Hannity Defends Ted Nugent's Death Threats on Obama

By Steve Benen
Posted on August 28, 2007, Printed on August 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//60922/

This post, written by Steve Benen, originally The Carpetbagger Report

As a rule, writing about Ted Nugent is a bit like writing about Ann Coulter -- they're both ridiculous clowns who say stupid things to get attention. My better instincts tell me to ignore them.

But once in a while, there's a reason to highlight their stupidity. Take Ted Nugent's latest outburst, for example.

"I was in Chicago last week, I said, 'Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk!' Obama, he's a piece of sh*t and I told him to suck on my machine gun! Let's hear it for them. I was in New York and I said, 'Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.' And since I'm in California, how about Barbara Boxer? She might want to suck on my machine gun! Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these, you worthless whore!"

First, let's keep the context in mind. Nugent was something of a star in the '70s, but more recently, he's become a proud Republican activist who, oddly enough, routinely appears on Fox News, writes for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and has even been recruited to run for public office under the GOP flag. (Now would, of course, be the ideal time for Bill O'Reilly to remind us that Daily Kos is a "hate site" because a few anonymous commenters wrote some intemperate remarks.)

Second, Nugent's remarks actually made the rounds fairly quickly. I naively expected conservatives to respond by a) ignoring Nugent's comments; or b) gingerly distancing themselves from the nut. I didn't expect Sean Hannity to defend Nugent and excuse the borderline-threatening remarks, but that's exactly what he did on Friday night. (via Digby)

Oh my.

Realistically, I think it's fair to say that if a Democratic activist encouraged four Republican senators to suck on machine-gun barrels, while calling the lawmakers a "piece of sh*t," a "worthless bitch," and a "worthless whore," we probably wouldn't be hearing from that activist again for a while. For that matter, no one with any kind of audience would defend the comments, and the activist would soon be persona non grata in progressive circles.

But this is a reminder that in conservative circles, there is no line to be crossed. There are no limits, and there are no consequences.

Post Script: By the way, this was debunked quite a while ago, but Hannity's argument that Obama's comments about the war in Afghanistan are somehow comparable to Nugent's lunacy is truly insane. Hannity is just too dumb for his own good.

On the August 19 edition of Fox News' Hannity's America, host Sean Hannity asserted that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was "bashing America" and "accus[ing] U.S. soldiers of killing innocent Afghani civilians" during an August 13 campaign appearance in Nashua, New Hampshire. In fact, as the video, which Hannity aired, makes clear, Obama criticized the shortage of troops in Afghanistan, saying: "We've got to get the job done there [in Afghanistan] and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

As Media Matters for America noted in response to Hannity's earlier mischaracterizations of Obama's comments, U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan -- and accounts of resulting civilian casualties -- have been widely reported in the media and have reportedly provoked criticism from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a British commander stationed there. Additionally, as the Associated Press reported in a "Fact Check" responding to conservative attacks on Obama, "Western forces have been killing civilians at a faster rate than the insurgents." Further, in a July 7 article on NATO and U.S. air strikes reported to have killed more than 100 Afghan civilians, Reuters cited the assessment of military analysts that "a shortage of ground troops means commanders often turn to air power."

The mind reels.

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.

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