Sean Hannity Winks at the Birthers « The Washington Independent
Here, via Charles Johnson, is audio of Sean Hannity telling a critical caller that questions about President Obama’s birth certificate are perfectly legitimate. The disagreement starts when the caller knocks Hannity for citing WorldNetDaily as a source, given its “birther” content.
“„HANNITY: Let me ask you a question. What was so wrong in saying ‘Can we see your birth certificate?’ Tell me what was so wrong with that.
“„CALLER: Because he showed it. He’s got copies of it!
“„HANNITY: No, no, no, no, no. That’s not true. We were told early on that someone else had looked at it and confirmed that it was legitimate. So what was wrong with people saying, wait a minute, in light of the fact of where your father came from, etc, let’s just make sure that this is a legitimate birth certificate. What was so wrong with asking that question?
“„CALLER: It’s been asked and answered!
“„HANNITY: No, no. It was not asked by the mainstream media. It was asked by places like WorldNetDaily, who I think were just doing due diligence, considering it’s a constitutional mandate.
I beat this dead horse because the purchase that birtherism has achieved in the conservative movement is far and beyond what you’d expect for such a strange conspiracy theory. Compare that to what Sarah Palin calls “Trig Trutherism,” the conspiracy theory (as far as I’m concerned) that Palin is not the real mother of her youngest child. Neither Palin nor her defenders can name any more prominent “Trig Truthers” than Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic, an established journalist who has alienated some readers with his posts about this. And here, for context, is how Hannity dealt with the “Trig Truthers” when he interviewed Palin in November.
“„PALIN: The most devastating attack on me were those things that would affect the kids, the attacks on Trig, which still blow me away that anybody would be that cruel to think that, you know, he shouldn’t have been allowed to be born or that he was…
“„HANNITY: Or that he wasn’t your child.
“„PALIN: Oh, yeah, that’s funny.
“„HANNITY: That was another thing, it was really Bristol’s child.
“„PALIN: Right.
“Trig Truthers” — crazy! “Birthers” — asking legitimate questions!
