Observer » John Podesta

Bloomberg to Talk Education in Washington

Azi Paybarah — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:25:15 -0400

Michael Bloomberg will join U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in Washington Wednesday for a "frank discussion" hosted by the Center for American Progress.

The event provides Bloomberg a national platform and a friendly audience. Duncan contacted local lawmakers to urge them to support extending mayoral control. And the founder of C.A.P., John Podesta—Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, who also led Obama's transition team—endorsed Bloomberg for re-election last month.

Podesta’s Endorsement Makes Appelbaum Unhappy

Azi Paybarah — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:55:18 -0400

Michael Bloomberg’s endorsements yesterday by John Podesta was, according to David Chen “is the clearest indication yet that Mr. Thompson should not expect a political lifeline anytime soon” from Podesta’s former boss Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. (Podesta led Obama’s transition team.)

It’s the latest slight Bloomberg’s Democratic rival, Bill Thompson, has faced, from national Democrats.

So far, not too many of Thompson’s Democratic supporters here are speaking out about it. A number of Democratic congress members contacted yesterday had nothing to say about the Podesta endorsement.

One exception is Stuart Appelbaum, head of R.W.D.S.U. and outspoken Thompson supporter.

Appelbuam said Podesta “has done harm” to his reputation, and that of his think tank, the Center for American Progress.

Here’s what Appelbaum had to say in an email:

"Unfortunately, in his attempt to curry favor with the billionaire mayor of New York City, John Podesta has done harm to his own reputation as well as to the credibility of the Center for American Progress. Working people in New York are hurting while Bloomberg pursues Republican economic policies on development and finance. Mr. Podesta should come to the Bronx and see what is really going on in our city. Bloomberg seeks to enrich his wealthy developer friends, while a third of the families in the Bronx continue to live in poverty. Just look at the Kingsbridge Armory and Bloomberg's efforts to transform it into a center for poverty wages."

A ‘Cooler’ Place: Democratic Brokers Hail Obama’s Washington

Jason Horowitz — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:24:28 -0400

WASHINGTON--The festivities have started early.

Even as young couples and groups of bleary-eyed friends emerged from the Dupont Circle metro stop with rolled up sleeping bags tied to their backpacks in preparation for the week-long party surrounding Barack Obama’s swearing in, black sedans and cabs began depositing some of the town’s powerbrokers at the nearby Fairfax Hotel on Massachusetts Avenue on Friday evening for a “Musical Celebration of the Inauguration.”

Sponsored by Washington Life magazine, whose latest edition amounts to a who’s who in the new Obama administration (“Collector’s Edition: Obamaland”) the party featured Nancy Pelosi, John Podesta and Warren Haynes, most famously of the Allman Brothers but also a regular performer with the remaining members of the Grateful Dead. But there were also heat-lamp-lighted food stations where men in tall, cylindrical white hats offered slabs of beef or racks of lamb with pin noir jus, or salmon in a lemon mignonette sauce. Purple lights projected slow-moving lava-lamp bubbles on the ceiling and crystal chandeliers, under which balding Washington powerbrokers accompanied by women with quaffed or frosted hair talked with balding, middle-aged rockers who wore what hair they had left in dreadlocks.

On a small stage between two heavily trafficked open bars, Soroush Richard Shehabi, the magazine’s CEO, introduced, at some length, the evening’s special guests. In the middle of his thanking of many, many people, whispered comments and conversations began percolating in the crowd. That murmur grew to pre-presentation levels after he put on his “policy wonk” hat and started talking about “our film about transforming the lives of homeless people.”

“Folks, just give me a second,” he said. “One second, please.”

With the attention of the crowd regained, Shehabi started introducing Podesta. The lights on the stage turned the curtain behind him to a hunter green that seemed to be made from the same material as the floor-length skirt worn by Arianna Huffington, who floated around the room delivering whispers. The columnist E. J. Dionne bit into a dinner roll.

Podesta, thin and dressed in a gray suit, took the stage to applause.

“The speaker and I are the Italian-American warm-up act for Warren Haynes,” he said, before expressing his optimism about Obama and observing that the administration’s transition team, which he led, “accomplished a lot in those 77 days.”

Pelosi, up next, wearing a pastel green jacket, bore the look of someone clearly enjoying herself.

“When people ask me about John Podesta, I say two words,” she said, with a pause. “Three actually. The Gold Standard.”

“I have seen him honored all over the country,” she continued. “I am honored to be honored with him tonight as we are the warm act for Warren Hayes -- Haynes.”

The crowd started talking at full volume again even as she thanked the transition team. She said “in conclusion” and gave way to Haynes and his guitar. Except for a small, devoted ring that formed around the stage, the crowd did not stop talking as he started his set with a cover of the U2 song and political staple “One.” For the most part, music was not what this crowd was interested in.

They were talking about the new Obama order, their role in it, and how it and they would change Washington.

“The spirit of openness has really not been seen in this town for a very long time,” Podesta told The Observer. “Not just through the Web sites but through real dialogue, through listening to people and respecting each other and breaking down that sense of war. The town will definitely be a cooler place to live.”

His sister-in-law, Heather Podesta, stopped over.

“It’s been really interesting to work downtown because all of a sudden we have a president,” she said. “What’s been amazing in the last few weeks is to realize that Bush never left the White House. And all of a sudden we have traffic jams.”

“When was the last time Bush went to Ben’s Chili Bowl,” the leader of the transition said.

“Or Equinox,” she added.

Pelosi, surrounded by a scrum of well-wishers, smiled for pictures and then licked her lips before speaking again. She told the Observer she thought Washington “will become a city of greater hope and a city where the disparities will be reduced.” Asked if it would be a cooler city, as Podesta promised it would, Pelosi answered, “That I don’t know. It’s going to be a hardworking city. I know that.”

Out in the hall, Shehabi was introducing people to Podesta and urging his guests to enjoy themselves.

He thought a lot was going to happen.

“It’s not just about us versus them,” he told The Observer. “Because we’re all in this together. Whether you go back to the days of busing or desegregation or white flight, ‘oh we don’t want to pay for their education because they are different from ours,’ realizing that it’s our national security at stake. If we don’t take care of the other folks and include them and fund education, take care of our environment, maintain our security at sort of a bipartisan level, not just in sort of a corrupt, cronyist level. That’s just one level.”

A more simple interpretation of how the city might change came from Bruce Keiloch, a 43-year-old Democratic consultant, who wore a purple tie and sunglasses like a headband to keep back his dreadlocks.

“It’s going to be a much sexier city,” he said, as he stood in the front row listening to Haynes play. “You know what Carville said about it being Hollywood for ugly people, and Chicago is like a nice New York with no fashion sense? Well, D.C. is about to get a lot sexier.”

He elaborated.

“Think about all those people who had those epiphanies that maybe they were part of the solution. They’re all coming here,” he said. “And I don’t know if you ever saw the Dead, but I grew up having a lot of epiphanies that told me I’m part of the solution.”

Obama’s Internet Adventure: What’s This Transparent Government Gonna Look Like, Anyway?

Gillian Reagan — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:45:59 -0400

Talk about revenge of the nerds! If President-elect Barack Obama actually fulfills his promises to bring the White House into the Web world, the techiest among us may have the loudest voices of all when it comes to influencing our government. Because let’s face it: It took a year to get used to Facebook. We use our iPhone to talk. If whitehouse.gov looks anything like Mr. Obama’s transition Web site, change.gov, how long will it take us, not to mention your average Joe, to navigate his new, shiny “citizenship account”? The geeks are gonna get there first. In fact, they already have. And they’re dreaming up the ways to bring Obama home to all of us, eventually.

Speaking of Facebook, Micah Sifry and Andrew Rasiej, co-founders of New York–based Personal Democracy Forum, a daily Web site and annual conference on how technology is changing politics, and the brains behind techPresident.com, are pushing for a very Facebook-like idea for Obama’s whitehouse.gov site. Your profile, automatically created at age 18, would display your voting district and connect to local representatives. A news feed would announce public hearings, new YouTube videos of the president’s weekly address, and updates on specific issues you care about. “Sky’s the limit,” said Mr. Sifry.

They hope Mr. Obama can convince the public to channel the energy wasted on inconsequential Internet tendencies into getting involved in government. “The thing with Obama is his idea of the audacity of hope,” said Mr. Rasiej. “He has the audacity to think that .gov could be just as important as .com.”

It’s true that during his campaign, Mr. Obama proposed creating a more open, transparent government with Web tools. He promised online videos of previously closed-door meetings (exciting! move over, C-Span!); searchable databases on lobbying reports, ethics records and campaign finance filings; and a platform for public comment on bills he’s about to sign into law. His new media team is already experimenting with these ideas at change.gov.

Late last month, for example, they added a “Join the Discussion” feature, which allowed people to comment on the issues deemed most important by Mr. Obama, like the economy and health care. The forthcoming Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Daschle, looking professorial in his round, Sally Jessy Raphael red glasses, responded directly to about three of the more than 3,500 comments, via a video posted on Dec. 2. In the clip, he noted points about cost reduction and preventative care, and even seemed slightly affected by one story of struggle. “It was stories like that, probably more than all the factual information, that really moved you to want to act,” he said. Mr. Daschle insisted that he will be taking ideas from the comments, but he didn’t give specifics. Plus, the video has the look and feel of a scripted infomercial, rather than a useful document for the transition team. But … Mr. Obama’s people are listening, and maybe that’s what counts.

Just last week, on Dec. 5, transition project co-chair John Podesta announced a “Your Seat at the Table” transparency project, which will take all the written recommendations and policy documents generated from official meetings with outside organizations—from lobbying groups to think tanks—and publish them on change.gov, along with room for public comment. “Moving Toward a 21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda,” a 112-page policy recommendation document compiled by more than 65 groups and hundreds of tech-savvy individuals, was one of the first documents posted for review.

But future plans for whitehouse.gov, and how the civic-minded among us can use it, remain uncertain. As former Bush adviser Karl Rove recently pointed out in The Wall Street Journal, it’s not clear how he can legally use his database of campaign supporters, which includes 13 million email addresses and two million profiles created at his campaign home page.

“There are statutory prohibitions on the White House from using tax dollars to directly lobby Congress by unleashing emails, calls and visits. That’s up to outside groups to do,” he wrote. “Such strong-arming irritates allies, infuriates fence sitters, and enrages opponents in Congress. Lawmakers dislike grassroots lobbying by those representing people in their states or districts. They’ll be livid if the White House facilitates it.”

But who’s to say Mr. Obama needs any help from his former campaign supporters? He’s already building a new network of citizens on change.gov. It’s Obama’s Web 2.0.

STILL, THE OBAMA CAMP is perplexed about the possibilities. This past weekend, hundreds of his staffers and volunteers huddled in a Chicago hotel to draw up a plan for the network. As of press time, nothing specific had been announced (UPDATE: Although some ideas are leaking out). Perhaps they could use a few more ideas? Tech enthusiasts from Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org to Net rights warrior Lawrence Lessig have a few.

“I think what people really want is to know that they’re going to be able to take the resources and be able to do other things with it,” Mr. Lessig told The Observer by phone.

Mr. Lessig, the Stanford professor, voracious defender of Net values and author of the recently published Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, advocated for one of change.gov’s most recent policies. Last week, Mr. Obama’s new-media team dropped their “All Rights Reserved” notice and copyrighted the site’s content under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which allows users to copy, distribute, display and perform material from the site (in other words, remix it) as long as the work is attributed to its source.

Mr. Lessig also wants to make sure that whatever whitehouse.gov turns out to be, it’s not controlled by one entity, “you know, the Googles or YouTubes of the world,” he explained.

“The fear is that people think that the campaign thinks they have the formula,” he added. “And the formula was, a proprietary software company Blue State Digital, writing software that kept everybody inside the walled garden of BarackObama.com. … The thing they need to think about is how they’re going to create a kind of participation that’s going to earn them respect, even if it doesn’t give them a perfect opportunity to control every turn of the news cycle.”

Mr. Lessig, along with Mr. Sifry and other Silicon Valley icons including Tim O’Reilly, signed a proposal for “open transition principles” to guide Mr. Obama’s new-media team. Change.gov’s policy section was removed without notice just days after the site went live. It later returned with watered-down language, and bashes on the Bush administration for being “one of the most secretive, closed administrations in American history” had disappeared. On his blog, Mr. O’Reilly recommended that change.gov use “revision control,” a kind of online notification system, so the public will to be able to see when government documents and policies are changed.

Mr. Lessig suggested to The Observer that MixedInk.com would be a useful tool to do just that. MixedInk is a free, collaborative online writing tool that’s a cross between a wiki and Digg.com. Anybody can add or revise a document, but changes get ranked by the community, and the ones with the most votes get filtered to the top. “It’s a collaborative environment where people can begin to work out what a solution is, and that becomes a compelling part of what this participation could be,” Mr. Lessig said.

Has your head exploded yet? We warned you: revenge of the nerds.

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, who stumped for Mr. Obama during the campaign, suggested that there could be a “Craigslist for service” on the site. “A lot of people have lots of time and energy, a lot of people have no time but a few extra dollars,” Mr. Newmark said by phone from San Francisco last week. He said Mr. Obama’s Web site could help people find a way to serve in their local communities—whether it’s job postings for teachers and volunteer firefighters—or just link to outside sites where people can donate a little cash on donorschoose.org or kiva.org, which allows lenders to give money to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

“There’s another big kind of service that I think is important, and that’s getting involved in grass-roots politics. That may mean going to the PTA, it may mean going to city council meetings, it may just mean getting started out in an area like green technology or health care or Internet technology and getting involved. All of these things are really important.”

Charlie O’Donnell, an entrepreneur in New York and CEO of Path101, had a similar idea. On his blog, titled This Is Going to Be Big, he suggested that the White House’s site become an online hub for community organizing by integrating applications from sites like Meetup.com, which helps organizers create community; GetSatisfaction.com, a site where users can complain to real company employees and other customers and answer questions about services; and Outside.in, a network of localized news sites written by community members.

Nancy Scola, Mr. Sifry’s colleague, as associate editor at techPresident.com, said Whitehouse.gov should have some kind of trickle-down effect for the rest of the government. “The White House isn’t Obama’s only domain,” she said. “He has agencies, a lot of smart people, that can integrate these Web policies between the entire executive branch, which he can get done from the get-go by making them mandatory.”

Ms. Scola added that Mr. Obama will have to get more than the tech-minded and the young to log on. Sure, the post-college somethings will sign on to a Facebook-like whitehouse.gov, but what about grandma and grandpa? Ms. Scola said Mr. Obama can do that by making good on his promises to upgrade broadband connections to the Internet in communities across the country and use modern technology and social networking tools to facilitate offline meetings. But how will the old folks know about these offline meetings if they don’t know how to get online in the first place? Should he create a volunteer corps to help Grammie on the Internet? (Or maybe they should just stick to the landlines: Old people are already pretty powerful as the No. 1 bracket in voting demographics. Things seem to be working just fine.)

Mr. Newmark smartly noted that however exciting a prospect it is to have the White House in our houses, Mr. Obama will be under a lot more pressure to deal with issues like the economy and Iraq rather than bringing the government into the digital age.

Mr. Lessig was also pragmatic. “The problem is that the DNA of Washington and the DNA of the White House completely contradicts this idea” of a Web-fueled democracy, Mr. Lessig said. “They want to manage and control message and agenda and access to certain kinds of information. And so, that’s why a lot of people are skeptical that this can be achieved. But in this moment of good faith people believe that what is going on is people are trying to get it right.”

Mr. Sifry of techPresident.com seems hopeful. “It would be some kind of top-down stupidity to say, we’re not going to let people connect, we’re not going to allow people to comment anymore,” he said. “But it’s a double-edged sword because they’re connecting to each other and commenting and if the administration falls short, they’re supercharging the super volunteers who can really make change and influence people.

“The government actually needs people pushing and catching them,” he added.

In his recent interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, Mr. Obama seemed to agree: “I, you know, one of the things that I’m going to have to work through is how to break through the isolation—the bubble that exists around the president,” he said. “I’m negotiating to figure out how can I get information from outside of the 10 or 12 people who surround my office in the White House. Because, one of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day.” He can certainly do that with something like Facebook for his home page.

greagan@observer.com

Podesta Says It’s Too Late For Gore, Getting Late for Obama

Jason Horowitz — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:01:20 -0400

Is it too late for Al Gore to get in the race?

John Podesta thinks so.

"Yeah," said Podesta, when I caught up with him yesterday at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in midtown. "I don't think he wants to."

At last year's conference, the speculation surrounding Gore's potential bid was very much a running theme.

Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, former Clinton chief of staff and current Hillary Clinton supporter, said that the enthusiasm for a Gore candidacy had diminished compared to last year, but he also figured that was probably something Gore wanted.

"I think it's changed, but I think he wanted it to change," said Podesta. "He is just going way deep on this one issue. And I think that's what he wanted to do."

As for Hillary, Podesta couldn't be more pleased with how her campaign is going.

"She is running a terrific, disciplined campaign," he said. "She has a very disciplined crew and is a very disciplined candidate from message to policy to execution."

Was he surprised that Obama seemed so reluctant to challenge Clinton?

"Obama has run a good campaign. He is playing to his strength. You can't be the guy who is going to do politics different, the guy who is going to bring everyone together and then be in there rabbit-chopping your opponent," Podesta said. He noted that Obama was spending a lot of money in Iowa, (nearly $3 million on ads alone) but without significantly affecting Hillary's position there.

"She has solidified her position is because she has run a very strong and very appealing campaign," said Podesta. "I think where the race was in the spring, the structure of the race, has become more solidified."

If the race continued in the same way, he said, Obama would have to make a move.

"At some point, if this tracks the same way, he'll try and shake it up," said Podesta. "But I'm not sure that means trying to jam and jab her. I'm sure he is getting some of that advice. But if you ask me that is not the best advice.

"He wants to get his terms. So far she has dominated where the race has been, which is that she has got the experience to bring about real change. How he gets around that, I leave to his team to figure out."

Spitzer’s Think Tank

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:40:04 -0400

In his column on Spitzer's ideology today, Ben makes mention of Spitzer's short romance with the idea of a New York chapter of the Democratic Leadership Council. When Ben asked him about the resolutely centrist DLC, Spitzer seemed to distance himself from the Al From crowd: "I don't know what they're doing these days."

But Spitzer is not as averse to all Washington think tanks, and has even raided one of them for his campaign.

Drew Worshaw, 25, worked at the Center For American Progress ("Progressive Ideas for a Strong, Just and Free America") before joining the Spitzer campaign as a junior policy advisor. At the CAP, Worshaw helped get the foundation off its feet as assistant to Sarah Wartell, who is basically the center's second-in-command under John Podesta.

According to Erin Green, a current CAP staffer, Worshaw "is passionate about campaign finance reform." And after the campaign is over, she said, she could "see him working in the administration."

-- Jason Horowitz

Time Warner Dispatch

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:23:15 -0400

A tidbit from the meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative at the Time Warner Center today: Laura Bush will participate in September's second Davos-on-Hudson.

Murdoch will be there too, of course. And the main underwriter, again, is Tom Golisano, incongruously seated front and center between his wife and Democratic partisan warrior John Podesta.

Hannity: A Fox in the Crowd

Joe Hagan — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -0400

Sean Hannity, the 42-year-old Fox News star, says he gets no special kick from hammering the lefties on his television program. If they squirm, plead, cry, scream, it's strictly business.

"It has no impact," Mr. Hannity said, then made a chopping motion and added a sound effect: " Shht, shht . Doesn't faze me."

So if lefty radio host, humorist and professional adversary Al Franken wanted to characterize Mr. Hannity as a liar and worse, as he did in his best-selling book, or a "schoolyard bully, narrow-minded, amoral, no compassion, phony to the core"-as he did in a recent interview-Mr. Hannity just wasn't going to respond.

"I don't take any of this stuff personally," he said. "If I don't respect you, it doesn't matter what you think of me. And I don't respect him."

On Monday, Aug. 9, Mr. Hannity charged into the Fox News "war room" like a Big 10 college football coach, coiled and jocular, ready to spar with the world. He wore a blue blazer, no tie, tasseled loafers. He cracked open a can of Coke, loudly, and opened with a verbal towel-snap: "You're not a liberal, are you?" he said.

But Mr. Hannity balked when he was asked to really let it rip. "This isn't about me. I know it's a 'me' business. But it's not about me, it's about what I believe in more."

Nevertheless, Sean Hannity, the almost-cute, beetle-browed, pug-nosed persona from TV, was coming into view: God-fearing, flag-loving, contemptuous of liberal media. Every night Mr. Hannity, author of the best-selling Let Freedom Ring and Deliver Us from Evil , punched the air with Reaganisms, glowing with the right of Excalibur, until forced to reel with shock and disgust at the diabolical guest.

"I'm very consistent in my views," he said. "The left is out of control, reckless and dangerous."

End of story, mister.

But even if Mr. Hannity is a Gary Trudeau nightmare, a Yosemite Sam–tempered version of a right-wing believer-he's a pro-life, pro-war, pro-Bush, Cadillac Escalade driver who wants to drill for oil in Alaska and anywhere else as well-it seemed as though he was exactly what the American public wanted out of cable news. In eight years, Mr. Hannity, a former house-painter turned Atlanta radio personality turned right-wing videologue, has found the perfect pH balance of frat-house flippancy, suburban masculinity and red-state rage-with only the Gollum-like presence of liberal foil Alan Colmes to hedge against a howling David Cronenbergian conclusion to every television show-to make Hannity and Colmes the No. 2 program in cable news, with 1.5 million viewers a night, right behind the titular figurehead of the fair and balanced Fox News Channel, Bill O'Reilly.

Mr. Hannity said he had no heroes in the TV world.

"I can't think of anybody in particular," he said, not really thinking about it. "I try to be myself. For better or for worse." But it was hard to believe he hadn't studied somebody, Mr. O'Reilly or Morton Downey Jr. or Joe Pyne or some combination of them. The business plan is one-stop opinion shopping: a three-hour radio show, best-selling books, a Web site, mugs, T-shirts. If they're really smart, there's no overstep, but very often there is. Mr. Hannity even has a DVD in September, The Hannitizing of America , featuring outtakes from his speaking tour.

And you had to wonder: Like Cher dumping Sonny, could Mr. Hannity finally slough off the exquisitely untelegenic Mr. Colmes-hired on Mr. Hannity's own advice in 1996-and show the full Hannity by matching the big guy, Mr. O'Reilly?

"Sure," said Bill Shine, the vice president of production at Fox News and the onetime producer of Hannity & Colmes .

"Yes, he could. But it couldn't be the same show he's doing now. Bill O'Reilly looks at things on a case-by-case basis, and so does Sean-but Sean, for the most part, is conservative, and he believes the conservative side of much more of the issues than Bill ever did."

In 2003, in an interview with The Observer , Mr. O'Reilly praised Hannity & Colmes but also dropped a little zinger: "Haven't evolved a lot, but it's working."

Indeed, there were signs that Mr. Hannity was edging toward a solo act. He and his partner don't hang out together like they used to. "We don't have as much time as we might like," said Mr. Colmes. "We used to a lot more."

Did Mr. Hannity see the need to evolve?

"You'd have to ask him what he thinks," he said, referring to Mr. O'Reilly, whose name elicited no perceptible warmth. "I think the show has changed yearly, daily, weekly. I mean, we're constantly tweaking it to make it better and better."

But Mr. Hannity said he wasn't entertaining bigger, grander things. He said he was an incredibly lucky guy who considered his show a "public service" and hoped Fox News chief Roger Ailes felt the same. "Whatever my boss wants me to do, I'm glad to have the opportunity," he said.

And if CNN offered him millions? "Nope. Wouldn't do it," he said. "Where was CNN in 1996? They weren't knocking on my door. No, I love being here. I love working for Roger and I love being here."

In fact, Mr. Hannity said that if, in 2014, he was still hacking away with Mr. Colmes, "I'd be the happiest man in the world."

However, he also didn't count out a calling in politics.

"Yeah, but it's not going to happen for a long time," he said.

As a TV pundit, Mr. Hannity may be a two-trick pony, but his secret super-power is his ability to puff himself up like a blowfish-he looks wider and thicker than his six feet, 190 pounds-and punctuate opinion with his handsome linebacker's face. "You can get a lot more done with a lot less said," he said. "A facial expression, something like that, can be very effective in making a point."

His signature has always been the eyebrows that curl into a belligerent twinkle-hands aloft, pushing back, aggressive, pencil in right hand-as he wears down his guests with bruising repetition. His on-air blowout with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Aug. 3 was typical of Mr. Hannity's debating style.

Mr. Hannity had latched onto a statement in Mr. Kennedy's recent book, Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy , in which Mr. Kennedy recalled the often-used quote from Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials about how easy it is to get the populace to go along with a war by battering them with patriotic fervor. While Mr. Kennedy attempted to explain his views on mercury poisoning in New York State's waterways, Mr. Hannity hammered Mr. Kennedy for his perceived offense against Mr. Bush.

Here is the Mr. Hannity side, sans Mr. Kennedy's attempts to get a word in:

Hannity : Nazism and fascism? That we're using the tactics of fascists and Nazis? That's what you're saying about your President? You can't disagree without being that obnoxious?

Hannity : You compare the tactics of the President with Nazis, not me.

Hannity : George Bush uses Nazi tactics? You said that in the book. You're suggesting that.

Hannity : Will you-will you admit that you said in this book that he uses the tactics of Nazism?

He then called Mr. Kennedy an "extremist" without responding to Mr. Kennedy's statements. Defending the technique, he said, "For him to be out there criticizing the President-'I have mercury poisoning because of George Bush'-it's silly."

Mr. Hannity called himself a moderate, compassionate conservative. It was true that he slagged Senator John Kerry nightly-most recently inviting former Vietnam Swift boat veterans to promote their TV attack ad questioning his record in the war-but he didn't think Mr. Kerry was evil.

"I don't dislike him," he said. "I even wrote in my first book that he's a man who served his country in a war he didn't believe in. I don't dislike him. I don't dislike liberals. A lot of people misunderstood the title of my last book: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism . 'You're putting those three things together!' I'm saying, 'No, I'm not.' I just believe that conservatives have the right vision to beat back the forces of evil that we face in our time. Democrats have abandoned their traditions."

Then, just in case you thought he'd abandoned his role as a guy whose expertise was in pissing off the opposition, he said, "If he were still alive, I believe that John F. Kennedy would be a conservative today."

Then, the patented Hannity method: fake left, then take a hard, barrel-chested right. "We've got to get rid of the partisan bickering," he insisted, sounding a lot like Barack Obama.

Then, screeeech : "This war on terror has now been politicized by the leaders of the Democratic Party, And I think that is dangerous …. It's John Edwards who believes in the two Americas, not Sean Hannity. I believe in one America."

Then, left: That same day, First Lady Laura Bush had said she thought the media was to blame for the divisive atmosphere in the country. "I don't think that's necessarily true," said Mr. Hannity. "I think it's a healthy thing to have passionate debate. Our founders had it at their convention in 1787. If it's good for them, it's pretty good for us in the battle against terrorism."

Mr. Hannity grew up a Catholic in Long Island and now lives there with his wife and two kids. A college dropout, he was once a contractor, then started calling in to AM radio shows-Rush Limbaugh gave him his first national exposure-and eventually got the top-rated talk-radio spot in Atlanta. When he appeared on TalkBack Live on CNN in the mid-1990's, he caught the attention of Roger Ailes, who put him on CNBC. Mr. Hannity then tapped his friend Newt Gingrich for an exclusive hour, and things took off.

He gets up at 7 a.m. to watch morning shows. At night, he watches the Biography Channel, A&E, the History Channel. He said he owns 10 blue jackets, 10 gray jackets, three different colored ties: yellow, red and blue. His other car is a Jeep Cherokee.

Now and then, Mr. Hannity encounters a formidable adversary. When, earlier this year, Mr. Hannity challenged former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta to produce evidence that he'd "said something that was so false," Mr. Podesta generated 15 examples that he then posted on the Web on June 16 as "The Document Sean Hannity Doesn't Want You to Read."

Asked if he'd ever run across the document, Mr. Hannity said, "No."

Presented with a copy, he immediately attacked No. 5, "The Recession," which cited 20 instances of the host claiming that Mr. Bush inherited a recession from former President Bill Clinton.

"They just disagree with me about when the recession started," he said. "The President, when he comes into office, doesn't get his first budget passed until October. By any definition, I'm right and they're wrong. By any definition. So I stand by that."

He moved on to his statement, from Sept. 18, 2003, that "I never questioned anyone's patriotism."

Mr. Podesta had come up with Mr. Hannity asking a guest, "Is it you hate this President or that you hate America?"

"Stanley Cohen, who is the Hamas attorney," said Mr. Hannity. "Do you know who he is? He's the political wing of Hamas, a terrorist organization. 'Is it that you hate the President or that you hate America?' That's a question. That's not saying 'You're un-American,' which is how I would interpret saying 'You're un-American.'"

Mr. Hannity sipped his Coke. "It depends on how you say 'questioning one's patriotism,'" he said. "When you ask me if I'm doing that, I'm saying 'You're un-American' …. If I'm asking an inquisitive question, versus saying 'You're un-American'-I'm not saying you're un-American, I'm not questioning your patriotism. I don't know if any of these are legitimate quotes anyway. But I stand by that statement."

Mr. Hannity then recalled Mr. Podesta getting "nailed directly in a lie" on his radio show. For weeks, Mr. Hannity insisted that former Vermont Governor Howard Dean had once suggested that Mr. Bush had prior knowledge about the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Podesta said Dr. Dean never said it.

Mr. Hannity said Mr. Podesta was lying.

"What you're looking at here is a total distortion of one's point of view," said Mr. Hannity. "If you want to print their propaganda, I guess you're entitled to do it. He's one of those extremists on the left. That's silly left-wing propaganda."

Judd Legum, Mr. Podesta's deputy research assistant, who was responsible for the memo, told NYTV, "I know the show's seen it." He recalled that Mr. Hannity's radio show later promoted the interview on its Web site as "The Interview John Podesta Doesn't Want You to Hear."

Asked if he could admit he was wrong in any instance, Mr. Hannity laughed a big, full-throated TV laugh.

"Yeah, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes every day and I pray for guidance that I do better. Yeah, sure, over the years I've made lots of mistakes."

Mr. Hannity said he couldn't conceive of waking up on Nov. 3 and finding that John Kerry was President of the United States. It was his worst nightmare, he said.

"I think the President is going to win," he added. "That's my honest assessment. I'm trying to be objective here."

But aside from saving his beloved nation from left-wing extremists, Mr. Hannity knew that there would be another payoff for a Bush second term: He'd have plenty of more material coming in the form of enraged liberal guests.

"I think if the President wins, there's going to be a lot of angry people," he said.

Shht, shht . Strictly business.