Did Hannity Call His Audience "Tim McVeigh Wannabees"?

http://www.youtube.com/v/ani93EHvXcE&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ani93EHvXcE

He says it very clearly at 7:55 into the video…“the Tea Party movement…the people…all these Tim McVeigh wannabees here…”

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Audience Cheers As Sean Hannity Calls Them “Tim McVeigh Wannabees”

Launching his book tour several days ago, Sean Hannity met with California Congressmen Kevin McCarthy and David Dreier in front of a live audience of Republican and Teabagger fans. The three men spend a good deal of their time venerating Ronald Reagan, dissing the current administration and being standard Republican talking-heads.

Seven and a half minutes into their adulation of Reagan, Hannity says this.

HANNITY: See, can I add one thing? I think we won the debate.

DREIER: We did win the debate.

HANNITY: When you think about the vast majorities that they have in Congress and they had to bribe, backroom deals, corruption, that’s all because the tea party movement, the people — all these Tim McVeigh wannabes here.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

HANNITY: Guys, thank you for being here.

What in the holy hell? You would think he was being sarcastic, but at no point do they discuss anything remotely having to do with Conservative threats of violence or anything similar. It is completely out of the blue. He simply calls his audience “Tim McVeigh wannabe’s”, they cheer and cut to commercial.

Disgusting, inappropriate, untimely and extremely ignorant. It is bad enough of a thing for Hannity to say, but the fact that it is cheered is doubly upsetting. Given the recent arrest of the “Hutaree 8,” an apocalyptic Christian militia organization planning to attack federal officials with improvised explosives, the surge in vandalism against Democratic offices, and the upcoming Second Amendment March – scheduled for the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing this April 19th. That act of terrorism was in turn performed on the anniversary of the final assault on the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas.

So what the hell was this? A joke? Sarcasm? Simple stupidity on a level not even Glenn Beck could manage?

If it wasn’t a joke, but a sincere compliment given to American citizens, that is something far worse. Timothy McVeigh was a lone-wolf terrorist driven by resentment of the federal government, extreme libertarian political views and a fascination with organized Militia movements. He killed 168 people, including 19 children.

This is not a person to cheer. This is not a person to idolize. This is not a person to emulate.

Update:

Apparently the comment was not entirely “out of the blue”, but did lack a greater context. On his radio program the day before, Hannity spoke of the Tea Party movement saying “We’ve got veterans, we’ve got stay-at-home moms, people who really don’t like the direction of the country. They’re speaking out and they’ve been compared to terrorists, Tim McVeigh-wannabes. They’ve been called un-American. They’ve been called every name in the book. Now, the latest attack is that these people are violent…”

From this it is much easier to answer the questions posed above. It was most definitely sarcasm. It was also extremely stupid.