Truth - Al Franken [37]
Next.
HANNITY: Here’s a guy that voted for the $87 billion to fund the war before he voted against it.
This is correct, but it’s not a flip-flop. Kerry voted for an amendment to the Iraqi appropriations bill that would have paid for the $87 billion by taking it out of the tax cut for those Americans making over $300,000 a year. Remember that never in the history of this country have we had tax cuts while we were at war. In fact, according to Paul Krugman, never in human history had any civilization cut taxes during a war.
Americans are always happy to sacrifice a little bit out of respect for those who are sacrificing everything. President Bush has a different view. He threatened to veto the money for the troops if it came from rich people by suspending a portion of their tax cut instead of the children of the troops, who will eventually wind up having to pay off the national debt. Kerry’s amendment lost, 57–42. Then the Republican version of the $87 billion bill passed, 87–12.
So, in other words, the Republicans voted against the $87 billion before they voted for it. Nobody flip-flopped. It was just a difference of values. The very rich vs. the children of the troops. And every other American child, as well.
On this one, instead of telling a lie about Hannity, I’ll simply tell you something true about him that is deliberately misleading. Here it is. As I reported in Lies, Hannity actually describes the act of “fisting” in his book Let Freedom Ring. It’s on page 158 of the hardcover, right after the discussion of “ingesting semen in front of fourteen year olds.” And I’m sorry to say that there is more than a little evidence that “fisting” is something of an obsession of Sean’s. If you Google the words “Hannity” and “fisting,” you’ll get over 15,000 hits.
Remember, this was deliberately misleading. The quote from Let Freedom Ring is taken out of context. As for the fisting statistic—if you Google “Franken” and “fisting,” for some reason you get 149,000 hits. Go figure.
Let’s move on.
HANNITY: Here’s a guy that was for the Patriot Act. Now against it.
Bullshit. Here’s what Kerry said at Iowa State University on December 1, 2003:
I voted for the Patriot Act right after September 11—convinced that—with a sunset clause—it was the right decision to make. It clearly wasn’t a perfect bill—and it had a number of flaws—but this wasn’t the time to haggle. It was the time to act.
But George Bush and John Ashcroft abused the spirit of national action after the terrorist attacks. They have used the Patriot Act in ways that were never intended and for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism. That’s why, as President, I will propose new anti-terrorism laws that advance the War on Terror while ending the assault on our basic rights.
In other words, he supported parts of it, objected to parts of it, voted for it, and Bush abused it. Too nuanced for Sean? No. Sean is secretly very smart.
If you didn’t catch it, that was the lie about Hannity to fight that particular Hannity lie.
HANNITY: No Child Left Behind, for it, now against it.
This is an easy one. On this issue, like all the others, Kerry is consistent and principled, and Hannity is dishonest. Kerry voted for the bill, which the President promised to fund. The President didn’t fund it, which created unfunded mandates on states and school districts across the country. As a result, class sizes went up, after-school programs were dropped, teachers were fired, and children were left behind.
So, time for another lie about Hannity. Like the buried hand, this lie pertains to one of the many suspicious incidents in Sean’s shadowy past.
In 1995, Hannity was named president and CEO of a Houston-area petting zoo doing business under the name “Goats and Beyond, LLC.” In 1996, Hannity fled Houston under a cloud of accusations from local parents and representatives of the Texas Humane Society. Goats and Beyond paid out half a million dollars in sealed, out-of-court settlements, and shuttered its doors for good, selling the animals