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Review #1 by Joe Hartlaub
I was eight years old when I encountered my first neighborhood bully. His name was D-- J----; he was in high school and loomed above my friends and me like a malevolent Colossus, smacking us at every encounter with an unsettling, detached amusement. Running did no good; he could bring us to the ground within a few steps. Appeasement in the form of offerings of candy, money, whatever, made things worse.
The turning point in my relationship with him was the day he stole a comic book from me. It was "Giant Superman Annual #1," and it had taken me a couple of weeks in the 1960 economy to save up the 25 cents to buy it. I made the mistake of taking it outside to show my friends; D-- happened by, took it away from me, thumbed through it and then tore it in half. I will never forget that as long as I live, nor will I forget the look on his face when I tore into him, got a lucky punch into a vulnerable area and kept punching. The Colossus collapsed; my friends, emboldened, joined in. A few minutes later, D-- was begging for mercy; several minutes after that, we discontinued our administration of schoolboy justice. D-- never bothered us again.
I suspect that Sean Hannity had a similar experience growing up. Most guys (and, in this enlightened age, an increasing number of girls as well) do. Appeasement does not work. If you believe otherwise, you're ignoring history. As Hannity demonstrates again and again in DELIVER US FROM EVIL, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
The implicit message in DELIVER US FROM EVIL is that liberals ignore the lessons of history because those lessons conflict with their worldview. Appeasement of evildoers, as every schoolboy knows, does not work. It did not work for Neville Chamberlain when he was confronted with the problem of Adolf Hitler; it did not work for Jimmy Carter when he turned his back on the Shah of Iran, a flawed but valued Mideast ally, resulting in an upset in the balance of power in the Middle East; and it did not work for Bill Clinton, who basically funded the North Korean nuclear weapons program that it promised not to build.
In DELIVER US FROM EVIL Hannity draws a direct line connecting the policies of appeasement of the Carter and Clinton administrations with the terrorist attacks upon U.S. soil in the 1990s and 2001. He does so not for the purpose of casting blame but to demonstrate in plain, straightforward prose that in this election year cycle those who renew the call for appeasement with terrorists are advocating a policy that has already been attempted, and found wanting.
Hannity's tone in DELIVER US FROM EVIL is grim and serious, as befits the subject matter, paying service to the ultimate right of individuals and nations to defend themselves against attack. He offers a vigorous and reasoned analysis of the right of the United States to engage in acts of self-determination without the "mother-may-I" approach that the effete among us so champion. Hannity also conclusively demonstrates that the United States has been since at least the mid-twentieth century the last best hope of the world in confronting evil in all its forms, whether it is the despotism of Hitler and the Soviet Union or terrorism in any and all of its forms. While Hannity's tone is not strident, he is unapologetic in his defense of the right of the United States to defend itself and is not afraid, unlike some commentators, to actually name the sacred cows responsible for the present situation.
DELIVER US FROM EVIL closes with an insightful, careful and revealing analysis of each of the Democratic presidential candidates. While the ascension of the Perfumed Prince as the Democratic Party's sacrificial lamb is a preordained conclusion, Hannity's evaluation of each candidate is nonetheless instructional. Virtually every candidate, save one, would rather negotiate than vigorously defend. And that one --- the principled, if timorous, Joe Lieberman --- would sacrifice self-determination at the altar of unilateralism. And where does the junior senator from Massachusetts stand? As Hannity points out with devastating documentary evidence, the pretender to the office is the veritable definition of a man with many positions.
Accurate and dependable, DELIVER US FROM EVIL is a necessary and readable tome, arriving just in time for the 2004 Presidential election. This is a must read from one of the most articulate of our contemporary commentators.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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Review #2 by Jesse Kornbluth
Of the 300 pages of Sean Hannity's new book, 7 are about pre-World War II appeasement, 46 remind us there was a Holocaust, 30 sing the praises of Ronald Reagan, 34 excoriate Bill Clinton, and, although the book was published after the Democrats chose their 2004 candidate, 28 pages discuss contenders other than John Kerry. That's 120 pages of old material.
So what do you get in the "new" 180 pages that justifies a $26.95 purchase price?
Well, if you're a "liberal" --- or have, at this late date, any sense of fair play --- you get a subtitle that will tick you off: "Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism." (We'll pass over that the comma after "despotism" is incorrect. That's not Hannity's fault; when he looked at the cover with the blue sky and the Statue of Liberty behind him as he posed, square-jawed in a power suit that makes him look like a hearty stockbroker, you can forgive him for not looking at the words.) Let's just focus on that unholy trio, that axis of evil, if you will. Hannity's not a subtle thinker; here, all three of his adversaries are equal. Terrorism equals Liberalism. Osama, meet Al Gore.
Sounds good on drive-time radio when you're stalled in traffic and you'd like to do nothing more than cap somebody's punk ass. In print, you gotta admit: That's a little overstated. Unless, or course, you're Ann Coulter, who is Hannity in a mini-skirt.
What else?
Page 3 holds an astonishing revelation: "To them [liberals], people like Saddam and Osama bin Laden are not morally depraved murderers, but men driven to their bad acts by the injustices of Western society." Skip the ritual defaming of liberals, and consider that sometimes a single truth is insufficient. In this case: Osama and Saddam are, in fact, pond scum (even to liberals) --- but that didn't seem to bother America's leaders when we pressed WMDs on Saddam in the sainted Reagan years and deputized Osama to fight the Russians for us in Afghanistan. I know that's one idea too many for Sean Hannity, but maybe not for you.
Let's try another.
On page 91, Hannity discusses America's "betrayal" of the Shah of Iran. And he has former Secretary of State Al Haig back him up. "Although Haig admits there were human rights problems under the Shah, he calls him 'an essentially benevolent despot…'" What a howler: a benevolent despot! Just what the world needs more of! So what if there are human rights violations --- like taking suspects up in helicopters and, if they gave the wrong answers, pushing them out the door? Hey, they were probably guilty as hell.
[Fun game. If you run into an Iranian --- and there are many who fled Iran for the United States rather than take a chance the "benevolent despot" would send his thugs to their homes --- ask him/her about Savak (the Shah's secret police). You'll probably hear some great stories. Maybe you'll even see where Saddam got some of his torture techniques.]
On to page 147: "An unchecked Saddam Hussein, in control of nearly two-thirds of the world's oil supply, protected by an arsenal of weapons…." Give Hannity credit for not once taking off his "Bush Rules" blinders: He has never wavered in his belief that Saddam had WMDs. "To my mind," he confides, "the fact that no weapons have yet been found in Iraq only gives me greater cause for concern." Because they were there, dammit. And if they aren't now, it's because Saddam gave them to Osama (or something like that).
Dude, that train left the station a while ago. No one can find the WMDs --- or any records that suggest Saddam moved them. For that matter, you keep nattering on with the Bush-speak about "nations that support terrorists." I know they write in words with several syllables, Sean, but you might get jiggy with Chris Dickey and Fareed Zakaria, both of Newsweek, whose writing of late suggests that today's frightening terrorists seem to be operating on their own, not as pawns of Osama or any enemy country. Or is that just too frightening to contemplate?
The best stuff for this reader is in the epilogue, when Hannity looks into the future --- that is, borrows Karl Rove's crystal ball. There are countries "where evil may one day challenge us again." They are China, Iran, Syria, North Korea and a nation unto itself, al Qaeda. He lumps Israel and the Palestinians together, but gives a big shout out for Israel's right "to do what is necessary to protect [its] citizens."
And that's it. Saudi Arabia, anybody? No way. They're tight with Bush's dad. Those Saudi who flew the planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon must have been some kind of … freaks. Give them an oil pump, and they'd never have done that evil act. (See: I am a liberal. Those Saudis weren't evil. Just misunderstood.)
No need for Hannity's publisher to translate his book into whatever gobbledygook the Arabs speak and drop copies on their heads. It would be a whole lot cheaper and more satisfying to turn their squalid, terrorist-friendly cities into giant parking lots. Ooops. Sorry. That's from Hannity's next book. Can't wait.
--- Reviewed by Jesse Kornbluth
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