Stephanopoulos Scolds Hannity On Jennings: 'I Don't Think You Have The Goods' (VIDEO)

Sean Hannity is on a mission to get someone fired from the Obama administration. We've speculated before about what's fueling the intensity of this effort, (is Hannity afraid of Glenn Beck?), but regardless of the motive, the conservative Fox News host has set his sights on Kevin Jennings, who President Obama appointed Assistant Deputy Secretary at the Department of Education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.

Hannity and the right wing are outraged at Jennings' work aimed at making classrooms safe for homosexual and transgendered students, and they view him as a radical activist pushing a gay agenda. Think Progress has ably fact-checked these smears.

However, tonight Hannity got rebuked by a more high-profile source when ABC News' George Stephanopoulos told him bluntly, "I don't think you've got the goods on this one."

Looking at the record, it does seem to me that you've got a guy here who's committed his life to teaching and education. Who's been praised by more national organizations than you can count.

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Comments

[isayfew]

this is the difference between someone who thinks ( george) and someone who acts like a broken record repeating himself non stop. roger Yyres should put to trial for all the lies and distortion he fabricates. this is not free speech ( which i believe in ) this is hate speech with one specific target : destroy the Obama administration.

[H321]

Stephanopouls has it in for Obama ever since Obama made George look like a dink when he rightfully said that he was only 8 years old when Bill Ayers did what he did and since than he is an influential and successful educator working in the same field Obama was in during his time as a Professor of Constitutional Law.

And another thing. George starts the conversation almost apologetically almost saying, "Sorry Sean I don't think you're gonna get Obama this time".
And he prefaced his comments with how he was the ONLY ONE to bring up Bill Ayers (after Hillary told him too) and BIG UP SEAN for taking down ACORN! Yeah!!!!! Becuase ACORN is totally linked to Barack Obama's Presidential win or something...

[stanjam]

He said that the mainstream media has failed to note certain stories, and then he names a bunch. All of them were either non-stories, or Fox fabricated and supported, if not funded.

He then asks "WHere is the outrage?" I agree. WHere is the outrage against Fox news for continually misrepresenting the news?
If Hannity applied his own standards to himself, he wouldn't be qualified to work at McDonalds.

[dolphy]

That was a double edged comment. You also don't have the goods as a credible pundit.

[Inghram]

Interesting discourse. I'm not quite sure I would call it a "scolding" though.

[alwqb]

No matter how hard George tried, Hannity was not going to give in. Hannity does miss the main point no matter how many times George has to remind him the boy was 16, the legal limit for sex, no matter which sex. There were no laws being broken and the kid needed some advice. Go make yourself more of a fool Hannity and go back to protesting small fish or something.

[kobewarhol]

this is a perfect example of why people who may not understand the specifics of politics but want to know what is going on i the world trust and follow fox news.
Hannity comes out with a bold statement, states it vociferously and repeats it.
George comes back with a well-reasoned rebuke of what Hannity is saying. But Hannity fights him with the repeating the statements and getting a bit more outlandish each tinme(showing Hay on the cover of Nambla which has nothing at all to do with Kevin Jennings and is certainly not evidence that Jennings knew of Hay's Nambla "association") , George, like a real thinking journalist, tries not to make any bold statements that he can't back up(and certainly does not want to throw his hat in the ring of a nambla member), but because of this he can't just loudly refute what Hannity is saying and so comes off as uncertain and impish.
George needed to fight hannity's attack with louder and bolder statements. There was no association at all. Just because you congratulate someone for 1 thing does not mean you praise them for all the things they've done. He could've asked Hannity if he likes Limbaugh and when Hannity said yes, he should've said "Well, then you support drug addicts? If you run for office shoudl we disqualify you because you have drug addict friends?"

[digger0007]

If Hannity has done his homework, he would know that Harry Hay was a pioneer in the gay rights movement. I have no doubt it was for this reason which Jennings praised him. Not everyone agrees with Harry Hay's later advocacy for LAMBLA in the sunset years of his life. And again, if Hannity had done his homework, he would know that Harry Hay had a long time partner who was about his age. He advocacy for LAMBLA notwithstanding, Hannity's obsession with man-box sex is overlooking the obvious: he is not interested in the truth, but only what he can find to associate anyone in the Obama administration with a controversy that he can use. It is not unlike the conservative movement to selectively remove passages from the Bible. It's hypocrisy. It's dishonest. It's despicable. Far worse than anything that Jenning had done, which by the way, include a lot of good work helping to remove bullying from schools, including bullying against straight Christian kids. All Hannity has done is to show by example the kind of bullies that he and his kind inspire.

[lagumbo]

hannity has been in an angry rage since PRESIDENT OBAMA became president. sean was so convinced
that the lies he was putting out doing the primaries would derail canidate Obama. I tried to tell him, he could do nothing to destroy OBAMA'S campaign, but he wouldn't listen. I try to tell him, OBAMA was too smart for him to , and he couldn't never measure up to OBAMA,but he refused to listen.Since PRESIDENT OBAMA's ELECTION hannity has gone off the racist, hateful deep end. I think hannity hates our president more than limbaugh and beck. Poor hannity, he just doesn't get it. He could never compete in PRESIDENT'S OBAMA'S league, and that just enrages him.

[sempronia]

I confess that as someone who doesn't waste my time with FOX, it's really ingenious how these things get manipulated: the way in which Hannity pulls back from overall "record" discussion to focus on the two factoids, neither of which we can see the text for; the accusation that other networks are "months behind" on stories that seemed too silly or false to cover by respectable news; even simply the word "controversy", which probably wouldn't have been there if Hannity hadn't added it. Meantime, I wish that Stephanopoulos had sounded a little more consistently self-assured.

[Dragline]

"praised by more national organizations than you can count." Which, for Hannity, means more than two.

[ProfessorDuh]

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said, "The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."
Finally. It's about time the Obama administration slammed the propagandists with some truth. They have never gotten anything but unfair attacks out of Fox News and its unbalanced worshippers, and they never will. Time to throw the spotlight on that fact.

[spacecreep]

it appears that fox news is starting to try to look like they put on opposing veiws.... i think that murdock has to reapply for an exception to the law that prevents a corporation from having print a media ownership in the same city.. bush gave him that exception and fox news in return became the voice of the republican party...... they need to appear to be giving opposing views so that they claim they deserve the exception... i hear that murdock has a hold on the news in great britain also.... may explain why bush got britain's support... same lies being told there

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

It seems to me that some people should have to prove that they have the brains of a 15 year old before they worry on national television about what should or should not happen to 15 year olds.

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

An essential part of that proof would be the demonstration of a full-fledged understanding of the meaning of the word

HYPOCRISY

Here's a primer for Hannity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy

See you in a year, Sean, when you're through with this little life-lesson that you failed at for the past 40 years or so.

[kareemachan]

And we're still waiting for his waterboarding....

[liberalOrgonian]

It is quite evident fox and gang want to take out all the President's men. They want to slander evey one around Obama, so he looses his staff. They want every policy to fail to make their point. They are angry, they are predigest, they want women in their place, they hate the gays, the dems and liberals of this country. They incite riots, they incite violence, they commend loaded guns at rallies. They spew propaganda, they back big business, they don't present evidence, they make things up, and down right lie. Should I continue?
Where are the moral values in this crap being fed through American media pawned as news?
The world is watching and sees this behavior, this violence/hatred in our streets. We have a long way to go to present this country as a peaceful society. This display in our streets creates disdain worldwide.
No wonder we did not get the Olympics in this country.

The whole fake fox station should be taken off the air for our homeland safety and security. Surely there is something in Bushy's Home Land Security/Patriot Act which will protect us from the likes of Fox.

[robco26]

How can you slander people with their own words? Name one conservative incited riot please. As far as propaganda you need look no farther than the National Endowment of the Arts for true propaganda. Honestly the hypocrisy in your post is laughable.

[terribyte]

Sean Hannity: "At the very least, statutory rape occurred,' and he didn't report it."
This is text-book SLANDER.
Of course Fox later retracted that statement, because the kid in question was indeed 16, and that's the age of consent in MA.
A true reporter doesn't make that sort of accusation without first checking, and then rechecking. A true reporter does not go public with bad information, accuse someone of covering for a rapist, then later, and quietly, retract that accusation.
Fox is not news - this is a no-brainer fact.
The network used that fact in their own defense in a court of law - that doesn't change the fact that they do indeed slander, maliciously and irresponsibly, and are held unaccountable because legally they are an "entertainment network" - (look it up)
The only thing laughable here is the fact that people still turn to a 'news' network that has proclaimed publicly that they are no such thing, and not held to the same standards as a true news-network.
What Fox does is right-wing hate-mongering propaganda, period.
I have a feeling I'm wasting my time trying to talk sense to someone who refers to the National Endowment of the Arts as "propaganda" - while simultaneously displaying an inability to even define the word.

[Tony581]

Conservative Inspired Riots (there are literally hundreds of them):
For example, the summer of 1919, called “The Red Summer." During that summer there were twenty-six race riots in such cities as Chicago, Illinois; Washington, D.C.; Elaine, Arkansas; Charleston, South Carolina; Knoxville and Nashville, Tennessee; Longview, Texas; and Omaha, Nebraska. More than one hundred Blacks were killed in these riots, and thousands were wounded and left homeless. In each case, white mobs attacked black individuals.
Also consider the Tulsa, Oklahoma riot that took place from May 31 to June 1, 1921. A white girl charged a Black youth with attempted rape in an elevator in a public building. The youth was arrested and imprisoned. Altercations between whites and Blacks at the jail led to a “race war”. A mob, numbering more than ten thousand attacked the Black district. “Machine-guns were brought into.use. Four companies of the National Guard were called out, but by the time order was restored, fifty whites and between 150 and 200 Blacks were killed.