This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes”, February 16, 2003, that has been edited for clarity.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: His first book, “Let Freedom Ring,” was a New York Times best seller. His new book is sure to be a success, already doing well on Amazon.com.
Joining us for a Hannity & Colmes exclusive — how did we get him — the author of “Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism,” my co-host and friend, Sean Hannity.
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: We can be friends.
COLMES: That’s right.
HANNITY: Even though — thank you.
COLMES: You want to start already. I’ll ask the questions.
I telegraphed the question last week, the first question.
HANNITY: You did.
COLMES: The title, “Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism.” Are you then equating liberalism with terrorism and despotism?
HANNITY: Now that you’ve read the book — you did read it?
COLMES: I did read a good part of it.
HANNITY: Do I?
COLMES: You come right up to the edge. You don’t exactly say they’re exactly the same thing.
Let me show you one thing you do say. Here’s on page 5, “Indeed, the great threat to our resolve today in the war on terror is the political liberalism and selfish opportunism of Democrats.”
Are you saying that Democrats are a greater threat to terror?
HANNITY: I’m not saying that. It’s the greatest threat to our resolve today in the war on terror — read it — is political liberalism and selfish opportunism. Let me tell you what…
COLMES: Is that a greater threat, though, than those countries who would do us harm?
HANNITY: Let me — Let me tell you what I mean by this. And this is a serious topic. Because you know what, Alan? I have two young children.
COLMES: Right.
HANNITY: Nothing has impacted me in my life more than what happened to this country on 9/11. And that memory, those nights that I broadcast this program from that tragedy, then that declaration of war, will forever be with me, and in part this is what this is about.
We were together in Afghanistan. You agreed, you were supportive.
COLMES: All of America was.
HANNITY: Here’s what bothers me. I’m not talking about fringe people like Michael Moore and the liberal establishment.
I am talking about when you have Ted Kennedy, who is a leader — leading Democratic senator … saying that the president concocted a war for political gain. That is so beyond the pale.
When you have, as we had, Al Gore screaming at the top of his lungs, how he betrayed us, how the president preordained a war with Iraq, prior to 9/11 even happening.
When you have Dennis Kucinich saying the president authorized the bombing of civilians in this war, that he wants to…
COLMES: That’s not mainstream people who said that.
HANNITY: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Dennis Kucinich is a presidential candidate.
Howard Dean put forward the theory, let me finish this, that we might have been warned about 9/11 ahead of time. The fact that he even repeated that.
And what I’m saying here is, that Democrats out of power have now politicized our national security. I have a whole chapter in this book about that memo that I had leaked to me, from the Senate select committee on intelligence that talks at length about not how to preserve and protect liberty but how to hurt George W. Bush.
COLMES: You paint a very damming picture of Democrats here.
HANNITY: Yes.
COLMES: And I think you take some of the most extreme statements that Democrats make.
HANNITY: They’re your leaders.
COLMES: And you paint all Democrats with that brush.
Let me show you something else. You say early in the book “To liberals, people like Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden are not morally depraved murderers but men driven to their bad acts by the injustices of Western society.”
Interesting concept. You do a good job, you define liberalism as you think it is. But that…
HANNITY: People on the show.
COLMES: That’s not the way liberals really think.
HANNITY: In that case it’s not all liberals. We have people on the show that believe the United States caused the antipathy and the hatred towards America.
COLMES: Those are extremists, though. That’s not mainstream Democrat thought.
HANNITY: I want to play a tape. Because it’s my show. I can’t do this … Charlie Gibson when I’m on “Good Morning America” tomorrow if you want to watch.
I want to play a tape of what I mean. That this is the mainstream part, these are your leaders, Kennedy, Kucinich, Dean, Gore, let me just — this is what I mean. Roll the tape about Dean and…
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD DEAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We will not give up in New Hampshire.
AL GORE (D), FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: Those are the feelings.
DEAN: We will not give up South Carolina. We will not give up in Arizona, or New Mexico, Oklahoma. North Dakota.
GORE: He betrayed this country.
DEAN: Pennsylvania. Ohio.
GORE: He played on our fears.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Let me run one other one here, and…
COLMES: There was nothing wrong with what Dean did. He was energizing his troops.
HANNITY: But he did suggest the president knew about 9/11 ahead of time.
Let me run Hillary and this is what I’m saying here. One more.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: … wrong-headed economic policies that we’ve seen since Herbert Hoover, and we’re beginning to pay a price as a nation for those policies.
I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic and we should stand up and say, we are Americans and…
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLMES: You know something? She’s right. She’s right. She has a philosophical disagreement, the worst economy since Herbert Hoover. That is her opinion.
HANNITY: That’s not true. That’s ridiculous.
COLMES: Clearly a point of view you don’t agree with. Howard Dean was energizing his base. He wasn’t doing anything…
HANNITY: Here’s what I’m trying to say.
And this is — for the sake of the audience, the modern liberalism has abandoned the tradition of people like FDR and Truman and Scoop Jackson. Zell Miller points it out in his book.
What I’m trying to say here, Alan, and this is very important that our audience understands this. I am saying that we have politicized the most important issue of our day, your party, your leaders, and their comments are frankly almost bordering on…
COLMES: We disagree about who’s doing the politicizing here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLMES: Sean Hannity’s new book, it will be a best seller, “Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism.” I got mine half price. Thank you very much.
HANNITY: I signed it already.
COLMES: Let me see.
HANNITY: I did sign it.
COLMES: To Colmes, my favorite lib, thanks, Sean Hannity.
Thank you for saying “Hannity.” Now I know which Sean it is.
Here it is. You talk about the various candidates. You say if any of the Democrats are elected basically it is very bad for America.
HANNITY: Except for Joe Lieberman.
COLMES: You’ve been critical of John Kerry, saying he voted with the president and then changed his tune. Here’s what John Kerry actually said when he cast his vote.
He said, “I expect him,” meaning President Bush, “to fulfill the commitments he’s made to the American people in recent days, to work with the United Nations Security Council, to adopt a new resolution sending out tough, immediate inspections requirements and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be the first to speak out.”
That was the context in which he cast his vote.
HANNITY: But that’s not what the resolution said. The resolution gave the authorization for war.
It’s neither here nor there in my view, and this is why, Alan. John Kerry, when Reagan was confronting the Soviet Union — I have a whole chapter about the evil of the Holocaust and how Chamberlain and how Churchill, thank God was the leader in his day over Chamberlain, who was an appeaser.
And how Reagan had to confront appeasement from people like Jimmy Carter.
And similarly, John Kerry was on the wrong side of history when Reagan was confronting the evil empire, building up our nation’s defenses, building the weaponry that we’re now using. He was voting against these things and supporting a nuclear freeze.
In that sense he’s a great war hero, but he doesn’t understand the nature of this evil, the battle, the struggle that we have.
COLMES: We had a treaty. There was a nuclear freeze internationally. That’s what Reagan was involved in, as well.
HANNITY: But when Reagan wanted to modernize our weaponry, when Reagan wanted to deploy those missiles in Europe, when he called the Soviet Union an evil empire, it was the left in this country that said, he’s going to start World War III.
Well, that Reagan build-up and that pursuit of SDI and that call for Gorbachev to tear down the war ended the Cold War.
COLMES: Rumsfeld has talked about a lighter, more flexible, more mobile military, the very same thing that John Kerry has voted for.
HANNITY: I’m going to be on a book tour.
COLMES: And you were tough to get on my show, but thanks for agreeing to do it.
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