Sean Hannity Acts Out S/M Fantasies On Live Television

 
 Sean Hannity has some intriguing ideas about the world, but we're pretty sure we don't wish to subscribe to his newsletter. If it's possible for him to go even more off the rails, this was the week that it happened.

Tuesday, on his radio show, he explained that charging Adrian Peterson with child abuse would be a potentially dangerous thing, because that would infringe on parents' sacred rights to instill their values in their kids, even if those values have to be driven directly through the skin. And then Wednesday, on his teevee show, he demonstrated what a loving father looks like when he pounds his kid with a belt. For the kid's own good.

Of all the people to claim "I got beaten by my dad and look how well I turned out," Sean Hannity is maybe not the poster child you'd look for.

So first, the parental rights thing. When a guest started talking about the photos showing the injuries to Adrian Peterson's 4-year-old (say, we did mention that the child was FOUR, right?), Hannity immediately realized that liberals are the problem:

This is my problem with liberals. Here’s where my fear goes with all of this. You guys are gonna tell parents what they can and cannot do — for example, is it going to become illegal if a parent teaches the politically correct [we're pretty sure he meant "incorrect"] view that being gay is not normal?

After all, if you make one thing illegal, you may as well make ALL things illegal. This is why Hannity is in favor of no laws whatsoever, apparently. And if parents don't have the right to leave welts on their four-year-olds -- four-year-olds, Dude -- then maybe the government might as well just take everyone's children away and raise them. Seriously, he said that. Now, he DOES think Peterson went "too far" -- but actually charging him with child abuse is a dangerous step toward tyranny.

But Hannity was just getting warmed up:

My problem here is: Do parents have the right to instill their values in their children?” Hannity asked. “The problem is, we send these kids off to school, and maybe they’re taught that God is dead and maybe they’re taught that it’s OK to have sex, or maybe they’re taught values that contradict what the parents are teaching, whatever it might be — Heather has two mommies, daddies, roommates. That’s the government circumventing parental values.”

Also, dogs and cats, living together. As Molly Ivins said of Jesse Helms, if ignorance is bliss, that man must be ecstatic.

Hannity was still rolling on his Wednesday night show, when he insisted once again that a little belt action, some welts on the legs, and maybe getting punched in the face -- "My father punched me in the face one time when I talked back to him, and I deserved it!" -- was just fine, because you have to teach kids to stay in line. And apparently, the only way to do that is with a belt, as Hannity undid his own belt and whacked the desk with it a few times in a demonstration of loving correction. "I deserved it! I was a troubled kid!"

And then, after that smiling display of sadism, Hannity proclaimed once more, "I was not mentally bruised because my father hit me with a belt!"

The jury's actually kind of out on that one, dude.

[ Media Matters / Mediaite / Salon ]