You just have to love the Media Matters double standard. So big, so bold.
Here is Media Matters trying – and failing – to slam Sean Hannity on the question of women who come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. The headline:
Sean Hannity’s extensive history of undermining women who report sexual misconduct and defending the men accused
The very first sentence reads:
“Fox News host Sean Hannity has become a reliable ally for powerful men accused of sexual assault and harassment, regularly using his platform to discredit women who report sexual misconduct and cast doubt on their complaints.”
Seriously? This is the same Sean Hannity who has made a point of interviewing Bill Clinton’s rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick?
In fact, Hannity’s response to Broaddrick was the direct opposite of none other than Media Matters founder David Brock. Brock goes on at length in his book Blinded by the Right as to his suspicions about Broaddrick. Maybe, Brock speculates, her story was really about consensual sex with Clinton and she changed it to rape to “get herself out of trouble with her boyfriend.” Seeking to talk with Broaddrick while in her hometown Brock calls her on the phone – and hangs up when a woman answers. Then, with an assistant who had “charged” into the nursing home where Broaddrick worked wearing a wire only to find his target was off that day, Brock drove to Broaddrick’s home. When no one answered he “circled the house and waited a while.”
In other words, a woman who was already terrified because of her rape was subjected by Brock to a visit from an assistant wearing a wire, a phone-call hangup, an unwanted knock on the door of her home, and time spent circling the home. Doubtless terrifying Broaddrick even further if she were inside.
And Hannity? Hannity sat down opposite Broaddrick on Fox News and let her quite voluntarily and respectfully tell her tale in public for all to see. No hanging up the phone, no hidden wire, no unwanted knock on the door, no ominous circling of the house with a potentially terrified rape victim inside.
Media Matters has a very, very disturbing way of treating a rape victim. But then again, as long as it serves the interests of Brock’s obsession with a powerful woman named Hillary Clinton, who cares?
Media Matters donors should.