Gilligan Grabs The Wheel

The Republican Talking Point Delivery System called Sean Hannity has always had one, crucial flaw.

He is very stupid.  

He is an excellent dumb-bomb who can blow things up real good when he is properly loaded and fired, but left to his own inspirations and devices, he tends to make a big, stupid ass of himself.  And now that Big Daddy Ailes has been cashiered for being a degenerate workplace sex offender, there is no one left at Fox who has the throw weight to tell Sean Hannity which lie to tell, on which day, and when to shaddap because he is killing the brand.

Which is when the fun begins.

First, some time ago he discovered The Twitter and began making a name for himself as weepy, belligerent creep, the specific genus of which, if he were making this kind of ruckus in any of the decent dive bars of my youth bar, would have been tagged by the bartender as one who cannot handle his drink, and be introduced to the curb if he kept up this nonsense.

Since he lashed himself to the mast of the Republican Edmund Fitzgerald,  has also discovered the mystical pleasures of an obscure form of wingnut numerology through which elections are decided by FaceBook likes and all things are possible.

Finally, he is also getting owned in the pages of the Washington Post no less for being what Gene Wilder referred to in "Blazing Saddles", the "common clay of the new West":

In prime time, Sean Hannity carries out a Clinton medical ‘investigation’

By David Weigel August 11 at 12:43 PM

Every night this week, Fox News' Sean Hannity has drawn attention to a story that was largely debunked before Monday morning. Again and again, Hannity has summoned a "Fox News Medical A-Team" to probe the claim that Hillary Clinton has serious medical issues, covered up by a press that won't demand her medical records.

Hannity's crusade has given the theories of a looming Clinton health crisis their highest-profile airing. A year ago, when Republicans hoped that one of several younger candidates would win their nomination, jokes about Clinton's age and health were rampant. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said at the Conservative Political Action Conference that the Democratic nomination fight looked like "an episode of 'Golden Girls.'" The Washington Free Beacon ran jokey investigations of a photo that showed Clinton holding the back of a chair, asking whether she was using a walker. (She was not.)

But in the last week, the baseless allegations of secret Clinton health issues have heated up on fringe news sites, and Hannity has booked doctors to discuss them on his eponymous news show, one of cable's highest-rated...

Hannity's great strength is that he is completely nonplussed by the fact that he is horribly wrong about everything.  In the dung-lined cave where Conservatives live,  he is the roaring, confident fire that keeps the Pig People angry and focused and captivated by throwing scary shadows on the wall.

But, Hannity's meathead aging-jock-gone-to-seed appeal only works when the institution around him can keep him penned and directed, focusing the dumb and crazy where it is of greatest strategic value.

Without a handler like Ailes to do his thinking for him,  Hannity wanders off into the loco weed and starts embarrassing himself.  And Hannity being Hannity quickly compounds his problems because he is unable to see them as problems at all.

Because, as I believe I mentioned, Hannity is very, very stupid.