1115.org

Media Matters caught Sean Hannity once more attempting some revisionist history by minimizing prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Bizarrely, his little con game took place on The View with noted political pundit Rosie O’Donnell guest hosting:

Hannity: I want to ask — I want to ask one question. Are we better off with Saddam captured and the mass graves and rape rooms closed, yes or no?

O’Donnell: Do you think that we are not raping and torturing the prisoners at –

Hannity: No. Do you have any evidence that we are?

O’Donnell: Oh, my God, Sean, don’t you see the pictures from Abu Ghraib?

Hannity: Where’s the evidence?

O’Donnell: Hello?

Hannity: There was underwear on the head of one of them. We’re not raping and killing anybody.

O’Donnell: Oh, my God. I think you’re delusional.

Rosie, making fun of Sean’s mental state is just plain mean. You’d be insane too if your previous career was housepainting. You may think those fumes are giving you a great buzz, but really that’s the feeling of brain cells crying out for oxygen and then being silenced forever. Had Hannity been on his game, he would have simply pointed out that the prisoners were really just reenacting a scene from Weird Science under court order from the ACLU and the Screen Actors Guild that mandates three hours of “fun time” each day.

It’s obviously not worth addressing Hannity’s assertions since a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s killing and here’s torture. The part that is worth getting into is the abject laziness displayed by Hannity and other Iraq War instigators. The “Are we better off” question is merely shorthand for what the 107th Wireless Warriors are really asking: Despite the losing of 1,700 soldiers and $175 billion (plus more appropriated), the degrading of our military capability, and infuriating allies and enemies alike, aren’t we better off with Saddam in jail?

Why is that question so long that it forces those asking it to abbreviate? If none of the negative conditions were present, no one would ever have to ask if we were better off. In the arena of right and wrong, Hannity and his ilk are like a team that just lost a game in a blowout, but still insist on talking smack. All the rest of us have to do is point and say the word “scoreboard.”