Hannity, Maddow Blamed For Divided U.S

Credit: Jeff Malet, maletphoto.com

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, thinks he knows why the country is increasingly divided on ideological lines, and it has a lot to do with MSNBC and Fox News, according to the Washington Examiner.

In an interview last with NBC's Chuck Todd, Graham said the current media environment makes it difficult for lawmakers to accomplish anything. He envisioned what it would be like for the Constitution to be written, had MSNBC's liberal Rachel Maddow and Fox News' conservative Sean Hannity been there for its creation.

"So, you're at Philadelphia Hall, you've got satellite trucks parked outside," Graham said. "You know, Ben Franklin comes outside and Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity jump on him, 'Don't give in, Ben.' Just think how hard it is in today's 24/7 news cycle, talk radio, cable television and money [in politics]. There is a group telling you to say no about everything."

Graham is considered by many in political and media circles to be a long shot for the GOP presidential nomination.

Hannity

Newsbusters adds all of which begs an obvious fact of history. Benjamin Franklin was, but of course, one of the most polarizing figures of his day.

According to historian H.W. Brands, a Franklin biographer who wrote The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, Franklin was so polarizing that in British circles  - where he spent considerable time leading up to the American Revolution - Franklin was referred to as “this old snake”, “the old veteran of mischief”, a “Judas”, “old Doubleface” and a man of “vindictive subtlety” who was “one of the bitterest and mischievous enemies” in all of British history.

Maddow

Hannity spent some time on his Thursday radio answering Graham. Running through a litany of public figures who were seen in the day as polarizing, among them Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill, he added another obvious answer. Franklin was a signer of one of the most polarizing episodes in American history - the Declaration of Independence that led to the seven year all-out war known as the American Revolution. It’s hard to top that in the polarizing department.