Hannity, During Testy Radio Interview, Implies Bremer Is Disloyal To Bush Administration

Conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity defined "party before country" on his radio broadcast yesterday.

During an interview with Paul Bremer, former head of the Coaliation Provisional Authority, on his new book, My Year In Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (co-written with Malcolm McConnell), Hannity took great offense to Bremer's suggestion that he believed there should be more troops in Iraq. (A similar discussion was scheduled to occur on last night's Hannity & Colmes, on Fox News Channel.)

While Hannity didn't call Bremer a liar, he made several statements that implied Bremer was somehow a traitor — not to the country, but to the Bush Administration — to publicize his dissent against President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It was as if Hannity was saying, "How dare you turn against your fellow Republicans!"

The interview took the form of Hannity offering a reason Bremer shouldn't have written the book or spoken out against the administration, and Bremer — who sounded as if he was not prepared for such a testy exchange — defending himself by saying his account was truthful, and that he remained a loyal Republican, Bush supporter and in favor of the war.

Some of the highlights:

HANNITY: MOUTHPIECE FOR THE ADMINISTRATION?

Hannity said he spoke with a senior Bush Administration official, who told Hannity that Bremer wanted to "revise history." If Bremer believed there weren't enough troops, why didn't he say so at the time.

Bremer replied that he did relate his feelings in multiple conversations with Bush, and via e-mail with Rumsfeld. He said that he didn't feel it was right to air his concerns via the media. (His first public statement on the matter came in October, 2004 — four months after he left his position.)

Hannity then asked, more than once, how it was that Bush could publicly say that he offered to provide whatever the Pentagon wanted, and yet the Pentagon never asked for more troops.

Bremer said that Bush had a choice: listen to the Pentagon, or listen to him. Bush chose to listen to the Pentagon. But that didn't mean Bremer didn't offer his opinion.

HANNITY: IS BREMER AIDING THE ENEMY (ER ... LIBERALS)?

Hannity suggested that it might be wrong for Bremer to write the book now — while the war was ongoing — because it would "give the liberals and the anti-war critics" another reason to rally against the war, or the administration's management of it.

"Can't you see how?" Hannity offered multiple times.

But Bremer retorted that it was foolish to lump him in with anti-war critics, since he remains a friend of Bush and a supporter of the Iraq policy.

Article Author: David R. Mark

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