Hannity channels The Onion? Claims "liberal" Halloween "teach[es] kids to knock on other people's doors and ask for a handout"
On the October 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity claimed that "Halloween is a liberal holiday" and "is teaching our kids to be liberals." Hannity explained that "we're teaching kids to knock on other people's doors and ask for a handout." Co-host Alan Colmes responded by asking if that meant that Christmas is a "liberal holiday." Colmes asserted that Halloween represents "the act of giving," and asked: "Isn't that a Christian thing, to give, to share with your community?" Hannity replied: "Not to teach your kids to beg for a handout."
An October 22 "editorial cartoon" in The Onion, a satirical newspaper, asks, "Halloween: What is it teaching our kids?" The cartoon depicts a costumed child receiving candy under the words: "Everyone deserves hand-outs!" The child carries a sack with the words "something for nothing" printed on it, while a depiction of the cartoonist declares: "Scariest night of the year."
From the October 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
HANNITY: You know what? I totally agree. I've got two young kids, and I am the food police. And I'm constantly monitoring what they eat.
GERALDO RIVERA (Fox News host): And but for your involvement, wouldn't they eat the worst stuff?
HANNITY: Chicken nuggets, pizza, cake, cupcakes, junk food --
RIVERA: Of course. There's not -- there's not a night where I'm out where they have the choice of what they order out that they ordered something that's bad for them. Always.
HANNITY: By the way, Halloween is a liberal holiday, because we're teaching our children --
COLMES: Oh, come on. Please.
HANNITY: -- to beg for something for free.
[laughter]
RIVERA: Do you notice I wore my costume? I wore my mustache tonight.
HANNITY: Hey, by the way, I heard Mike [Jerrick] on [the Fox-syndicated The Morning Show with] Mike & Juliet dressed as you.
COLMES: By the way, I'm going this Halloween as a Republican. I'm taking candy away from people.
[laughter]
[...]
HANNITY: And coming up, things got pretty scary when Rosie O'Donnell made a Halloween appearance on the Martha Stewart show, and I'll tell you why Halloween is really a liberal day, next.
[...]
HANNITY: That is frightening. Rosie O'Donnell making a rare TV appearance on the Martha Stewart show, and she makes a pretty frightening Queen Elizabeth. The interview proved far from interesting. Martha certainly didn't take Rosie to task; it was purely Halloween hoopla. All right, now here --
[sound effect of witch laughing]
COLMES: What's wrong with Halloween hoopla? Are you anti-Halloween?
HANNITY: No. Can I tell you something? Halloween --
COLMES: Yeah.
HANNITY: -- is teaching our kids to be liberals.
COLMES: What are you going as this year?
HANNITY: No, I'm not, uh, Hillary Clinton. Frightening.
COLMES: That's a cheap shot. Come on.
HANNITY: Well, it's the number one -- it's the number one most frightening mask out there. Go look at those new papers out there.
COLMES: You know, you're scared that she's going to be president of the United States.
HANNITY: No, can I tell you something?
COLMES: Yeah.
HANNITY: But I'll tell you why. Because we're teaching kids to knock on other people's doors and ask for a handout. That's how we turn --
COLMES: Is Christmas a liberal holiday, then? When people give things away?
HANNITY: No, but you offer gifts. You give on Christmas. I give gifts on Christmas?
COLMES: Well, what you give on Halloween?
HANNITY: No, you don't give. The kids [knocks on table] -- "Please, can I have some more?"
[sound effect of witch laughing]
COLMES: It's the act of giving around -- that's our producer, laughing. But it's the act of giving. It's a wonderful thing. Isn't that a Christian thing, to give, to share with your community?
HANNITY: Not to teach your kids to beg --
COLMES: It's not begging --
HANNITY: -- for a handout.
COLMES: -- because you do it, too. You do it at their homes.
HANNITY: You're teaching your kids to beg for a handout.
COLMES: So you're anti-Halloween. That is, unfortunately, all the time we have left this evening. We toss it to Greta van Susteren, here to go on the record. Good evening, Greta.
Oh Hannity is so sick. Now he and his FAUX cronies are attacking Halloween. Sick Sick Sick.
hey it's a war on halloween just we so called liberals haven't learned to turn into a profit like war on christmas.
Guess I shouln't have given that barefoot kid a pair of flip-flops last night. Next year he'll probably expect a shirt to match.
Are you flip-flopping?
Can someone please tell me what this man is trying to say?
"RIVERA: Of course. There's not -- there's not a night where I'm out where they have the choice of what they order out that they ordered something that's bad for them. Always."
Many years ago Herb Caen had the "Nikita Award" for language that sounded like a bad translation from the Russian original. This would have been a landslide winner!
Does it matter?
What I gather is he is talking about, is when he takes his kids out to eat, and allows them the choice of what to order, they always pick the worst thing (healthwise) for them.
Kind of like when you have you first dinner date your girlfriend always picks the most expensive thing on the menu. She's testing you.
Not me.
I steal the check and pay for the meal myself.
Ah, that evil feminism rearing its head again...
BLR, Do you have any sisters?
the worst is when she orders the most expensive and then only takes two bites.
You gotta take Leykis 101. There's no reason to spend more than $40 on a date.
GR is simply saying kids will order junk food if you give them the chance. Clearly this was a rushed transcript, and GR was just speaking quickly trying to keep up with SH. Difficult to parse once you see it in print, but not worth a Nikita nomination.
A War on Halloween, perhaps? I didn't hear much of the usual hand-wringing from the Right about the "paganism" of Halloween this year. They're getting lazy.
Don't worry Pat got out the message about Halloween being the Devil's holiday on the 700 club.
It is kind of funny here in the south. Our fundamentalist neighbors were nowhere to be seen on Halloween. I suppose they attended one of the many "fall festivals" the fundy's enjoy down here that is billed as an alternative (and competition) to Halloween.
I don't mind them going off and doing their own thing, but it is their widespread open criticism of Halloween that I find pretty rude and uncalled for. Just let kids be kids for goodness sake.
Don't you mean for Godless sake?
So now Hannity is getting his material from "The Onion"? That's a change - he usually gets his "facts" from out of his a$$.
Well he's right - it is liberal. Just like everything the right-wing christian whackos don't like that the rest of America enjoys and manages to have a little fun with. (Maybe we'll do a Harry Potter theme next year...)
(LOL - I'm not sure where to put the 'sarcasm' tag on that one!)
COLMES: By the way, I'm going this Halloween as a Republican. I'm taking candy away from people .
Classic.
"Halloween is teaching our kids to be liberals."
If these were not the words of Sean Hannity I would think this was a pretty funny lampoon. Sadly, however... <sigh>
QUERY: At what point does FOX become so cartoonish that even its own brain damaged viewers catch on?
Maybe when Spongebob Liberal Pants replaces Colmes.
Maybe when Spongebob Liberal Pants replaces Colmes.
Will never happen. Spongebob is intellectually superior to Hannity, and the brain-dead Nazi will never go for that. It's bad enough he occasionally gets lambasted by Alan Colmes - but not often enough for my liking. I'd like to see Alan prove Sean a liar during each and every show.
Colmes is a smart man, but no match for Hannity in a shouting match. Plus he's just not very charismtic. Not a good representative for progressives IMHO. (So the perfect "token liberal" of Fox.)
I'm not sure who said it first but: Watching the two of them is like looking at Dorian Gray and his picture.
"[sound effect of witch laughing]"
Coulter was on too?
It was either Coulter or a certain Presidential candidate. :-)
You mean the Wicked Witch of the East?
Just for fun...
Clinton, Giuliana top picks for costumes
OOOOOOOOO! Now go join Tim the Russet in the corner.
I used to have a fundie friend when I was kid. His parents were preachers and he ended up going down the same line. Everytime we celebrated halloween you could see a sad face on him. Basically he would claim it was the devil's holliday but you could tell he just wanted to join it. Let's see it not ok to attack Christmas, but it is ok to attack Halloween? I guess we do not have to worry about a war on halloween from these people unless they are attacking halloween.
ahiddensaint764 , I have a co-worker who, when the subject of Halloween came up a few weeks ago, explained to me why his family didn't celebrate it.He asked me if I'd like to borrow his DVD on the subject, and I jumped at the offer!
It was crap-tastic. 80s videp game backdrops, and strained conections between Pagan holidays, Satanists and serial killers.
The best part was how much the video focused on the commercial end of the Holiday; statistics on the dollars spent on parties, costumes and candy.
The same co-worker and his kids attended a "Harvest Festival" at his church instead of trick-or treating, and didn't seem to get that it may have just been the Church making sure that they got that Halloween money.
HBL,
You may know that Nov. 1st is "All Saints Day" in the Catholic Church. We celebrate all our departed that are now reunited with God in Heaven.
As a child, a few times, we would dress up as 'saints' as our Halloween costumes and have a substitute "All Saints" party at school on the 31st.
The nice part was that we always had Nov. 1st. off as it was considered to be the same as a Sunday. The sad part was, after going to Mass, my dad always made us spend the day raking leaves. :-)
AA, maybe you didn't realize I'm a member of that huge group, Ex-Catholics.We never dressed as Saints that I remember, and I wasn't as coddled as you with your leaf-raking. We had to work in the salt mines immediately after Mass. with no shovels, just our bloody stumps of arms
I did recently find my first Communiion photo while helping my mom sort some things out.It's pretty scary!
"ahiddensaint764 , I have a co-worker who, when the subject of Halloween came up a few weeks ago, explained to me why his family didn't celebrate it.He asked me if I'd like to borrow his DVD on the subject, and I jumped at the offer! It was crap-tastic."
For those who haven't seen it, along the same lines, I'd suggest a viewing of "Hell House."
http://www.amazon.com/Hell-House-George-Ratliff/dp/B000092T6A/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-6782189-8412136?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1193950871&sr=8-3
It's a documentary about the fundamentalist Hell Houses which use Halloween as an excuse to dress up as demons and monsters in order to inveigh against abortion, role-playing games and homosexuality (among other things), and to frighten people into converting. The film-makers bend over backward to be fair in their presentation and a few of the Hell House people appear as sympathetic and sincere, but their ignorance of the things they attack is very clear (among other things, they paint what they believe to be a Satanic pentagram, but in fact paint a Star of David).
A Freudian slip, perhaps? The hard-core fundies think Jews are just one notch above atheists, anyway. They only tolerate Jews because Jesus was one before he converted to Christianity, plus there's that whole Armageddon thing.
And exactly why they need to be "perfected".
Bloody stumps of arms?
We wish we had bloody stumps of arms.
We had to work the salt mines with our tongues and then....
Are you an ex-Catholic or did you finally get it right so you don't have to practice the Catholic Faith anymore.
I prefer to think that I no longer need the practice after 12 years of Catholic school and eight years as an altar boy.
I was even thinking of the seminary but thank God I found women and strong drink.
Worrierking, you had tongues? Lucky bastard.
I shouldn't have said "ex-Catholic" that's like "ex-marine".I meant "Perfected Catholic".
I'm glad you found drink and women.I only pity you for not finding the kick-ass trinity of women, whisky and sleeping late on Sunday.I once was lost, but now am found.Sucks to be a wretch like you.
And then after the salt mines Dad would kill us, bury us and dance on our graves shouting Alleluia...
After 12 years of Catholic schooling, I chose a secular state college. 25 years after the fact, my Dad still swears that is why I'm now a "recovering" Catholic ("ex" doesn't quite describe it).
It was crap-tastic. 80s videp game backdrops, and strained conections between Pagan holidays, Satanists and serial killers.
What do they orgrinally think Christmas was? It was a Pagan holiday as well look it up and watch your friend turn away from that converstation.
Yeah. And not to mention the commercial aspects of Christmas absolutely dwarf those of Halloween. Christmas is the most active time of the year for retailers by a wide margin.
all of our holidays were orgrinally Pagan. I guess that makes us a Pagan nation, but don't tell them that easter was orgrinally a celebration of women's fertility.
I realize most of our Holidays were built around Pagan ones, I was talking about the connections made in the film;Halloween (originally a Pagan holiday) is supposedly recognized and important to Satanists, therefore, Pagans are affiliated with Satan, as is Halloween.
BTW, King of the Hill had a great episode about the "Hell House".It involved( as I remember it) Grandpa (an ape) coming to the dinner table and attacking the baby.The family couldn't do anything about it, as the government had decided we came from monkeys.
I thought we were just hiding the boiled eggs from jesus.....
For Hannity, everyday is Halloween and he’s always dressed as a self-caricature.
I figure this is going to be the 1st attempt to push christmas advertising into October. Ist thanksgiving, now holloween.
Sean Hannity has officially become a paradoy of himself.
paradoy might be worse than a parody, I'm not sure.
I think it probably depends on what a "doy" is, a pair-o-doy could be good or it could be bad, (or just a neutral shade of grey.)
"Sean Hannity has officially become a paradoy of himself."
You mean a parody of a parody?
Isn't there some sort of computer graphics program that converts real images into animation? FOX definitely needs to look into that for all of their on-air personalities.
Here's an example:
[link to www.youtube.com]
I think it's a good idea...then FOX could sever it's last remaining connection to reality.
That's it, Nerz... Let's send that over to Roger Ailes right away. Can't wait to see Sean and Billo in animated conversation with their guests, spreading animated right wing facts. ;>)
Why would conservatives be upset at private households giving handouts anyways? I thought they only hated government tax-paid handouts.
Because every piece of candy in the bag of a Sponge-bob flame-retardent look-alike is a piece of candy that is not in THEIR bag. And it's one more piece of candy towards confectionary socialism.
They must maintain the candy gap in order to maintain control of their youngsters.
(laughter)
Joke against a liberal......oops, not allowed
Except, he wasn't joking. Hannity that is. If he was, it's another failed attempt by a conservative pundit at, you know, being funny. They fall short so often.
Yes, Hannity's attempt at humor regarding Halloween handouts was a big Boo Boo.
;-)
At least here in the South, conservatives mostly do not like Halloween, but the conservatives down here are much more likely to be fundamentalists than elsewhere. They would take Hannity's explanation as more ammunition to use in order to argue against celebrating Halloween anywhere. You can bet on that.
If he had said it once, I would agree it was a joke. When he pushes it again, it's probably not. When he pushes it three times, you must be joking.
He introduced it once, and he was laughed off. So he brings it up twice more? Why? Not only was he serious, but he seemed to think it was a really strong argument.
Context, Tommy.
It's a ridiculous joke that went nowhere, obviously, despite his pale attempts.
If it wasn't a joke, then what exactly would you call it? Perhaps Hannity goading Congress to mandate Halloween a leftist holiday, or some subversive conspiracy afoot?
I mean really........?
None of that. Just another example of Hannity desparatey pushing the conservative cultural populist theme of blame liberalism/libs bad.
Of course that's true - do you expect anything else from him?
Nope. And that's why I agree he wasn't just joking. He's just too ate up with E coli conservatism to have any humor left.
Well, whether Hannity is joking or not, if anybody takes it seriously they are the ones with the problem.
I agree.
I guess that explains so many Republicans and their problems with good God-fearin', hard workin', honest liberals.
And items like this display exactly why he shouldn't be taken seriously - his arguments are laughable, and not intentionally so.
I would agree, anyone who takes Hannity seriously should have their independent brain checked at the door.
you mean kind of like bush going to the heritage foundation to denounce move.org and code pink only to end up looking stupid in the long end not realizing the heritage foundation is just the same as moveon.org just from the extreme right?
I would call it abject stupidity remember we are talking Hannity here. Whenever a conservative say something just flat out stupid someone is always coming in and saying it was a joke. What is the punchline? Did Colmes treat it like a joke? Did Hannity tell him it WAS a joke when Colmes obviously didnt take it as a joke? ARE YOU F*%ING KIDDING ME?
What is the joke, Tommy?
Bill takes on Christmas and Sean takes on Halloween, LOL
I hear a revolt coming from a bunch of 5 to 12 year olds if Hannity tries to take away Halloween. Hey kids don't care what you call it, free candy is free candy. Keep it up Sean, you will ensure generations of Democrats. ;-)
Why is my crap all bold? I never used a tag.
Maybe it's all that candy.
Eat more veggies, and your crap should return to normal by the end of the week.
Bwahahaha! Thanks for the laugh!
Hannity has a 'history' with the Onion... [link to www.theonion.com] />
www.theonion.com/content/node/50022
Actually, it seems pretty clear that Hannity was making a joke. The only problem is that when he makes a joke it is so close to the same nonsense that he spits out on a regular night that viewers are unsure whether he is joking or not. I think the truth is that much of what he says, like this joke about Halloween, is insincere crap that he just thinks up on the spot. I have always thought that he does not believe half the stuff he says (my gosh, who could?), and this clip makes me believe that even more. Hannity's schtick, is an act and the same holds true for most of these guys. The sad part is that the viewers take it as legitimate, and the right-wing schtick does help shape opinions, however ill-informed they may be.
HANNITY: You know what? I totally agree. I've got two young kids, and I am the food police. And I'm constantly monitoring what they eat.
I laughed at this because hannity with his tubbiness looks like he's been eating all the candy before the kids can get any.
I dreamed that Hannity told the truth and his head exploded! Don't you wonder if Sean will be hearing from Brachs, Wallyworld, and all the companies that sell all the crap for Halloween? I can tell you this, in the 1960's we did not "beg for a handout", no, we said, "give us some candy or we will soap your windows, TP your trees, and put an outhouse on your lawn." Oh, and we also spent one night collecting money for Unicef.
Hey, I just noticed that MMFA get's in a little dig at Sean'0 "co-host Sean Hannity". Quick show of hands, who believes Sean'0 thinks of himself as a co-host?
Sean Hannity, co-host of Hannities 'Merica Freedom Touralooza or what ever he calls it, not quite as snappy.
Next thing you know Sean will be quoting headlines from pastor Deacon Fred
* Just had to get in a promo for one of my all time favorite websites.
Christmas caroling teaches kids to be liberal, by traveling from door to door, singing songs about Jesus and begging for something for free.
Like my joke? Aren't I funny?
You do know that Bush got on the Naughty list this year so there will be no Christmas. You see rather then people seeing Coal instead of people welcoming them with flowers and presents at the White House they cancelled Christmas. I hear it was suppose to be a Real Cake walk of a sell.
Trick-or-treating is an evil liberal plot to teach kids the art of door-to-door begging??
That's really odd.
Guess what a majority of the people who ignore my "NO SOLICITING" sign and knock on my front door wind up pitching to me?
THEIR CHURCH!
Oh, but it's entirely about delivering the word of God, it has nothing to do with shoring up the church financially, of course.
Thank you for clearing that up Neon.
We must not give in to the Surrender Gumi Monkeys!
HANNITY: "I've got two young kids, and I am the food police. And I'm constantly monitoring what they eat...
Chicken nuggets, pizza, cake, cupcakes, junk food"
It really helps when the junk food industry markets aggressively and directly to your kids and has powerful Republicans in their back pocket, doesn't it, Sean?
Way back about coment 40 somthing.
I trick-or-treated every year when I was a kid.
How the heck did I wind up working for a living when all this time I could have just been knocking on doors and having my living handed to me?
Did I not learn anything as a child?
Probably somewhere in your late teens-early twenties, reality kicked in and you realized that work could get you a whole lot further along in life than depending on others for your sustenance.
Ah, so Hannity IS full of crap as usual.
Any lessons on having a living handed to you that are instilled by trick-or-treating (either real or imagined by idiot right wingers) are quickly alleviated by the realization that you're now too old for trick-or-treating.
It's official, folks, it's now fair to say that these lunatics see everything, EVERYTHING through a political prism (a hackneyed/idiotically partisan one at that). I mean, seriously, have you ever seen them NOT try and wedge one of their stand-by dichotomies into even the most pedestrian of discussions, make every contorted effort possible to put liberals on the defensive (phrasing all inquiries in a slanted manner, the use of ridiculous/pejorative labels, etc.), etc..? And then they have the absolute chutzpah to deny that they have a partisan agenda. Incredible. For more on this, please refer to paranoiacstoogetalk.blogspot.com
Is this not the most desperate, pathetic attempt to create a news story? Sheesh! Come on, Sean! Are you that short of things to talk about that you have to attack Halloween as a 'liberal holiday'? Now, don't forget Sean, it comes from Ireland--the home of your immigrant relatives, who probably brought the tradition over as well, by the way.
Shocking, how stupid this man is!
My kid goes to PRE k3 @ a Catholic School here in Baltimore. The kids all dressed up, had a "pumpkin patch" where they all got a little pumpkin in the neighborhood square, trick or treated at the businesses, made little scarecrows, etc etc....and had a grand old good little kid time.
Some public schools in nearby counties have bagged Halloween altogether not to offend the sensitivities of a handful of parents. I really think many people in this country need to LIGHTEN UP!
What do you call a Halloween scrooge anyway?
What do you call a Halloween scrooge anyway?
Sean Hannity?
It's not just Hannity who says stuff like Halloween teaches children to take hand-outs. Every Halloween, conservative talk-show host Michael Medved holds a debate with his wife on the air about the pros and cons of Halloween, him usually being the anti-Halloween side. And guess what? One of his cons is the part about teaching children to take hand-outs. Of course, the majority of his callers diagree with him and support his wife's side on promoting Halloween. Well, at least Medved lets people call in to give him a piece of their mind.
"By the way, Halloween is a liberal holiday, because we're teaching our children --"
I don't get Hannity. When I was a kid it was "Trick or Treat". More like extortion than a social program. The GOP should be firmly behind this kind, "Hey, give us candy we like or we will bomb (with eggs and TP) your home." I don't know why Hannity is protesting.
I have warm memories of filibustering at the door until I got more candy, obstructing driveways, and accusing parents of appeasing the older kids by not "candying up" for me to fight them on the other side of the street so they wouldn't have to clean up TP "over here".
Wow thank god for calling attention to the most important subject facing this nation.
Media fraud Sean is anti-everything. Just because he had a miserable childhood doesn't mean the rest of American children should have one too. I pray for his children-and Fox News employees-who have to deal with this thin-skinned maniac.
Folks, don't pay attention to this media hypocrite. He doesn't speak for you, and you have every right as a parent to take your kids trick or treating, or to a Halloween carnival.
Hey Sean, I've noticed that Patrick has gained a few pounds.
Several thoughts: How can Hannity be the "food police" in his house when logic would indicate that he is never home. Hannity lives in a large mansion on the water in an exclusive neighborhood on Long Island. I'm sure he finds it very irratating to have to allow the more disadvantaged kids (riff -raff) to come through his gates looking for a handout. He probably makes one of his kids dress up like George Bush, and the other dress up like Ollie North. and of course, the Misses has a choice of three costumes to wear after the kids go to bed (wink, wink, nod, nod -say no more) They are Jeannine Pirro, Mrs "Darth Vader" Cheney, and his favorite. Barbara Bush.
I'm betting Mrs. Hannity has a Ronald Reagan costume.Except it's sort of a really slvtty Reagan.
I'm betting Mrs. Hannity has a Ronald Reagan costume.Except it's sort of a really 5lvtty Reagan.
OK, my censored word is strange. how about "saucy"?
HANNITY: By the way, Halloween is a liberal holiday, because we're teaching our children -- to beg for something for free.
"Trick or treat" - demanding we should surrender our treasure to them or face the wrath of unknown terror - sounds Republican to me.
Actually, he said essentially the same thing on the radio (I guess it must have been the same day before the show, or maybe the day before. I forget.) But anywho...after he said it, he chuckled and acknowledged that he just liked saying it to annoy the liberals and throw them into a frenzy.
Sit...stay...good liberal!
Like he needs to pretend he's of his rocker! No one takes this self indulgent, pretentious lying moron seriously to begin with.
wait... is the liberal in the story annoyed, frenzied or sitting and staying?
Where's the fun in Halloween anymore? When I was a kid we went out and blew up jack o lanterns on doorsteps with cherry bombs.
It's unbelievable how completely stupid this mediamatters website is.
It is absolutely hilarious that Hannity said this seriously. Colbert has been using this joke for a couple weeks now!