A Tale of Two Articles

First of all, Happy Easter and I need some more Merlot, now...Can you spot the radical liberal media in these two articles? Use your compare and contrast skills while you process the information written about the following two subjects: Sean Hannity far right-wing commentator for Fox News Channel, and Maryscott O'Connor liberal blogger and creator of My Left Wing. First Sean...

Fox's Hannity Stays the Course With Bush

Sean Hannity will not abandon ship. President Bush's approval ratings have sunk into the 30s, but Fox News Channel's tenacious conservative isn't wavering in his support, even while parting ways with the president over immigration and the Dubai ports deal.

"Let me be straight with you - I like George Bush," Hannity said. "I think he's a man of principle, a man of faith. I think he's got a backbone of steel and he's a real, genuine, big-time leader ... He's a consequential figure for his time. We don't see it right now."

History will vindicate Bush as a strong leader the same way it did Harry Truman, another unpopular president of his time, Hannity said.

Even surf-by viewers of "Hannity & Colmes" will recognize those opinions. The popularity of the weeknight talk show and his syndicated talk-radio show has enabled the 44-year-old Long Island native to become a business unto himself - hawking books, recommending CDs and arranging dates for like-minded singles.

...[snip]...

"I think the guy's political views are off-the-wall, but he is an undeniably brilliant television talent," said Ellis Henican, a Newsday columnist and frequent on-air foil. "He exudes authenticity. You can disagree with him, as I do, about almost every thought he has but recognize that Sean is truly somebody who believes in something."

...[snip]...

Hannity has criticized the Dubai ports deal for being a threat to national security. During the debate on immigration, he takes a much tougher line than the president on illegal workers and in seeking more secure borders.

While this may upset the president's supporters and some of Hannity's fans, Henican believes Hannity gains wider credibility by exhibiting something other than unquestioned support for Bush.

"I say these things every day," Hannity said. "Liberal critics don't hear me say it."

...[snip]...

Hannity, during a later interview in his Fox News Channel office, said that there's nothing inconsistent about attacking Democrats himself, then attacking Democrats for attacking Bush.

"I don't hate the Democrats," he said. "I have fun with the Democrats. As a matter of fact, I use them for a lot of fun on the air. What they're saying is serious - while we're at war, and while the president is sending troops in harm's way after the worst attack in history. There's a big difference between that and joking about Bill Clinton's sexcapades."

Growing up on Long Island, Hannity never missed a speech by Ronald Reagan. He listened intently to radio talk-show hosts, including Larry King. He's living his dream, he said.

He has donated to some GOP officeholders, like Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (since he's a commentator and not a journalist, he doesn't consider that a conflict). He professed to no political plans for himself.

And even if President Bush is having his problems, don't think Hannity is vulnerable.

"I'm ready to fight," he said. "This is what I do for a living. I'm not afraid to take a punch. Give me your best shot."

Glowing isn't it? He's a man of his convictions. Strong. Credible. And all that smack talk about Democrats over the years? Those was just jokes baby! When he criticized Bill Clinton and the war in Kosovo, that was just all in fun even though troops were in harms way. Like these:

"But if you know - every mistake we've made up to this point, there's no stated goal. There's no definition of success. All these important things. There's no exit strategy. One mistake after another. Why would you go in deeper when we have not been successful up to this point? That seems to me to be folly."~ Hannity 1999

"Slobodan Milosevic is a bad guy. He's an evil man. Horrible things are happening. I agree with that. Is Bill O'Reilly then saying we go to Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Sudan? Where does this stop? And when you look at sheer numbers, 2,000 -- and I'm not minimizing death. It's horrible. What this man is doing with ethnic cleansing is abhorrent, but sheer numbers -- 2,000 killed in the last year versus hundreds of thousands, millions in some cases in other parts of the world. Are you saying the United States should go to all those places?"~ Hannity 1999

Wow! Sounds familiar, no? Sean how could you?! Troops were in harms way! You were undermining their mission! You TRAITOR!

Now excerpts from Ms. O'Connor's article...

The Left, Online and Outraged

In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.

Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette. Should it be about Vice President Cheney, whom she thinks of as "Satan," or about Karl Rove, "the devil"? Should it be about the "evil" Republican Party, or the "weaselly, capitulating, self-aggrandizing, self-serving" Democrats, or the Catholic Church, for which she says "I have a special place in my heart . . . a burning, sizzling, putrescent place where the guilty suffer the tortures of the damned"?

...[snip]...

"WAKE THE [expletive] UP," she writes next, and this time, instead of pausing, she keeps going, typing harder and harder on a keyboard that is surrounded by a pack of cigarettes, a dirty ashtray, a can of nonalcoholic beer, an album with photos of her dead father and a taped-up note -- staring at her -- on which she has scrawled "Why am I/you here?"

...[snip]...

"Rage, rage against the Lying of the Right" is the subtitle of O'Connor's Web site.

"If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution" is how she signs her comments, in the place other people might write "Sincerely."

"I was not like this before," she says. "I was riddled with empathy for everyone suffering in the world. Classic bleeding-heart liberal."

...[snip]...

All of which O'Connor finds remarkable, especially when she considers her route to this point -- the complications of which are reflected in the items she keeps close at hand.

The cigarettes are because of a personality that she describes as compulsive.

The nonalcoholic beer is because for several years she drank to excess.

The note that says "Why am I/you here?" is because she is in constant search of an answer.

And the photo album is because of a 25-year-old Marine who died fighting in Vietnam three months before she was born, which she thinks helps explain the note, the alcohol, the cigarettes and the very first piece of writing she ever published online, a rant against the war in Iraq that began, "Every single millisecond of my life was directly affected by the nightmare that was Vietnam."

As for the keyboard, it is where O'Connor finished her evolution from lost soul to angry soul, beginning with that very first rant, which concluded with a wish that Bush, "after contracting incurable cancer and suffering for protracted periods of time without benefit of medication," go to hell.

She's portrayed as grief ridden dealing with issues born from a father she never knew. The anger surfaced after Bush was elected and fumbled the ball right off the bat, but you'd never know that from the article, even though it is glossed over in the beginning it spends the rest of the article painting her in a different angry light.

What ever happened to journalism? What became of reporting without descriptive passages and colored with personal opinion?