looks?" Mr. Hannity asked.

"They’ve been saying that for years up in Alaska," Ms. Palin responded. "In fact, I dressed up as Tina Fey once for Halloween. So we’ve been doing that before Tina Fey has been doing that!"  read more »

On Saturday, Sept. 6, Drew Griffin, a correspondent for CNN, arrived with his camera crew at the home of Chuck Heath, the father of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin.

Mr. Griffin was there for an interview. He had landed in Wasilla, Alaska, three days earlier, fresh off the Hurricane Gustav story, and was now charged with reporting on the life of the charismatic Alaska governor for a CNN documentary to be called Sarah Palin Revealed. There, alongside the driveway of Alaska’s first dad, Mr. Griffin saw something he’d never seen before: A 15-foot tower of stacked moose antlers. Holy Alaska!

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Sean Hannity of Fox News has landed the first cable news interview with Sarah Palin. According to a release, the interview will air in two parts on Tuesday, Sept. 16, and Wednesday, Sept. 17, on Fox News' 9 p.m. show Hannity & Colmes.

ST. PAUL—Here's Sean Hannity, Fox newscaster and conservative hero, signing autographs on the floor of the convention as though he'd just won the nomination.

"Where in Alabama, darlin? What's your name darlin? Destiny? Your destiny is in politics."

"Where you from? I'm from Santa Barbara. High five."

Guards told the crowd to "back up. Back up. Ma'am don't push."

He was interviewed by a woman from KGMB Channel 9 Hawaii.

"If I have one word for Sarah Palin, it is 'authentic.' I love Hawaii. I can't wait to get back. Aloha," he said.

"Sean, you are a great American," said one man.

"No, you are a great American," said Hannity.  read more »

There’s a conventional view that John McCain faces an impossible political balancing act.

He badly needs his party’s conservative base to stand with him in November, but that base doesn’t particularly like or trust him. However, if he reins in his more moderate instincts and caters to these activists with the purity and intensity they demand, he’ll do irreparable harm to his standing with independent voters. And, especially with the number of Republican-identifying voters dwindling, victory this fall is unthinkable without substantial independent support.

But is McCain’s predicament problem with his base actually as dire as all that? The most recent data from Gallup, whose daily tracking poll has shown McCain within a few points of Barack Obama for weeks now, has him winning conservative Republicans – that is to say, the Republican base – by a 90-6 percent margin.  read more »

For the inside scoop on Hillary Clinton, go directly to Fox News!

Last night, Howard Wolfson, the erstwhile aide to Senator Hillary Clinton, made an appearance on Hannity & Colmes, as part of his new gig as a regular contributor to Fox News.

Sean Hannity didn’t waste much time before he started asking Mr. Wolfson to report on his former boss.

“Let me start with this simple basic question,” said Mr. Hannity. “I think everybody wants to know, the rumors have been swirling. Has Hillary been asked to participate in the process, the vetting process, for VP?”

"Not as far as I know," said Mr. Wolfson.

Mr. Wolfson was pointedly not wearing a funny-looking sweater.

So here's an invitiation for a fund-raiser to be headlined this Friday by Fox News personality Sean Hannity on behalf of embattled Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia. (The "macaca" guy.)

It isn't exactly a shocker. But I wonder if stuff like this doesn't make it just a teensy bit more difficult for Fox to demand retractions when anyone refers to them as a conservative news organization.

-- Azi Paybarah

Charles Barron's prime seat behind Hillary as she made her "plantation" slip won him some prime national time with Sean Hannity, in which he was top form.

He mostly refused to talk about Hillary, but did manage to take whacks at Andrew Cuomo, Bill Clinton, both political parties, the Zimbabwean opposition, and Hannity.

You can (should) watch the whole thing here. Highlights included his insistence on getting this out:

"You know, both comments are out of touch. But the real story we missed was Andrew Cuomo, who didn't show up to any Martin Luther King event. He was in Las Vegas with some realtors at a paid speaking engagement, and we're trying to get some information from him about attorney general."  read more »

And also, this, to Hannity:

"You ain't even worth my slap...I only slap people who are worth the end of my slap."

On reading of Jeanine Pirro's alleged fundraising travails in the Post Monday, Sean Hannity decided to get involved, and had Pirro as a guest on his ABC Radio Networks show yesterday:

HANNITY: Now let me ask you a question, OK? How much am I allowed to give to your campaign? Because I want to give the maximum.

PIRRO: Awwww. Thank you, Sean. Well, you know, because there's a possible primary, it's $4,200 a person for the, you know, the whole cycle. And that's this year and next year. And certainly, you know, money is what we need to make sure that we can get our message out. I have been all over this state, Sean, and I am greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm, with energy, with people who say, "You know what? We need someone who's going to listen to us!" I'm an upstate New Yorker, you know? When I was a kid, I worked in a dairy. And I really feel for upstate New York. It's been ignored, and New York is not a doormat...

HANNITY:...Listen, I'm gonna have to run, but I want people to donate to your campaign. I read Fredric Dicker's column, and you gotta, you know -- I'm gonna give you a check for the maximum that I can give, and I really want other people -- where is, how can people get in touch with you?

PIRRO: It's JeaninePirro.com. It's J-E-A-N-I-N-E -- Pirro -- P-I-R-R-O dot-com, and, Sean, thank you so much.

HANNITY: I'll link that to my website, Hannity.com, because I'm gonna tell you right now, it is such a bunch of -- I need people to get to know you. If they know you as well as I do, everybody'll vote for you.  read more »

The liberal media-watcher that caught this exchange, Media Matters, seems to think it somehow demonstrates a bias of some sort over at Fox News.

But it's also just the sort of thing Pirro needs. Though that promised link to Hannity's home page doesn't seem to be up yet.

Sean Hannity, the 42-year-old Fox News star, says he gets no special kick from hammering the lefties  read more »

Memofrom: Karl Rove

To: POTUS, The White House Brain Trust, the R.N.C.  read more »

cc: Sean Hannity