If anyone thought it was not possible for Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson to make even bigger buffoons of themselves than they have been for years already, well, you were wrong. I've seen some pathetic stuff from both of them, but this has to take the cake if for nothing else, just the sheer desperation of pulling a stunt like this for Mitt Romney the night before the first presidential debate.

Breaking news!!! everyone... the President of the United States was caught on film talking like he's black. And saying what anyone in their right mind agreed with at the time, which is that the people of New Orleans were treated horribly in the aftermath of the hurricane damage. And oh my god... he said something nice about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Break out the pearls and the fainting couch.

And that "exclusive" video they were hyping as never seen before... well, maybe not so much -- Drudge-Hyped Obama Video Turns Out To Be Publicly Covered 2007 Speech:

Sean Hannity, The Daily Caller, and Drudge Report spent hours hyping a racially explosive secret video of President Obama. But the bombshell clip turned out to be a public speech from June 2007 that was covered by the major networks, including FOX News, at the time.

Excerpts of the open press speech to historically black Hampton University were already easily available (and quickly discovered by reporters after Drudge teased the clip on his website hours before the “new” Daily Caller/Hannity clip even aired). But Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson claimed the video was relevant because it contained additional ad-libbed portions that went off the prepared remarks.

Among the sinister revelations Drudge, Hannity, and Carlson cited: Obama’s use of what they considered an overly African-American cadence to his voice in front of the majority. “This accent is absurd. This is not the way Obama talks,” Carlson said on FOX. Drudge Report teased “THE ACCENT” and “THE ANGER” as scoops.

Hannity, who was a leading figure on the right in promoting Obama’s relationship with Jeremiah Wright as a story in 2008, also pointed to Obama acknowledging Wright as “friend and great leader” at the event. As was widely reported at the time, the two were close until Obama disowned him later that year over his continued inflammatory comments.

The Obama campaign dismissed the video as the work of “Romney’s allies” to distract from his 47 percent comments, although the Romney campaign denied having anything to do with the story and appeared reluctant to discuss it in any capacity.

Despite protestations by Carlson that the media ignored Obama’s speech, CNN’s Peter Hamby pointed out that FOX News aired video of the speech at the time: [...]

Hannity and Carlson accused Obama of injecting race into the much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina. While Obama never mentioned race while discussing the disaster in his speech, he complained that the federal government was slow to waive a Stafford Act requirement governing disaster relief that required the affected area to pay some of the costs of aid that they waived after 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew. According to Obama, this reluctance “tells me that somehow, the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!”

Obama was hardly the only one complaining about ongoing fights with Congress and the Bush administration over the Stafford Act requirement at the time, however. Then-Congressman Bobby Jindal (R-LA) led a push the same year to revise the law to lessen its funding requirement in circumstances like New Orleans’. On the Senate side, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) pushed hard for more waivers. Sean Reilly, a member of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, echoed Obama’s complaints almost word for word for a PBS Frontline segment on the Stafford Act.

And here's more from Media Matters -- Hannity, Carlson Desperately Attempt To Manufacture "Racially Charged Rhetoric" From Obama Video:

Fox News host Sean Hannity aired video of then-Sen. Barack Obama speaking to African-American clergy members at Hampton University in 2007. But despite being described by Hannity as "some of the most divisive class warfare and racially-charged rhetoric ever used by Barack Obama," the video shows Obama accurately comparing the federal response to Hurricane Katrina to with the response to Hurricane Andrew and the September 11 attacks.

Promoted as an "exclusive," the Daily Caller posted previously unaired portions of the speech that was extensively covered at the time, including by Fox News. According to the Caller's post, in the unedited speech Obama described America as "a racist, zero-sum society in which the white majority profits by exploiting black America." Appearing on Hannity's Fox News show to promote the video, Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson called the speech a racial "dog-siren" and an appeal to "racial solidarity." In reality, however, the video shows no such things. Read on...

RERUN: Fox, Carlson, Drudge Attacked Obama's Hampton Speech Five Years Ago:

Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller, Matt Drudge, and Fox News' Sean Hannity are all promoting a "bombshell video" of President Obama giving a speech on race issues in 2007 and are suggesting it could impact the presidential election. But Carlson, Drudge, and Fox News, among many other outlets, all reported on the same speech more than five years ago, and the portions of the speech not previously released add little to the debate.

At the time, conservative media critics praised mainstream media outlets for covering the speech. But Sean Hannity, Carlson, and Drudge now claim that the media deliberately ignored key segments of the speech.

Apparently they were either among the participating in the supposed cover-up, or were too incompetent to report on the speech at the time with the detail they now claim it deserved. Indeed, during an appearance on Hannity tonight, Carlson repeatedly acknowledged that he had previously reported on the speech back in 2007.

Then-Sen. Obama delivered the speech in question at Hampton University on June 5, 2007. The Associated Press reported at the time: [...]

In claiming the media hid important details about the speech, Carlson and Hannity focused on issues such as Obama's praise for Rev. Jeremiah Wright (a fact included in the AP report on the speech) and Obama's alleged adoption of a southern accent. [...]

Carlson's Daily Caller website posted the full video this evening, claiming: "Obama gave the speech in the middle of a hotly-contested presidential primary season, but his remarks escaped scrutiny. Reporters in the room seem to have missed or ignored his most controversial statements."

Carlson previously covered the speech more than five years ago, on the evening it was delivered. At the time he found it worthy of only the third segment of the MSNBC program he hosted at the time, Tucker.

During that segment, Carlson falsely suggested that Obama had used the speech to "justify" the riots that followed the Rodney King riot. In fact, as Media Matters documented at the time, Obama said during the speech that such violence was "inexcusable and self-defeating." Read on...

The Romney campaign can deny all they want that they didn't have anything to do with this, but I don't believe for one minute they didn't coordinate this with the others. They're desperately flailing around, throwing poo against the wall trying to see if anything sticks. And they're desperate to change the conversation from Romney's 47 percent remarks, which he's finally going to have to answer for during that first debate.

Here's the second half of Hannity's interview with Carlson for anyone that's got he stomach for it.