Pledge Week forces me to peek behind the crazy curtain

So my local NPR affiliate WHRV is having one of their interminable bi-annual fundraising drives (FWIW - Lo and I almost always write a check) and rather than deal with a couple overenthusiastic shills trying to guilt me into a pledge (“If you value Public Radio as a service, then please invest in your Public Radio station you miserly cretin”), I decided to tune into the rage-fuelled batshit insane ramblings of Sean Hannity. To say that Hannity has anger issues is like saying Ted Bundy was a wee bit anti-social and I was ready for the freak show.

Anyway, driving along as he ranted and raved, I can almost see him, red-faced, vein throbbing in forehead, barely able to contain himself as he bombards the mike with spittle and paranoid delusions. It was actually pretty funny except for the fact that this whack job actually has a platform from which to bloviate. And just when I thought I had my fill of wingnut gibberish and would switch back to the calm reason of NPR, Hannity brings on Rep. Michelle “Armed and Dangerous” Bachmann, perhaps the dumbest, most insane and irresponsible member of the august body. Like a car crash you can’t look away from, I had to see where this exchange would go. I was not disappointed.

People, what I heard was mind-bending. When these two nutty supernovas of right-wing ideology started riffing back and forth, it took mere seconds for them to stray into no-bullshit pining for a revolution to overthrow the evil Muslim Communist black guy that has, in but 60 days, run this nation into the ground. It was a tour de force of crackpot, black helicopter and tinfoil hat bullshit, quasi-treasonous bile, and reality-denying “commentary” on the sorry state that Liberals have left our nation. And irony of ironies, whenever anyone disagreed with George Bush, Hannity was one of the dudes shouting “traitor” the loudest.

As the interview wound down and with my cup of crazy overflowing, I was oddly proud of myself for actually sitting through the whole thing. Only when Hannity and Bachmann began calling each other “Great Americans” did I get the urge to vomit and jam an ice pick into my ears. That was my breaking point and I quickly switched back to NPR. I had made through the madness alright, but I was spent and could bear no more. It was clearly time to get back to the relative comfort of being browbeaten for money by too-perky strangers.

UPDATE: TPM has transcribed a few choice moments from the interview. FWIW, it really was as bad as I thought.