Sean Hannity's Möbius strip of Obama's “radical associations” just came all the way around tonight when he wondered why nobody asked Obama during the presidential campaign if he spent time with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
Here's Hannity on March 1, 2010 [emphasis added]:
HANNITY: I never got a question answered during the campaign about whether or not in Chicago we know that the president hung out with radicals... No one ever asked if he hung out with Louis Farrakhan. Is that a fair question?
Sean, there was at least one person during the campaign asking if Obama hung out with Louis Farrakhan: You.
In early 2008, when the Democratic primary was in full swing, Hannity twice suggested that Obama might have been “associated” with Farrakhan. In both instances, Hannity ignored that Obama had responded to Farrakhan's endorsement by him by condemning the minister. In a speech, Obama pointed out he had been “a consistent denunciator” of Farrakhan, in a separate statement, he said that he “strongly condemn[ed] the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan.”
A few months later, on the April 18, 2008, edition of his now-defunct Fox News show Hannity's America, Hannity again approached the issue of Obama's supposed associations with Farrakhan. Hannity did a segment on Obama's attendance at the 1995 Million Man March in Washington, DC, which was organized by Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Obama had commented on his experience at the rally in a 1995 Chicago Reader article, and Hannity ran “shocking” excerpts on his show of what Obama said, such as this:
HANNITY: But Obama's reaction to the march gets even more shocking. He is quoted as saying, quote: “Cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build.”
That sounds like Obama was actually repudiating Farrakhan's message. Shocking, indeed.
Meanwhile, Fox News contributor Bob Beckel was as unconcerned about the Farrakhan nonissue in 2008 as he was earlier this evening. Here's Beckel's indifference in 2008:
HANNITY: How about fundamental fairness? Would it matter to you, Bob Beckel, if, in fact -- because the church that Barack Obama goes to honored the Minister Louis Farrakhan. Honored him.
BECKEL: I don't care what it did.
HANNITY: A man that refers to the white man as the skunk of the planet Earth and Judaism is a gutter religion. Should that -- should he be asked about that?
BECKEL: Who cares? [Hannity & Colmes, 2/25/2008]
And from tonight:
HANNITY: No one ever asked if he hung out with Louis Farrakhan. Is that a fair question?
[...]BECKEL: Let's not forget, [Obama] also hung out with Che Guevera, and with Castro, and with Mao just before he died. A bunch of them.
HANNITY: Wait, Wright went to -- with Farrakhan to Libya to meet the dictator Gadhafi. [...] Well they were friends and this was at a time when America was at the height of its hostilities with Libya.
BECKEL: What's the point?
HANNITY: Well, Farrakhan is back in the news. [Hannity, 3/1/2010]
Nobody mocks Hannity right to his face quite like Bob Beckel.