On Thursday I received an e-mail from Alan Colmes of Hannity & Colmes (I checked the headers and verified that indeed it did come from the real Alan Colmes). Alan took exception to my characterization of him as a “patsy” in this post about Sean Hannity. Being the pugilist that I am (my friend once likened it to a sledgehammer and called it an “O-Bomb”) I responded to him explaining that yes indeed that was how I felt, then he responded that the only way I could have come to that conclusion was because I don’t watch the show.
Now see, that’s funny for him to use that line on me. There are three people responsible for every single bit of audio and video content on the Media Matters website. I am one of them. Ergo, it is part of my job to see the interactions Alan Colmes has with Sean Hannity, not to mention that I occasionally watch the show on my own time. And by any measure the bad outweighs the good.
I’ve seen in interviews where Colmes uses two major defenses to explain why liberals and Democrats almost uniformly find him lacking as a represenative - one was the one he used with me - that I don’t watch the show. The other one is also used by the other Fox News Democrat I’ve personally interacted with, Kirsten Powers, and it boils down to the idea that I and other liberals have some sort of idealogical litmus test they’re not living up to.
The only litmus test I’ve got for Democrats and progressives in the media is: don’t suck. On a one-to-one comparison there are few outright liberals in the media. Panels are almost made up of conservative activists and writers for conservative journals, paired with reporters for idealogically neutral news outlets. Special Report with Brit Hume, for instance regularly has the deck stacked with the conservative host Hume, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, conservative reporter Bill Sammon, Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard (who wrote a recent hagiography of Bush) and Mort Kondracke from Roll Call (who recently called the Dems a “hanging” party). The “liberals” are Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, both straight reporters for NPR and regular regurgitators of beltway conventional wisdom against Democrats.
Furthermore, when it comes to ideology I’m probably to the right of Alan Colmes but to the left of Kirsten Powers.
Where I and many others rock the boat is in asking them not to suck. Far too often the Democrats on Fox, especially Colmes and Powers, buy wholeheartedly into conservative distortions and frames of Democrats. Dems, in the world of Fox, are always too much to the left, going too far, etc. and the Fox Dems literally break their own necks racing to agree with their conservative counterparts - Sean Hannity for Colmes, and Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin for Kirsten Powers. A lot of people would like to think this is an edict from up high at Fox, but the evidence seems to say otherwise. The bulk of Fox News Dems are appeasers like Colmes and Powers - Pat Caddell and Bob Beckel for instance. But folks like Gen. Wes Clark generally hold their ground even while being employees of the network. So it’s not the heavy hand of Roger Ailes, apparently, just this group self-selecting themselves as the Washington Generals of punditry.
I can’t read their minds to know why they do it, though Occam’s Razor says its the motivation of regular employment that keeps them in line. But for their own personal bounty they do damage to the Democratic party and the progressive movement. 
They don’t see it that way - especially Kirsten Powers who seems to see all criticism as a critique of intelligence - but one can only work on the evidence that’s available, and the “patsy” motive seems to fit best. They want to be “in” with the cool kids, and on a pro-Republican network like Fox the in-crowd is the GOP. For the other progressive pundits on other cable networks, from the famous Begala and Carville (plus Donna Brazille) on CNN to the other lesser-known talking heads who regularly pop up on MSNBC, there is little to no capitulation like that seen on Fox News.
But my correspondence with Alan Colmes and Kirsten Powers suggests that they don’t see a problem. They discard the fact that again and again and again their inactions are noted by telling themselves we desire purity tests and dogmatism. With that attitude they are never subject to criticism because they reject it out of hand. They think it’s a license to continue throwing their supposed allies under the bus.
Frankly all we’re asking in return for you to not suck up the joint so much.
I think the most telling example of Colmes’ “appeasement” — as you nicely put it, Oliver — is that he routinely reads teasers for the show segments that are obviously either written by Hannity or one of Hannity’s stooges. Then he adds “Some say” or something like that to make it seem like, oh, it’s suddenly a fair statement.
I can give you three recent examples. On Feb. 27, Colmes said, “And then, why is Barack Obama having such difficulty, some say, winning the African-American vote?”
On Feb. 28th, he said, “And Al Gore has fast become, some say, the poster boy for the fight against global warming, but many are accusing him of not practicing what he preaches.”
On April 12th, he said, “Both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson’s past, some say, littered with controversial and sometimes racial comments.”
He obviously was reading the teaser and realized it was ridiculous, and yet he doesn’t NOT read the teaser. Oh, he reads it, all right. But he adds “Some say.”
Hannity, on the other hand, goes absolutely balls-to-the-wall conservative in his teasers, and doesn’t give a damn about making it sound reasonable (”Up next, Democrats are terrorists. Mark Fuhrman will be here to discuss how best to kill them.”)
I have a question: When will Hannity read a teaser written by Colmes or a progressive? I’ll give you the answer: When pigs fly, some say.
Colmes, either grow a pair or accept your label as a FOX News appeaser. You can’t have it both ways.
Regardless of your political alignments, I think I found something amusing, to say the least, featuring the Democrats vs. the Republicans in old-school, knockdown drag-out superhero glory…
The Challenge Of The Super-Duper Friends!
Pretty okay Flash animation, and Karl Rove as the Joker really takes the cake.
Check it out. :p
Be careful Glutton, cause that critique can easily be used against Ollie to (see post on “Does this video demonstrate LAPD abuse….questions swirl…)
The problem of course with your argument Ollie, is that you are an ideologue and a purist. Any time a democrat wants to take a middle ground, or disagrees with you and the far left, you immediately begin shouting the equivalent rhetoric of “burn the witch…!” See Lieberman for an example.
And as I have pointed out before, the vast majority of what you and MM see as a “neutral” network, is most decidely NOT neutral. The vast majority of journalists ALREADY are lefties and write stories with that bias…and america knows it. Since you are so big on touting the voice of the american people have “spoken”…just look at the fox news ratings on the shows you hate the most….
Far too often the Democrats on Fox, especially Colmes and Powers, buy wholeheartedly into conservative distortions and frames of Democrats.
Says the man whose postings frequently push distortions and frames of Republicans and conservatives.
Your “Yummers: Your food is less safe, thanks to conservatives” post was a recent and classic example. Or the unending “conservatives hate brown people” posts any time an immigration story pops up in the MSM.
You do the exact same thing you accuse conservatives of doing, O-Dub. Quit whining.
I really can’t expect anybody to be as effective at FOX as General Clark. He is amazingly great there, and I am convinced he will be responsible for bringing a lot of FOX viewers to the Democratic Party, or at least stop a lot of “honest” Republicans from using the Hannity Talking points to slam Democrats.
That said, I think some of it can be taught, and it might be good to have Wes Clark, Cliff Schecter, Mike Stark, and anyone else you think is good at this put together a class or seminar or…
But the other problem and it is a real problem that won’t be solved until Democrats scream at the idiots, is that most of these people are just unprepared. They don’t know the facts. They don’t recognize the latest talking points. They are lazy, and most importantly, they are there only to promote themselves, so they really don’t care.
By the way, so that’s your job, there? I had wondered. Very cool, congratulations….
(Um, can you introduce me to George S?) (Kidding!)
I think this NewsHounds story about last nights Hannity and Colmes and their ZERO MINUTES of coverage regarding Alberto Gonzales testimony yesterday tells you all you need to know about the seriousnesss of which we should take Colmes’ Democratic ideals as it relates to hosting a program on FNC.
Hannity and Colmes completely IGNORE Gonzales testimony last night
Good post, Ollie.
I think you can measure how effective your post is by how quickly Pedo, Dugger, Frank, and the VRWC pop up with snarky talking points at you.
Good job. Colmes? Afterthe first time Sean gave him the sanctimonious “You’re a Lib, but I will allow you to appease me” speech
I agree with you, Ollie, good post. But I think you might overestimate how much damage they actually do to the Democratic Party, in that who among the party actually listen to them anyway? Colmes and Powers are what they are; figureheads of the Left in a Right-only environment. Not exactly balanced, but enough of a pretense to say it is.
I think you can measure how effective your post is by how quickly Pedo, Dugger, Frank, and the VRWC pop up with snarky talking points at you.
So pointing out a person’s hypocrisy is now considered a “snarky talking point”? Who knew?
I think a relevant question is whether Colmes himself watches the show. Is he aware of how he comes across? I mean granted being there he probably thinks, yes, he is sparring on equal footing with Hannity or somesuch, but does he actually watch to see how it looks to an audience? Colmes doesn’t exactly surrender the battle as much as he doesn’t seem to understand theres a fight going on. With a few relevant exceptions (he called out Coulter for saying he was a liar repeatedly, but being unable to point out a single time where he said anything untrue) he hasn’t really shown the kind of backbone his prospective audience would love to see.
I remember reading his book, “Red White and Liberal” and it opens with this email conversation he had with a conservative viewer of H&C, and in it the guy comes off like insanely anti-liberal, treating them as less than human or something. Colmes tries to get him to equivocate by asking “you’re saying that you wouldn’t let a heart surgeon operate on you or your family if you knew they voted democrat?” and the con actually agrees to this, and proudly so. Colmes uses this to show how so much of the modern right is unhinged, but I read it and just asked “This is how you actually deal with people who tell you to your face that they want you dead just because you disagree with Sean Hannity?” You remember in middle school at lunch when someone would take your chicken nugget and you’d call them on it and they’d say “I didn’t take nothing!”? Alan Colmes is the guy who comes up and says “Aha! Double Negative!” and gets beaten for it, and walks home focusing on being right. The problem isn’t lack of backbone, the problem is lack of perspective.
“the Fox Dems literally break their own necks racing to agree with their conservative counterparts”
Er, I’m pretty sure you don’t mean “literally”.
Yes, Wellstone, my comments were very snarky…
“the Fox Dems literally break their own necks racing to agree with their conservative counterparts”
Er, I’m pretty sure you don’t mean “literally”.
Good one. The problem is he doesn’t know what “literally” means. Probably thinks it means “like, totally”.
Lieberman’s position is an extreme, minority position shared by less than 30% of the country. I’m no purist. I support moderate Dems, conservative Dems, and liberal Dems. I just don’t support loser Dems who make the party look bad.
On a side note, anybody notice Alan Colmes’ link at the bottom of FoxNews.com? It says, “Alan Colmes: Any Opinion, All the Time!”
WTF does that even mean?
Excellent post Oliver. Surprised this didn’t get more interest, but Alan Colmes, a nice man I’m sure, has a million missed opportunities in the face of the hypocrite Sean Hannity.
Colmes knows that Hannity will say something one night to progress his opinion and then switch the next night when it benefits him in that context.
I’ve watched that show for 5 years and Sean Hannity runs it.
All topics are picked by Hannity - when
your panel talks about how a left winger said this “unhinged” thing or that “hateful” thing why Alan don’t you balance it out with something extreme said by a conservative? Here, I’ll give you an example - Mark Steyn, no stranger to Foxnews, discussing the VT shooting directly questioned the manhood of the victims that didn’t (as if we know) rush the killer. He put quotes around the word “men” in his column to imply that they weren’t living up to the male standards of bravery and fortitude. Those kids are dead - in the ground, they can’t even defend themselves.
Why don’t you Alan Colmes approach Sean Hannity, or use the chain of command - Roger Ailes, and inform him that will be your lead off story back from the 9:30 commercial break?
I mean, you are a liberal. Steyn is an ultraconservative. Sean Hannity is a master at exposing the divisive invective spewed by liberals. Shouldn’t you be doing the same?
Oliver: I only recently started visiting your site. I had no idea you submitted a large % of the content to Mediamatters. That’s awesome.
And Alan…why in 5 years has Sean Hannity never chosen the non-white side of any racially charged issue he scopes the country for to highlight on the show?
What’s funny is that many readers of this fine blog would consider Oliver relatively conservative on at least some cultural issues (religion, “Cosbyian”, etc.)
It’s not like Katrina van den Heuvel and Katha Pollitt write this blog. So for Willis - who has no strong leftist to grind - to call out Colmes for being too accommodating of his right-wing employer and co-workers is a relatively severe indictment.
Duros, consider this -
Does Bush damage the name of Republicans by being a visible national spokesman for the GOP?
To test the question, lets let the Senators and Congressman running for office vote with their feet. I’m betting he gets even fewer invites next round.
I’ve gotten angry emails from those two, also, lol!
That said, I think Colmes does a decent job given the constraints I’m sure he’s under… not that I don’t have my quibbles but overall I think he helps more than hurts the cause… and I’ve been blogging about him for almost three years. I’m not sure I can say the same thing for Powers. She seems more interested in launching her television career than in doing anything for Democrats.
However, more important than the performance of Colmes and Powers are those of the Democratic guests. As Jerry wrote above, they need to learn how to deal with the right wing noise machine, their tactics and talking points. More often than not, they are unprepared and seem unconcerned. If I had a dollar for every opening fed to a Democratic “strategist” by Colmes that they then failed to exploit, I’d have enough money… well, probably to pay my internet bill.
So in my view, rather than trying to change Colmes and Powers what we really need are better spokespeople to be guests on FOX News and the other cable networks. Wesley Clark is great, so is Jane Fleming (formerly of Young Democrats of America). Almost everyone else is mediocre.
To paraphrase Oliver, it’s long overdue for the Dems to stop sucking.
Cheers.
Estrich and Powers are on faux precisely because they sell out Democrats. They wouldn’t be invited back if they showed spine.
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