On the heels of a tremendous success for Glenn Beck, a half million Americans attending a rally that was his idea from start to finish, somebody is being terribly ungracious to Sean Hannity.
This story has suddenly popped up over at Mediaite. The gist: that Hannity in some fit of … what, professional jealousy? pettiness? … didn’t cover the Beck rally on his show last night.
As somebody who watches both Beck and Hannity with regularity (and yes, for the record, has been on the old Hannity and Colmes and Hannity’s radio show), this is both professionally unfair to Hannity and…well…just a petty…make that lousy…thing to do. If designed by some publicity whizbang unknown to hurt Hannity they will hopefully learn this stuff only backfires. If that whizbang is in Beck’s orbit, he or she should be taken to the woodshed for making Beck look like something he clearly is not: small. It would be astounding if after something this big and this important the end result is some dope running around saying the whole reason for it was a better time slot at Fox. Not to mention that this surfaces the same day Beck announces a new website. Is this somebody’s idea of how to get good PR?
Hannity and Beck have very different shows. They are…newsflash…very different people. Hello? Beck has justifiably gotten tons of favorable coverage for this rally…as well he should. Nearby you can find my own piece on this, with the mildest of concern expressed about the sharpness of Beck’s message. Make no mistake…I think Beck and the Tea Party folks and all those involved did a fabulous thing here. I’ve been hearing from Beck fans all day and they are thrilled, as am I.
The criticism in this Mediaite story is that Hannity didn’t hand over his show to Beck to reprise the rally for the umpteenth time yesterday. Just as a viewer, I would have to ask…why would he? Beck was on at 5 and O’Reilly had him on at 8. Hannity did in fact have Sarah Palin on his show. If we’re headed down that road, then the question has to be why did Fox viewers have to watch the rally on C-SPAN instead of live on Fox? Was Roger Ailes caught up in some super-secret move to zap Beck? Why doesn’t Beck feature Hannity talking about the latest round of 8 years of Freedom Concerts where Hannity has honored the troops, the Goldstar families — and raised millions — say again — millions of dollars for scholarships for kids who have lost a parent in the military? Where’s the segment on Beck devoted to Mark Levin’s book? Why isn’t this person or that person or that person’s grandma on Beck? Yada yada yada.
Seriously.
There is a lot going on in this country. After decades of being trapped in the Mainstream Media cocoon, at last Americans have Fox and talk radio to turn to and finally get real news and real conservative viewpoints. They love watching Beck be Beck, and they love watching Hannity be Hannity.
There’s a story now out in Forbes that Beck is adding to his “empire” with a new website.
He has hired Scott Baker from Breitbart to run this. As it happens, I’ve been on Scott’s web TV show a couple times. He’s a very nice guy. I find it hard to believe he’d waste his time doing something like this…it just seems totally out of character.
But Scott, if there’s some idiot of an underling out there trying to score points with you or the Boss by doing this, tell them there is such a thing as stepping on your own message or story. Millions of people are watching Beck and Hannity. They want to see the story of The Cause unfold every night. Not Backstage Gossip that can only wind up hurting two extremely talented people who have separately done an immense amount of good for a lot of people. Both of whom have a tremendous following and do a lot of good in this world every time they sit down in front of a microphone or camera.
Congratulations on your new job, Scott. Well, deserved. I don’t for a second think this was you. But you’re there now and somebody needs to say this is just plain ungracious — and coming on the heels of a rally featuring “charity” — it is distinctly uncharitable.
Somebody owes Sean Hannity an apology.
Is all I’m sayin’.
