Hannity & Colmes recap

Hannity & Colmes and The Rachel Maddow Show

A few months ago I decided to watch O'Reilly Factor and Countdown in full to compare the two. My conclusion is I probably agree with O'Reilly two-thirds of the time, Olbermann one-third of the time, they'd rather swallow broken glass than admit they agree on anything, and while neither is a guy I could see having over for dinner, I could converse with O'Reilly about anything for a few minutes. Keith, I'd have to stick to sports, or I'd be afraid his psychopathic side would emerge.

Now I'm going to try doing H&C and RM.

First up: Hannity & Colmes. Hannity reviews Pres.-Elect Obama's new cabinet announcements, then interview Karl Rove about it. They include a quote from David Axelrod saying he's no Karl Rove. Hannity says he wants the new president to succeed. When guys like Glenn Beck or Michael Medved say that, I can believe them. I have a hard time believing Hannity on this one. Hannity & Rove go around on all the problems with the economic stimulus package. Six minutes into the show, I didn't know he was there, but Alan Colmes interrupts when Rove says he wants more specificity, saying the game could change day to day, i.e., Hank Paulson gave us specifics, then changed his mind as circumstances changed, which Rove concedes.

Back from the break, Colmes asks about Axelrod saying he's no Rove, to which Rove says Axelrod's being humble. Rove then talks about how the Bush White House always went with policy over politics, and I'm tempted to tune him out, but I keep going. Hannity gets back into questioning about how many Clinton people Obama's bringing in. Rove says "Well, Democrats can choose from the Clinton administration or the Carter adiministration, and the Carter people are getting long in the tooth."

Back from the break, they now interview Rep. Eric Cantor, new GOP minority whip about Obama's proposed stimulus package he wants on his desk on January 20. Cantor says Obama's not reaching across the aisle, blah blah blah, and Hannity says "Hey, if Obama puts off raising taxes on the wealthy, I'm for that. If he's going to cut taxes, I'm for that." And Cantor agrees. Colmes comes in when Cantor mentions meeting with Rahm Emmanuel. Colmes asks "Wouldn't it be reasonable to hold your fire on an administration that hasn't even taken office yet?" Cantor starts rattling off the problems with the bloated way of doing business in the auto industry, and Colmes said you just had a Republican administration bail out all these financial institutions. Cantor wraps it up.

Back from the break, to discuss the possible appointments of Hillary Clinton (State) and Bill RIchardson (Commerce), Colmes intrroduces Dick Morris. Wow. We're going to have conservative guests all hour, aren't we. Morris says it's ridiculous to fill up his administration with Clinton loyalists, and then putting Hillary in the Cabinet. Colmes asks if it's too much to think the administration wants best for the United States. Morris says yeah. Colmes asks if Morris can say anything nice about the Clintons. Hannity says "No." Colmes says he asked Morris; Hannity said he's answering for Morris, and that he himself can say something nice about the Clintons. Morris never answers the question. Hannity takes over questioning, rattling off the foreign policy differences between Obama and Hillary. Morris says Obama won't rasie taxes because he can make the deficit as large as he wants and everyone will understand.

Back from the break, still with Morris. Morris says Obama's going to load every liberal pet project he wants into the stimulus package. Hannity & Morris then move to the Senate race where Hannity says if Franken steals Minnesota, and if Saxby Chambliss loses the runoff in Georgia, it's over. Morris says the GOP is dead at that point. Morris plugs a website to give money to Chambliss, saying the whole country is at stake on this election. Colmes says you like to say Bush inherited a recession from Clinton, well, look at what Obama's inheriting from Bush. He asks Morris, "Aren't you just scaring people?" Morris says it's both parties' fault. Obama didn't cause it and can't cure it.

Back from the break, their guest is Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC). Holmes asks about his trip to Iowa. Sanford demures. They discuss Ted Stevens, who Sanford says faked conservatism and is a poster child for their party gone bad. Colmes asks about some Bush policies and if they're fake conservatism. Sanford says "compassionate conservatism" wasn't real conservatism and points to himself and Bobby Jindal and others who are trying to return conservatism to the GOP. Colmes says "Who else? Sarah Palin?" Sanford chuckles and says certainly, and others, plugs Jindal and a "broad swath of folks."

Hannity chimes in to agree. He say the Republicans, when they ran Congress, were not the party of fiscal responsibility. Sanford says they also failed in protecting the free market and were late on energy independence.

Back from the break, Alan Colmes announces he's leaving the show. Hannity says we have a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress and you're leaving me? Colmes says "Four words. My work is done." Colmes says he'll continue on the network as a contributor and his radio show, his website, and he's shooting a pilot or two, maybe he'll call it "Alan's America."

The only change to that show without Alan will be there'll be no one to ask devil's advocate questions.

Election Winners & Losers

Winners & Losers of the Election:

WINNER: The Democratic Party - It shored up its base and expanded to places where Republicans were once gaining ground. Latinos broke for Obama, and younger people. It had the reverse Bradley effect. Despite presiding over the least popular Congress in history, the Dems made big gains in the House and Senate.

LOSER: The Republican Party - John McCain's never been the darling of the base, but his failed campaign left the party in shambles. Sometimes you need to be reduced to ashes to rise like a phoenix, but now is the time for the GOP to look for its heart and soul. They'll barely be able to filibuster, so they'll need to choose their battles wisely. They also lost ground on two of their normally strongest issues - the economy and national security. How can they argue Democrats will make us more socialist when they helped pass the $700 billion bailout?

WINNER: David Axelrod & Robert Gibbs - They showed that positive campaigning works. The Obama Team stayed positive when Hillary was beating them, and they could stay above the fray when the surrogates did the attacking. Look at the pleasant smile on Gibbs's face when he says he wouldn't accuse Sean Hannity of anti-Semitism for having an anti-Semite on his show. Now Axelrod is a White House Advisor and Gibbs is the press secretary.

LOSER: Steve Schmidt & Rick Davis - They looked smart the day after the GOP convention wrapped, but then it all fell apart. They had a different message every few days, and they never seemed to realize when certain mud didn't stick. They used Palin as an attack dog, which drove up her negatives, and they didn't let any of her Alaska people help with the campaign. Now they have a bunch of anonymous workers joining in the circular firing squad. (Until the worker is man enough to name himself, I find it impossible to believe Palin didn't know Africa was a continent and not one big country.)

WINNER: Old-school conservatives - This battle hasn't been fought yet, but writers like Chris Buckley, Peggy Noonan, George Will, David Brooks, etc., seemed to realize the only way to save the Republican party from itself was to reject its current trajectory. This means more goodwill built up for governors like Bobby Jindal and Charlie Crist, and it means Newt Gingrich will bend a few more ears with his think-tank.

LOSER: Populist conservatives - Sarah Palin needs to decide which camp she wants to belong to. She went the populist route and it cost her. She needs to finish her term as governor and do some studying. Meanwhile I don't think the Mike Huckabee/Gary Bauer type is going to fly in 2012. I'd put the hawkish neocons in this camp too.

WINNER: CNN. The Pew Research group found CNN to be the most balanced of all the news in this election cycle.

LOSER: MSNBC. The Pew Research Group found them to be the least balanced, and they're still last in cable ratings, though Rachel Maddow gets a shout-out for sometimes beating Larry King now. NBC itself showed to be pretty fair, and guys like Tom Brokaw and Brian Williams have expressed displeasure at their cable wing aiming to just be a liberal Fox News.

WINNER: Franklin D. Roosevelt. If Obama implements half of what he promised, America is going to get a New New Deal.

LOSER: George W. Bush. He got us into two wars, and intelligence eventually revealed one was unjustified. Even if it had been, his administration blew the post-war occupation. Meanwhile he presided over major increases in spending, a ballooning deficit, a further out-of-balance budget, the nationalization of banks, and an annihilation of the Republican majority in both houses. And Osama bin Laden is still free.

WINNER: Howard Dean. His plan in 2005 to go to all 50 states is paying fruit. GOP mainstays like Virginia and Indiana went blue, and the NY Times election map shows that 90% of the counties in the US were bluer now than they were in 2004. And he's quitting while he's ahead.

LOSER: Karl Rove. His plan of keeping the base energized and ignoring everybody else collapsed when Bush gave them nothing to be energized about from the 2005 State of the Union address onward.

WINNER: Harry Reid. He has the power now. Will he use it wisely?

LOSER: Joe Lieberman. When the Senate was 51-49 they needed him. Now that it's more like 57-43, sayonara, Joe, from any important position.