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Hannity and Spitzer on Egypt
Sean Hannity continues to be strong and effective on the likely ruinous consequences of “democracy” in Egypt. On his program tonight he had as guests Robert Spencer and a Muslim spokesman named Michael Ghouse, and the segment is worth watching. After Spencer quoted the well known Pew poll about the majority support in Egypt for Islamic/sharia political rule, Ghouse accused him of “selling hate.” Spencer then quoted the Koran and Koranic authorities to the effect that Muslims are supposed to pretend to be friendly to non-Muslims, in order to win advantage over them. Hearing such things said about Islam on mainstream television was bracing. Another segment worth watching, on CNN’s Parker Spitzer program no less, was Eliot Spitzer interviewing Niall (pronounced Neal) Ferguson, the British historian currently at Harvard. As readers may remember, I have never liked Ferguson. He has always struck me as slick, fashionable, and wrong. But in this interview he was very good, forcefully and cogently laying out the Obama administration’s complete lack of preparedness for the events in Egypt which they should have been prepared for, and the likely results of the fall of Mubarak. In the end, he presented three scenarios. The most probable outcome is that the military remains in charge. The second most probable outcome is that the Muslim Brotherhood gains power, and Egypt undergoes a ruinous revolution along the lines of the Russian or Iranian revolutions. The third most likely is that some sort of secular democratic government is formed. He gave strong reasons why the secular democratic happy ending, which so many people believe in, cannot happen. (No video or transcript is available yet.)
Spitzer is an intelligent and competent interviewer. Unlike the insufferable Bill (“You are now entering the No Completed Sentence Zone”) O’Reilly, he allows his guests to make their points. While his perspective is liberal, he is not dogmatic about it and he not only lets other views be heard, he is interested in hearing them. (Perhaps his disgraceful fall from the governship of New York has introduced a certain humility into his character.) Meanwhile, his “conservative” co-host Kathleen Parker remains the most bizarrely blank faced individual in the history of the human race. Email entry |