Ethics

Hannity's Reading Comprehension Skills

By Ed Brayton

Newshounds caught Hannity completely misunderstanding (or deliberately misrepresenting) a statement made in a Politico article about the sniper fire that ended the standoff with pirates who held a ship's captain hostage in a lifeboat off the coast of Somalia. Hannity said that Obama had no legal choice but to give permission to use deadly force against the pirates:

Hannity, feigning goodwill toward Obama, said he didn't want Goldberg to "misunderstand," then immediately moved on to complain about an "orchestrated effort" for Obama to take credit for the rescue. Hannity added, "But what we've now discovered is, according to the Politico, is that in fact he was legally required to sign on to this. There was no great decision here, in other words." Hannity further complained, "I'm seeing the media praise him or overly praise him for something he legally was told by his team he had to do."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on April 15, 2009 (boomark / email).