O'Donnell follows Palin's advice, speaks through Sean Hannity

The day after her upset victory over Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), Delaware's newest Tea Party Senate candidate, Christine O'Donnell, received some sage advice from Fox News contributor Sarah Palin. In an interview on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Palin suggested that she should “go with her gut, get out there, speak to the American people, speak through Fox News, and let the independents who are tuning into you, let them know what it is that she stands for, the principles behind her positions”

Perhaps O'Donnell wasn't watching the Factor that day. She initially accepted offers to appear on this past Sunday's editions of CBS' Face The Nation and Fox News Sunday. On Saturday, however, O'Donnell canceled those appearances.

Sometime between Saturday and today, someone must have told O'Donnell about Palin's advice, because she found herself being interviewed on Fox News' Hannity.

And what probing, hardball questions did she have to face in that interview?

HANNITY: “There seems to be, if you look at Lisa Murkowski, and a lot of other races, Charlie Crist, as an example, I'm almost calling it the sore loser syndrome. Is (Mike Castle), what is your take on him?”

HANNITY: “You made an appearance (on Bill Maher's ”Politically Incorrect") talking I guess about a boyfriend when you were a teenager...saying that you had dabbled into witchcraft. Why don't you explain to people, what was that about?"

HANNITY: "(Maher is) promising to keep bringing out old tapes, and other people promising to dredge up old comments that you've made, what is your reaction to that?"

HANNITY: “One of the things I've noticed is that there is, in this campaign, I don't hear any Democrats running on health care, running on the stimulus, their support for Obama, Reid and Pelosi. So, what are we to make of the attacks against you?”

After showing an attack aimed at O'Donnell:

HANNITY: “Alright, first of all, your reaction, we'll get to the specifics”

We at Media Matters aren't the only ones who noticed this Fox News-Tea Party love fest. CNN's Anderson Cooper commented that during O'Donnell's time on Hannity, “remarkably, she was never asked in the twenty minute or so interview about any of the serious allegations made against her. Instead, it was questions like this.” Cooper then showed viewers an example of the aforementioned softball questions asked by Hannity.