It's no secret to anyone who's accidentally tuned into the Hannity & Colmes show on Fox News and thought they stumbled across an over-the-top Saturday Night Live sketch, that Sean Hannity doesn't have a real firm grasp on reality. I mean, this is the same man who once offered a liberal guest the Hobson's choice of "Is it that you hate this president or that you hate America?"
Hannity's also been known to claim that the Constitution doesn't say anything about the separation of church and state and, in a May 2004 edition of his television show, asked a clergyman if they could "pray for the re-election of George Bush."
So it didn't really surprise me today when I went to Hannity's web site and saw a poll on the front page that asked his erudite fans "What do you think about WMD's being found in Iraq?" This is on his main page right now, not four years ago.
Note to Sean: You may want to stop praying for Bush and give him a call with this news. I'm sure he'll be happy to hear it.
Hannity started college but never finished -- he didn't drop out to join the military either -- so it looks like he never got to take a statistics class where one might learn about clean survey methodology, because the choices given to his viewers and listeners on the WMD question are, well, I'll just show you.
Now, there's some fine choices for the Rhodes Scholars who take in Hannity's twisted wisdom every day. The closest option to the truth in Hannity's world is evidently the choice that suggests you're a dummy and just didn't know that Republican Senator Rick Santorum had recently made the WMD discovery that shocked the world -- and all but doomed his failing re-election campaign in Pennsylvania.
But digging into Hannity's polling archives kind of confirms what you already knew about the average Fox News consumer. Take a look at these poll results on global warming:
They're probably still scratching their heads at Fox trying to figure out where the hell that eight percent came from.
Take a look at this one from November of 2005 asking whether the U.S. should withdraw troops from Iraq or "stay the course."
All this poll tells me is that 94 percent of these people get all of their information from The National Enquirer and Fox News.
Oh, and if you're wondering how Hannity's rocket-scientist following answered his WMD poll, 92 percent either thought that "Bush was right" or "I knew Saddam had them!"
You'll see what kind of people are taking these polls on Hannity's site if you slum it on over into his discussion forums, where the very first post I saw was from a guy posting on Saturday and speaking of the crisis in Lebanon.
"I have no sympathy for those people on the news crying over the death of their family, friends or pets. They got what they deserved," said Sean's troglodytic admirer. How much you want to bet this guy left for church not long after writing that?
Of course, when you get done snickering at some of Hannity's polls, and wallowing in the forums, you could wander over to Hannidate, Sean's little network of conservative personal ads -- and no, I'm not kidding. It really exists. A place where these people can hook up and possibly reproduce.
Say, isn't that where Michael Douglas met Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction?
You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com