This partial transcript from Hannity & Colmes, December 4, 2002 was provided by the Federal Document Clearing House.
Click here to order last night's entire transcript.
HANNITY: Also coming up tonight, what are you dreaming of for Christmas? One man is hoping for a black Christmas. He calls himself the Ebony Ebenezer Scrooge. He'll be here to explain that. Then we'll get some real holiday cheer and entertainment with our good friend Lee Greenwood is here. And he'll also be performing tonight.
But first, Bill Clinton addressed the Democratic Party faithful at yesterday's meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council. The former president had some words of wisdom for his party following last month's sweep by us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: This is sort of heresy, but I'd like to see the D.L.C. initiate a dialogue with conservatives all across America who aren't interested in the politics of personal destruction.
Most conservatives are conservative in theory and operationally progressive if they know and understand what the issue is and they don't feel like it's a threat to their values. And I think we ought to have conversations, not screaming matches, on radio and television talk shows, conversations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: But is he back co-opting the Republican agenda once again? We're joined by the author of the best-selling book -- no, it's not Al Gore's book -- "Slander" by Ann Coulter, also a Fox News contributor.
You notice the word, politics, Ann, of personal destruction from the man that hired investigators to look into the critics -- any critic, basically, that came down the road against him?
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR: Right. And one of the witnesses against him, Kathleen Willey, had her cat killed, her tires slashed. All of them viciously slandered.
(CROSSTALK)
COULTER:Well, I do find that -- well, it's true.
ELLIS HENICAN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: The cat, huh?
COULTER:We could line them up. Conservatives aren't allowed to talk? It is a little bit ironic, coming from the man who champions politics by slander.
HANNITY: And it is slander. And it is the politics of personal destruction. And he perfected it and his wife has perfected it.
I want to move on. It's first Daschle, then it's Gore. And now it's Clinton. There's this orchestrated campaign -- I mean, two cable channels are not enough. Almost every major newspaper in the country is not enough.
COULTER:Right.
HANNITY: The three broadcast channels are not enough. If there's any conservative voice heard, they want full -- they want to fully dominate.
COULTER:Right.
HANNITY: What do you make of the attacks against talk radio, Fox News, what do you make of these attacks?
COULTER:Well, it's a joke, of course, the idea you have this conservative bias in the media. But it is interesting.
I mean, they're being slaughtered by the Internet. Now the American people can get the truth. And I think you can look forward to more demands, as Hillary has already made, to regulate the Internet.
I mean, really, it is stunning to me to imagine a world in which the only place you can get information was ABC, NBC, CBS and "The New York Times." And that is the world they're used to and they're having to get used to the truth monitor of the Internet.
HANNITY: Do you buy this notion that talk radio is responsible for the defeat of all your liberal friends on election day?
HENICAN:Sean, the notion that we all ought to feel sorry for poor Rush Limbaugh, imagine that? Daschle said something unkind about him.
HANNITY: He compared him to the Taliban. And he accused him of having political commentary of threatening his life.
HENICAN:As if Rush has never said a single negative word about anybody. How about "feminazis"? Making fun of Clinton's, you know, small daughter?
You know what I think, though? None of it bothers me. I think it's fine. These are all big boys; they're in the political arena. They say nasty stuff back and forth to each other. So what?
HANNITY: Tell that to Daschle.
HENICAN:So what? You can handle it.
COULTER:Well, it's not the question of whether Rush Limbaugh can handle it. It's the idea that has been pushed by all of these liberals when they lose. It must be because there's unfair bias in the media.
What Bill Clinton said, is not a question of feeling sorry for Rush Limbaugh. What he said is the reason Democrats lost is because of the bellicose attacks from the right wing media.
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES:I'm glad to know that conservatives are so sensitive to one line out of a 54-minute speech.
COULTER:No, it was all lies. That's just happened to be the lie we're discussing.
COLMES:No, it's what personally bothered you.
Look, you just said a few moments ago, Ann, that the only place for you to get the news was "The New York Times," the three networks -- You said "The New York Times"...
COULTER:The three networks and "The New York Times," imagine that.
COLMES:And Ann, so you're not allowed to read "The Wall Street Journal"? You're not allowed to read "The Washington Times"? Were you prevented?
COULTER:No, but describing the world literally about 10 years ago and for most of the 20th Century. Those were the only -- I mean, when you sit back and imagine a world without the Internet, without Fox News, without "The Washington Times," you know, our big media behemoths, it's an astonishing world.
COLMES:Let me point out that Tom Daschle was compared during this campaign by the Republicans, by John Thune, who was running against his candidate, Tim Johnson in Dakota, to Saddam Hussein. He was compared to Saddam Hussein. And if this is not the demonization of somebody, I don't
know what is.
HENICAN:Georgia...
(CROSSTALK)
COULTER: ... are we not talking about that or are we talking about that?
(CROSSTALK)
HENICAN:It seems to me that this blame Clinton stuff, and this blame
COLMES:They can't get over it.
HENICAN:Frankly, it's getting tiresome. Let's remember this fact. For two years now, George Bush has been the president of the United States. Almost everything in America is worse, right?
COLMES:Right.
HENICAN:Unemployment is up. The interest rates are raggedy. The stock market is no good. We're getting ready to go to war. We're attacked by terrorists.
And some of it is just bad luck, but you know what? Things were kind of better when Bill was around.
COLMES:Talk about demonization. Look what it did to poor Max Cleland. They said the Democrats in the Senate were not...
COULTER:I thought we weren't whining.
COLMES:Hold on, hold on.
They said the Democrats in the Senate didn't care about national security. This is the kind of personal demonization and attack that they accuse us doing and they're the masters at it.
HENICAN:You know what I think, Alan, is that, all of us here in the arena, we're here voluntarily. No one makes us play. And you know what? You give as well as you get. And big people, grown-up, mature people, don't bellyache when somebody says something critical of them.
COLMES:I'm not complaining. Both sides do it. Be honest about it.
COULTER:Do you guys listen when you talk? Because on one hand, you keep saying, in defense of Bill Clinton and Tom Daschle complaining about the media being conservative that when we say it's not conservative, we must be whining and, c'mon, can't Rush Limbaugh take it?
And then you turn around and start whining about what Republicans called Max Cleland.
We're not whining. As far as I know, we were talking about Bill Clinton.
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES:That's not what we were talking about, Ann.
COULTER:I'm not talking about demonization. I'm saying it's preposterous to say that the media is conservative. And you guys say, demon Rush Limbaugh can take it. We can take it. We're used to liberal lies. Of course we can take it. The point is it's a lie.
HANNITY: Well, we've got to run. But there is just one other point we didn't bring up -- the Democrats lost the house under Clinton and they didn't get it back. I don't know why they wouldn't want his advice?
HENICAN:It's a big tent.
COULTER:You guys stick with Clinton.
HENICAN:That's one of the good things about it.
HANNITY: Our next guest says there's too much white in Christmas. And he says black children, well the message of white images are detrimental to black children.
And should parents have to take anger management classes before their kids can actually play sports? Believe it or not, it's happening. And then later on, Lee Greenwood.That's all straight ahead.
Click here to order last night's entire transcript.
Copy: Content and Programming Copyright 2002 Fox News Network, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2001 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.), which takes sole responsibility for the accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Fox News Network, Inc.'s and eMediaMillWorks, Inc.'s copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox