Stephen Colbert took Sean Hannity and painter Jon McNaughton, who as Colbert noted, "is quickly becoming the darling of conservative art lovers" to task for Hannity's purchase of McNaughton's painting portraying President Barack Obama burning the Constitution.
News Hounds has more on the "one masterpiece" as Colbert put it, that Hannity was able to afford to buy: Hannity Decides To Buy Guest's Anti-Obama Painting:
How much does Sean Hannity hate President Obama and liberals? So much that when he interviewed anti-Obama artist Jon McNaughton, Hannity offered to buy one on the spot. For extra hatriotism points, Hannity said he wanted to loan it to a museum and then attack liberals as biased if they don't take it.
At about two minutes into the interview with McNaughton - which of course, provided plenty of time to display McNaughton's paintings, Hannity asked if any of them had been sold.
"Not too many," McNaughton said. "I didn't paint them because I was trying to sell them. I painted them because I felt like I needed to make a statement about what was happening in this country."
"Would you sell me that painting?" Hannity asked, referring to one of Obama holding up a burning Constitution. "And I wonder how liberals, if they'd be hypocritical, those that supported crucifixes in urine or the Virgin Mary with elephant dung thrown on it (McNaughton laughed and nodded with appreciation). I wonder if I bought that and went to the very same museums and offered it on loan... Would you sell it to me and I could offer it on loan to these, these museums?"
McNaughton said he'd sell it.
Colbert broke down the "nuance" in McNaughton's painting for anyone that might not have understood it:
COLBERT: There's the President, pointing to the Constitution that he has set on fire. It could mean anything. As the artist says "I like to use metaphor and multiple levels of meaning." It's complicated, so let me explicate the painting's message on multiple metaphorical levels.
Barack Obama represents, President Obama. And the burning Constitution represents, the Constitution on fire. I didn't get it at first either. I'm just glad the art world finally has a great conservative master to balance out all the liberal hacks.
After critiquing some of McNaughton's other paintings, Colbert said of one of them:
It's like where's Waldo, only what you're searching for is the smallest hint of subtlety.
After showing a clip of McNaughton saying that one of his paintings is "going to change America." "It's going to make people think about what's happening," Colbert agreed:
COLBERT: True. After seeing this painting, the only thing I could say was, "What's happening?"
Sadly "what's happening" is that a propagandist like Sean Hannity and his entire network should not be allowed on the air with the garbage like this they broadcast every day. Hannity has jumped the shark so many times, he ought to be losing advertisers just like Beck and Limbaugh. He's as bad or worse than both of them.
