Posted on 08/09/2003 1:23:33 PM PDT by HighWheeler
Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter Show Up for a Night - Live in Cincinnati
Getting There
August 8, 2003 - Friday night while driving to the Cintas center at Xavier University in Cincinnati to see Sean Hannity -
It rained so hard in the hour before the show that you could only see the road through the 2 or 3 inch clear wedge trailing behind the wiper blades as they were metronoming at frantic disco speed over the glass. Repeated sudden pop-up storms had been burying portions of Cincinnati all afternoon.
That didn’t stop 4000 fans from spending a close-up night with Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter, two prominent and very popular conservative commentators who can be seen regularly on FOX News’ Hannity and Colmes TV show every night of the week. Both have written best selling books on politics, spending a large portion of pages skewering the hypocrisy, rhetoric, lies, and slanted distortions of the lunatic leftists in politics. In addition, Sean has a syndicated radio show that is carried every afternoon of the week on WKRC 550 from 3-6 pm.
The Setup
Sean Hannity had called the local radio station, WKRC 550, which carries his afternoon show, only five weeks ago to tell them he could come to Cincinnati this night. WKRC 550 frantically set up the program, and it went off without a hitch. Just an excellent job considering the massive effort, planning and logistics that goes into a flawlessly executed production that this was.
A couple of days before the show, Sean had heard about a boycott in Cincinnati by an organized bunch to protest the show. This bunch has been trying to get Cincinnati boycotted by all types of entertainers. But Hannity isn’t your average entertainer. Sean allowed a boycott representative named Nate Livingston on his radio show two days earlier and challenged him and questioned him about both his motives and the fallout damage he is doing to the people he claims to be helping. Livingston said he was organizing a boycott of the show, and that there would be about 125 protesters there that night. Hannity bet he couldn’t get even a dozen. Hannity also asked him if he would go out to dinner with him that night. Livingston was so confounded by the offer that he was speechless for a long moment before he declined. More on this later.
The Crowd
It was raining buckets and sunshining at the same time when the crowd was arriving. I mean buckets. Scanning the crowd as we walked in you noticed there were no loud obnoxious losers, filthy jerks, decadent dopes, or repulsive reprobates. Just fine, responsible, hardworking, respectful, smiling, laughing, friendly, polite, peaceful, loving, intelligent, – well you know them, the type of people that liberals want everyone to be like in their utopian world.
Introductions
Jerry Thomas and Craig Kopp, a duo of one conservative and one liberal, who have commanded drive time morning radio on WKRC 550 for the last 8 years, did the warm up and intro. Kopp has gone from a news-distorting, rhetoric-parroting, whining liberal to become more conservative over the years, which makes listening to them both far easier. I think September 11th had a major impact on Kopp as he came to realize that Clinton squandered 8 years to prevent that atrocity while he (that’s Clinton, not Kopp) had his pants around his ankles.
As Jerry and Craig started out, the sound was way too low and the people in the upper deck couldn’t hear anything for the first 5 minutes. Following several calls of “louder!” from the audience, Jerry asked, “You can’t hear me?” and from the upper deck a guy boomed, “We can’t even see you!” This upper deck guy’s response got a great laugh and really relaxed and loosened up the crowd.
Jerry and Craig read a proclamation from Charlie Luken the Mayor of Cincinnati, for Sean Hannity: “The City has been Hannitized”, and proclaimed that “This is Sean Hannity Day in Cincinnati”.
Main Event
Sean got the standing-O, wearing a dark blue blazer, light blue shirt, and tan khakis. He mentioned that he would not talk about Alan Colmes, which sparked an instant undercurrent drone, then said he would talk about George Bush, which got immediate wild applause. Sean walked the stage and spoke from memory, jogged only a couple of times by notes he glanced on the lectern. Many people afterwards commented on his ability to talk so seamlessly and interestingly without reading notes.
“We had the media for years - giving us the liberal point of view, and now we are fighting back!” “We have the fastest growing talk show in history”. He mentioned that the boycotters had managed to get only eight people outside and the crowd laughed and clapped.
After his inspiring introduction, he then introduced Ann Coulter, “A good friend of mine, this woman is FEARLESS”, to more wild applause and a long standing-O for Ann.
Ann Coulter spoke for only 6-7 minutes and had some good lines: “The era of Clinton is over, and his degenerate bafoonery”, “Gray Davis has gone from playing an evil robot to running against one.”, “It’s quite sad that Ronald Reagan doesn’t know he was President, but on the bright side he doesn’t know that Clinton was president either.
Sean took the stage and told the crowd “I know what you’re thinking - how can you sit there night after night listening to Colmes’ and his rhetoric, his illogical thoughts, his Democrat talking points and all that, and not smack him across the head?” He said Colmes was currently writing a book that had chapters in it such as “Jesus was a liberal” and “Bill Clinton was the best President ever”.
The show went just short of two hours, including several questions and comments from the audience. Some of the interesting comments are below.
Snipets,
- I estimated about 60% men and 40% women in the crowd. The ages ranged normally across the decades from pre-WWII elderly all the way down to a 7 week-old baby named Samantha who was all dressed up and brought there by her two wonderful parents to get her Hannitized that night.
- Later in the show, an audience member asked Sean about his offering to go to dinner with Nate Livingston, the boycott organizer, Hannity said “I did it to trick him into breaking his own boycott.” Which got howls of laughter from the energetic crowd.
- Hannity asked how many liberals were in the audience, and only one was brave enough to clap alone 4 times and wave his arms. The entire audience was stone cold silent. Hannity asked “Tough night, huh?” Later after the show I met a couple of liberals who were equally scared to voice their opinions to me. I guess these liberals think conservatives are going to treat them the way they treat conservatives in the opposite situation.
- Hannity got on his biggest roll of the night when he talked about the aftermath of September 11th, which happened to be the day after his show went syndicated. “Bush had to take over the Clinton recession, and then has to stare evil in the face. I can disagree with Bush on some issues, unlike the Dems who still can’t find ANY fault with Clinton even after he weakened the CIA and FBI, but I can say this: Bush is the greatest wartime president this country has EVER had.” The applause and cheering were shaking the beams at Cintas. Hannity continued: “Clinton didn’t have the character, the wisdom, and the insight to be president. Dems question Bush, but they can’t question his record: 20 million people freed in Afghanistan, the Taliban destroyed, and 25 million people in Iraq freed! And Usay and Qusay are DEAD!” The thunderous cheering from the crowd shook the dust from the rafters. “Bush leads the world without polls, no focus groups, no dick Morris to triangulate, while the UN hates our guts and ignores their own 17 resolutions. The Dems said we would be bogged down, Israel would be destroyed, and the massive casualties in the thousands, and that Saddam would go nuclear. None of that happened, I question their ability to lead the in the modern times.” Hannity said that the time he met with Bush, Bush said he “…doesn’t care what the press says, I have a job to do.”
- Other Hannity quotes during the evening:
- “You cannot command a military when you repeatedly disparage them.”
- “We have the greatest military God ever gave to man.”
- “The Dems can’t even admit that Uday and Qusay being dead is good.”
- “The Libs are on the wrong side of history, even whining and complaining about Bush landing on the aircraft carrier, he’s the Commander in Chief!”
- “George Bush has outmaneuvered them on every count and won every issue fairly and squarely”.
- “I can’t believe that Libs wake up every morning, knock their wooden head, and say “I need to pay more taxes.”
- “I’m not always nice” (On stage, Ann Coulter jumped in: “I can vouch for THAT!”)
- Question from the audience: “About Hillary, when are you and Ann going to put her on your show and grill her like the pork chop she is?”
- Three laughing excited women walked out of the signing room where Hannity and Coulter were signing their books. “They are so great!” Dory continued “I told Ann “I am your #1 fan, and I’ve been waiting to meet you for long”, and Ann responded “I’ve been waiting to meet you, too!” So I asked them about Bush on the Aircraft carrier: “He was SOOOOO HOT in that flight suit!! We loved it!!”
- Kelly, a very strikingly beautiful woman who was standing in the book signing line, laughing with her friends, said: “Sean takes a serious issue and injects humor, patriotism, and inspiration.” I asked her how long she had been a conservative, and she said all her life, but especially when she was 10 years old and learning about politics, which confirmed her views.
- The line to have books signed was about 500-people long, and each person was carrying more than one book in hand. It was past 10 pm and there were better than 100 people left in line.
Overall, the night was memorable, exciting and refreshing to the core. The energy of the crowd was better than the home team being at the playoffs. Sean is a tremendous speaker, and you should see him live on stage the next chance you get.
Reporting in, HighWheeler
I too was there and my biggest complaint is that they left nowhere near enough time for Q&A. Coulter had almost no time at the mike and most of us were there to hear her take liberals' heads off (even if they were in absentia)..
Part of the problem was that apparently because of the lights Sean and Ann could not really see the audience, so could not tell who was wanting to ask a question. Another problem was that while Sean's rant was entertaining, he should have cut it shorter or else have allowed more time overall.
There were at most a half dozen questions asked - I think several dozen more never got a chance (obviously including myself). Having a talk show host and major author in the same room is a chance to really probe their analyses of a variety of issues, and that was not done.
In the end, it seemed more to have been a campaign stop on the "re-elect Bush in '04" than a real chance to hear Coulter deal her patented quick wit. I had the feeling that she might have been a bit disappointed that things went the way they did. It was almost as though she was not there.
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