J$P Instant Transcript! Senator Mary Landrieu on Hannity and Colmes. (And the hounds are loose!)

From Hannity and Colmes, October 21 2004:

SEAN HANNITY [FOX NEWS]: First joining us with Democratic reaction to the interview that I just had with the Vice-President is Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. Good to see you Senator, we always appreciate having you on the program.

MARY LANDRIEU [US SENATOR]: Thanks Sean.

HANNITY: Let me put up on the screen here a Fox News poll from yesterday as it relates to the Vice-President and his daughter and I was asking him about it. Kerry’s reference to Cheney’s daughter: 25% said appropriate, 64% said inappropriate. How do you feel about it? Was it inappropriate?

LANDRIEU: Well, first of all, Sean, let me say I wouldn’t call what just happened with the Vice-President “interview”. I think it was an infocommercial for the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign, with all due respect.

HANNITY: Hey, Senator, Senator, if you want to insult--

LANDRIEU: I sat in the studio and got to watch the interview.

HANNITY: Senator, Senator, if you want to insult me, Senator--

LANDRIEU: I’m not insulting you--

HANNITY: Senator, Senator, I think you’re a lousy Senator, OK, if you want to play little games.

LANDRIEU: --I’m just giving you my opinion about the interview. [laughs] It's what the interview was.

HANNITY: But here’s the deal. Senator, if you want to insult my interview you can. But just for your information, we have offered the Kerry campaign now for months an interview to sit on this program with Alan, for the same amount of time. And as of now they have not chosen an opportunity. This is an opportunity to go a little deeper, and get a little bit more knowledge in a very comfortable environment for both candidates. So if you don’t like it I don’t really care, but we’ve offered it to both sides in the name of fairness. So if you want to come on the program and try and insult me, or insult the channel, that’s fine. But you have been a guest on this program multiple times, and for you to do that I think is a cheap shot by you. So, we’ll move on. Do you think, to answer the question, do you agree with the poll or do you disagree with the poll?

LANDRIEU: Sean, I’m not trying to be disrespectful to you but I’m entitled, I’m not trying to be disrespectful to you but I’m entitled to my opinion. You asked me to come on the show and respond to the interview.

HANNITY: I didn’t ask you that question, though. I asked you about Dick Cheney’s daughter. If you want to be insulting you can--

LANDRIEU: I understand that and I’m going to get there in just a minute.

HANNITY: --you want to take cheap shots, you can.

LANDRIEU: You asked me to come on this program--

HANNITY: Right, so why don’t you answer the question I asked you?

LANDRIEU: --you asked me to come on this program and respond to the interview.

HANNITY: Answer the question then.

LANDRIEU: And so I was saying what I thought about the interview.

HANNITY: I asked you a question.

LANDRIEU: The second thing I’d like to say is that Dick Cheney’s daughter is a full-grown woman, who is a lesbian, who is campaigning with her father.

HANNITY: Right.

LANDRIEU: And when John Kerry said that in the interview, it’s not anything that she has not said herself, or that her parents have not said standing behind her. And what they said was, and what John Kerry was saying, that all people in America, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be treated with respect. I’m sorry that your viewers--

HANNITY: OK, but obviously the American people, in poll after poll--wait a minute, in poll after poll--

LANDRIEU: Sean, let me finish please. You did not interrupt the Vice-President.

HANNITY: Well you’re not the Vice-President, and I doubt you ever will be. But in poll after poll the American people disagree with that tactic. Most American people think it was over the line. Are the American people wrong?

LANDRIEU: Sean, first of all it wasn’t a tactic. It was a statement that he made, which she has made herself. She has nothing to be ashamed about. Her parents love her, her friends love her, and she’s respected by many people. But for you all to completely jump on John Kerry and John Edwards for stating something--

HANNITY: You all?

LANDRIEU: Yes, that is a fact that she’s proud of.

ALAN COLMES [FOX NEWS]: Hey Senator, this is Alan Colmes. Good to have you on the show. I appreciate your being here tonight. You know, it’s interesting that I didn’t hear conservatives, you know this faux indignance that they had, getting indignant about, Lynn Cheney was all indignant about it, Dick Cheney was all indignant about it. And yet when Alan Keyes referred to Mary Cheney as a selfish hedonist, I didn’t hear a peep out of the people who were all upset about what John Kerry stated, which was said with compassion during the debate.

LANDRIEU: It was said with passion. But you know, Sean just has one view, and it comes across so clearly in this infocommercial. And I just want to say, Sean, to defend some of the things that were said by the Vice-President, that this election is about their reelection. They’ve failed on international policy, they’ve failed on domestic policy. And the issue, Sean, about social security is not a scare tactic.

HANNITY: Yes it is. It’s a lie. It’s an outright lie, Senator. It’s an outright lie, and you know it’s an outright lie, Senator. You know it.

LANDRIEU: It’s written in the Republican platform that they want to privatize social security. And I’m not being disrespectful to you.

COLMES: If we’re going to talk about scare tactics--it’s my turn to talk here. If we’re talking about scare tactics, if we’re talking about scare tactics, Vice-President Cheney yesterday talked about a possible nuclear threat and suggested that if you vote for John Kerry, Kerry/Edwards, there’s a greater chance that they’re not going to respond properly to that. If that’s not a scare tactic, and for him to now talk about scare tactics is amazing to me, given what he said just yesterday.

LANDRIEU: Right, and I would just like to say, Alan, just because Sean and others call it a scare tactic--

HANNITY: No, a lie.

LANDRIEU: --they have their right to that opinion. But it’s in the Republican platform, to social, you know, to privatize social security. It’s part of the platform and you can read it. I’m sorry I don’t have the page number--

COLMES: Right. Well it is part of the platform.

LANDRIEU: --but it’s in there, and it has been in there for the last eight to twelve years.

COLMES: The President’s talked about it, and the independent Congressional Budget Office has estimated that it would cost about two trillion dollars out of the American treasury. That is not a partisan figure, so we know that that would have an incredible dent upon what we’re, the debt that we’re already accumulating under this Presidency.

LANDRIEU: And the other thing I want to say about the interview if I could, Alan, just a moment is when Sean asked the Vice-President do you think that the President won the debates or John Kerry. I mean, everyone in America, even conservatives, even people that watch Fox News, believe that John Kerry did magnificently in that first debate, very well in the second debate, and probably even beat the President in the third debate, although I’ll say I thought the President did his best in the third debate. But it’s given people all over the country pause to say perhaps John Kerry can be a better President than George Bush, and that’s what this election is all about.

COLMES: I want to get back to the issue of scare tactics, because I find it outrageous that I’ve heard a number of people on the right suggest that the terrorists support John Kerry, that they’d rather see a change in leadership, as if Bin Laden somehow has taken sides in this election. And I think that, to me, is an outrageous suggestion, that those who would do us harm, who we all would like to combat as forcefully as possible, would somehow support one candidate over the other.

LANDRIEU: Well, one of the problems I’ve had with this administration from the beginning, and I’m a Democrat that came to Washington willing to work with them, but one of the problems I have, Alan, that I’ve tried to explain to people, even people who have different views than I do, is that when you disagree with this President on anything, whether it’s education, social security, you’re a terrorist. You’re either a terrorist or you’re a friend of Usama Bin Laden’s, or you give aid and comfort to Usama Bin Laden. That’s outrageous, and it’s not right. I have the right as a Senator to disagree with this administration. Thank you so much.

HANNITY: Senator, that’s so silly. Nobody’s ever said that, Senator. Are you that desperate to win?

LANDRIEU: They said it to Max Cleland. They said it to Patty Murray.

HANNITY: You got to scare old people, scare young people, you got to play the race card. And now what you just said is totally, utterly, and completely erroneous.

LANDRIEU: [laughter]

HANNITY: I’ll invite you on, you bring those quotes from anybody in the administration.

LANDRIEU: Sean, I love being on your program, but I’m not going to listen to everything you say.

HANNITY: I’ll bet you $10,000 that what you said you cannot prove, because you can’t. It’s a lie. Bring those quotes back on the program.

LANDRIEU: It’s on the television. It’s on the television with Max Cleland. Thank you.

HANNITY: You’re welcome any time. Any time. You bring them on. You can’t prove what you just said.

LANDRIEU: I’ll bring them on. I most certainly can.

HANNITY: Bring them on tomorrow night. You’re on the program. I’d love to see it.

LANDRIEU: All right.

Postscript: Over at the newshounds (another fine product of the Outfoxed syndicate) deborah is positively rabid :

... one of the industry's most disturbing displays of partisan and unprofessional behavior on a news show.

Unprofessional? How so? Well it turns out deborah is upset by Hannity's "nasty comments" countering Landrieu's "excellent criticisms" (no bias there!). And debbie quotes them, but conveniently trims off anything around the few words she choses, thus ripping all context away. Here are the three quotes as deborah gives them, with the actual context immediately below:

"You are a lousy Senator."
LANDRIEU: Well, first of all, Sean, let me say I wouldn’t call what just happened with the Vice-President “interview”. I think it was an infocommercial for the Bush/Cheney reelection campaign, with all due respect.
HANNITY: Hey, Senator, Senator, if you want to insult--
LANDRIEU: I sat in the studio and got to watch the interview....
HANNITY: Senator, Senator, I think you’re a lousy Senator, OK, if you want to play little games.
LANDRIEU: I’m just giving you my opinion about the interview.

"If you don't like it, I don't care, If you're going to do that,it's a cheap shot."
HANNITY: But just for your information, we have offered the Kerry campaign now for months an interview to sit on this program with Alan, for the same amount of time. And as of now they have not chosen an opportunity. This is an opportunity to go a little deeper, and get a little bit more knowledge in a very comfortable environment for both candidates. So if you don’t like it I don’t really care, but we’ve offered it to both sides in the name of fairness. So if you want to come on the program and try and insult me, or insult the channel, that’s fine. But you have been a guest on this program multiple times, and for you to do that I think is a cheap shot by you.

"You're not the Vice President and I doubt you ever will be."
HANNITY: I asked you a question....
LANDRIEU: And when John Kerry said that in the interview, it’s not anything that she has not said herself, or that her parents have not said standing behind her. And what they said was, and what John Kerry was saying, that all people in America, regardless of their sexual orientation, should be treated with respect. I’m sorry that your viewers--
HANNITY: OK, but obviously the American people, in poll after poll--wait a minute, in poll after poll--
LANDRIEU: Sean, let me finish please. You did not interrupt the Vice-President.
HANNITY: Well you’re not the Vice-President, and I doubt you ever will be. But in poll after poll the American people disagree with that tactic. Most American people think it was over the line. Are the American people wrong?