Toronto Star

Hannity crushed by Kimmel’s comedy war machine

- Vinay Menon

Sean Hannity will never hit peak stupidity.

It can’t be done. The man will never achieve dumbass nirvana. His idiocy is as limitless as the cosmos. Trying to measure it is like trying to calculate pi. Forget the catering and limo service; if Fox News truly cared about its star lunatic it would hire a bodyguard to shadow him and ensure he doesn’t injure himself: “No, Sean! Don’t eat that! It’s a plastic apple! Stop it, Sean! That’s not Hillary! You’re punching your own face! Sean, you’re wearing your Trump Underoos over your pants! Don’t taunt that pit bull, Sean! It’s a dangerous stray dog — it’s not part of the MSM!”

Just when I think Hannity can’t possibly become a bigger moron, he starts a feud with Jimmy Kimmel. He commences hostilitie­s with a guy who lives for public brawls. He insults an insult comic, which is like slathering pig guts over your torso and leaping into a tiger cage.

Look away, children, the man is gonna get ripped to shreds.

It all started on Monday, when Kimmel mocked Melania Trump and posted a clip in which she’s reading a book to kids for Easter. Personally, at this point, I’m not a fan of Melania jokes, mostly because I feel sorry for her. But this is what late-night comics do: they make fun of powerful newsmakers.

Of course, since Hannity wouldn’t know comedy from a ceiling fan — it’s all just spinning liberal treachery to him — he was furious. And since taking liberties with anyone in Trumpville is taboo in Hannitylan­d, the White House mascot used his state television pulpit to return fire Wednesday night.

“This is brutal,” Hannity told his viewers, his rutabaga of a right fist shaking with rage, his pea-sized eyes glistening with disgust.

“Liberal Jimmy Kimmel. Making fun of the First Lady of the United States and her involvemen­t in the White House Easter Egg Roll — even her accent. Jimmy, you’re a despicable disgrace.”

Then a few seconds later, after a hapless producer picked a random entry from the Urban Dictionary and reluctantl­y whispered into his earpiece, Hannity startled his geriatric demo by declaring Kimmel an “ass clown.”

Now, I don’t know if Hannity has lost his mind because he’s so freaked out by the Russia investigat­ion. Or if he’s just lost without having Barack Obama as a nightly punching bag. I don’t know if he was short on material that night after producers gently steered him away from a planned segment on why God doesn’t trust immigrants.

What I do know is any war of words between Kimmel and Hannity is a mismatch that cries out for UN interventi­on, new Geneva Convention­s and a mercy rule.

Kimmel is America: his mouth is a nuclear superpower. Hannity is Costa Rica: he’s got a couple of muskets strapped to his molars. So now it’s Thursday night. “I open my computer and find out I am at war with Sean Hannity and Fox News,” Kimmel tells his audience, before asking with a smirk, “What even is an ass clown?”

From here, well, this is a family newspaper. So I can’t repeat about 80 per cent of what Kimmel said. But it was ugly. It was Hannity-dry-humping-Ivanka-Trump-throwpillo­ws-and-fantasizin­g-abouta-shirtless-Paul-Ryan ugly. Hannity was eaten alive. Near the end of the fourminute demolition, Kimmel circles back to the slur.

“If I’m an ass clown — and I might very may well be — you, Sean, are the whole ass circus,” he says, as his crowd explodes.

“You’re the juggler. You’re the trapeze artist. You are the ass lion tamer and the ass human cannonball all jammed into one little car. You are the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey of ass clownmansh­ip.

“But I do want to say I appreciate how compassion­ate you’ve suddenly become to the plight of immigrants in this country over the last 24 hours. You know what I think is disrespect­ful to the First Lady? Cheating on her with a porn star after she has a baby. Why don’t you rant a little about that, Sean Hannity? And get a haircut, you hippie!” Kimmel clearly hit a nerve. In the wee hours on Friday, presumably weepy and reeking of whiskey, Hannity moved the feud to Twitter. He posted clips from Kimmel’s old The Man Show. He called Kimmel a “pervert” and “Harvey Weinstein Jr.” He did what Hannity always does after a public humiliatio­n: flail about in the ether and grasp at straws.

Let it go, Sean. You are over your head because there is nothing in your head.

Kimmel has got the art of feuding down to a comedic science. And when battling you, he doesn’t even need to break a sweat while throwing down: he just has to harness your selective outrage, hypocrisy and unlimited supply of stupid and turn your feeble attacks into lethal counteratt­acks.

So the longer you keep this feud going, the more you will lose.

When you are an ass circus, there can be no triumphant closing act.

 ??  ?? “Jimmy, you’re a despicable disgrace,” Sean Hannity told Jimmy Kimmel after he poked fun at Melania Trump.
“Jimmy, you’re a despicable disgrace,” Sean Hannity told Jimmy Kimmel after he poked fun at Melania Trump.
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