Pagan celebration of Panhandling?
Why is it when conservative pundits open their mouths on holiday issues, they almost invariably wind up sounding exactly like the satirists? Or, in a lot of cases, even worse?
Above, you’ll find embedded Stephen Colbert’s satirical rant on Halloween. At the end of the entry you’ll find Jon Stewart’s interview with Jerry Seinfeld where – toward the beginning – Stewart reiterates Colbert’s opnion on Halloween.
Why am I embedding these videos? Because of what Hannity said just recently about Halloween. What follows is just a snippet – but if you check out the transcript over at Media Matters you’ll see that not only does Hannity take a very “Bah! Humbug!” view of giving children candy, but he cares enough about it to return to the subject every thirty seconds or so.
HANNITY: But I’ll tell you why. Because we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout. That’s how we turn—
COLMES: Is Christmas a liberal holiday, then? When people give things away?HANNITY: No, but you offer gifts. You give on Christmas. I give gifts on Christmas?
COLMES: Well, what you give on Halloween?
HANNITY: No, you don’t give. The kids [knocks on table]—“Please, can I have some more?”
[sound effect of witch laughing]
I’m a bit tired of having Halloween bah-humbugged out from under children, and I know we’re drawing near to the “WAR! On! CHRISTMAS!” time again, which is the most serious bit of humbuggery that I’ve seen in recent memory.
What amazes me is how Sean Hannity actually managed to hit dead-on exactly what the satirists staked out as their property. Somewhere, some satirist is knowing they did their job way too well.