Which one of these stories showed up in the Pox News organ, the New York Post? You tell me: (photos as published in the street copy of the paper)
BALDWIN RAGES AT HANNITY
By JOHN MAINELLI
March 28, 2006 -- ACTOR Alec Baldwin stormed out of WABC's talk-radio studios Sunday night after a vicious verbal battle with Sean Hannity.
The activist actor, who was road-testing his own potential talk show, called Hannity a "no-talent whore" and an "incredibly ignorant boob from Long Island.
Hannity called Baldwin - a favorite punching-bag for conservatives - on the air just as he was beginning his show, and that's when the fur started to fly.
"At first I thought this was a joke," Baldwin told his co-host, Brian Whitman.
Hannity, furious that Baldwin allegedly broke a promise to appear on his show before Whitman's, wasted no time ripping into the liberal activist.
"Welcome to WABC, considering you were supposed to come on my program last week and you didn't show. What happened?" Hannity demanded.
"Why would I want to come on with a no-talent, former-construction-worker hack like you?" Baldwin answered.
"Are you the reckless, third-rate Hollywood actor who said our vice-president, while we're at war, is a terrorist? Are you the guy?" Hannity asked.
"No wonder you didn't come on my program and defend it, you gutless coward."
Baldwin, who refused to answer pointed questions about several political statements, told Hannity he had no problem appearing with Hannity's Fox News Channel colleague, Bill O'Reilly.
"Now, O'Reilly's show I did because O'Reilly has talent," Baldwin said, falling silent.
"I challenge you [to] come on my program, to say on my program that our president is a mass murderer. You don't have the courage," Hannity said.
"You won't talk to Sean?" Whitman pleaded.
"What's the point? What's there to say? Let's do to Sean what Sean would do to a caller. Sean, are you done, honey? Best of luck, Sean, you no-talent whore," Baldwin taunted.
"Coward," Hannity responded.
The fiery exchange continued until WABC's yappy Mark Levin, who'd also called in, asked Baldwin why ex-wife Kim Basinger is "so p--ed off at you."
At that point Baldwin bolted from the studio, cutting his planned two-hour audition in half.
Or.....
How Hannity talked his wayBy the way, Hannity really DID have a one-night stand on Broadway, and no, it didn't involve paying a series of leather-clad men to spank him.
onto Broadway
By DAVID HINCKLEY
Since Sean Hannity broadcasts every afternoon on WABC (770 AM) and every night on the Fox News Channel, you'd think he might spend Sunday night, say, relaxing with "The Sopranos."
You'd think wrong. When Hannity's sometime nemesis Alec Baldwin came on Brian Whitman's WABC show as a guest Sunday, there was Hannity - along with fellow WABC host Mark Levin - to mix it up with him.
"Sean didn't have to be there," said WABC program director Phil Boyce. "But that's what he does. He's never 'off.' He felt Baldwin needed to be challenged, and since Baldwin wouldn't come on his show, this was the place to do it."
There's a reason, says Boyce, that Hannity has become one of stars to break out of the crowded talk-host pack - so much so, that this evening he's doing a one-man one-nighter on Broadway.
"Sean is driven to succeed like no one I've ever known," says Boyce. "There may be people out there who have as much talent, but no one who works harder or has more focus."
Boyce says he saw those qualities when he brought Hannity to WABC in 1997. Today he's on more than 500 stations, with Talkers magazine estimating that in an average week, more than 12.5million people tune him in. Among radio hosts, he trails only Rush Limbaugh.
The "Hannity and Colmes Show" is an anchor at Fox News, he's written several best-selling books, and of course he has acquired both admirers and detractors.
Critics call him a Republican mouthpiece, a repetitive megaphone for party talking points. His fans, while noting that he's criticized President Bush several times lately, say his sharp tongue is just what Democrats and liberals deserve.
It is his fans, in any case, who will pack the New Amsterdam Theater tonight for an event with an ironic media-celebrity twist.
Where some radio stations bring in actors or music stars to do radio, WABC is taking a radio star to a theater - just as it did in October with Limbaugh.
"It's a chance for our most loyal listeners to meet the family," says Boyce. "Radio's a very intimate medium, and I'm sure that's one reason Sean still loves it."
Once upon a time, notes Boyce, Hannity drove across the country with all his possessions in his car so he could do a talk show in Huntsville, Ala.
Today, he's more apt to be having a long and cordial chat with the governor of California or fellow media giant Howard Stern - or, as on Sunday, sparring with a "Hollywood liberal."
In fact, says Boyce, WABC first expected Baldwin would guest on Hannity's own show last Thursday.
"Alec had expressed interest in talk radio," says Boyce. "I felt he should go on Sean's show first, for three reasons: to clear the air, because it would be good radio and so we could see how he'd do.
"His agent told us he would do it. But then he said Sunday he would never have agreed to it. So we just don't know."
Baldwin declined Whitman's invitation to stay an extra hour Sunday, so that discussion also ended unresolved - except it did prove, says Boyce, that Hannity is as comfortable in a verbal street fight as he will be at tonight's Broadway lovefest.
The reviews? Lemme check the papers.....
*crickets chirping*
snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky
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