This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” October 16, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Casey Sheehan and Justin Johnson, they were friends from the same cavalry who both lost their lives serving in Iraq.
“American Mourning” is a new book that chronicles the experiences of these two families and how each family dealt with their grief.
Joining us now, the co-authors of the book, radio talk show host from KSFO in San Francisco Melanie Morgan and journalist Catherine Moy. Thank you, guys. Good to see you.
This really is an amazing story, first of all, about how great these people are, and heroes, and how hard it is on families. We all agree on that.
CATHERINE MOY, JOURNALIST: Right.
MELANIE MORGAN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: It’s a story of mourning, “American Mourning,” families who have been through the worst thing that you can possibly go through, and that’s the loss of a child, which leaves this huge, aching void in your life forever.
HANNITY: And so you have the two families with unimaginable losses, but they deal with it differently.
MOY: Very differently. One family, or actually the mother in the family, decides to take on George Bush and blame him.
HANNITY: That’s Cindy Sheehan, who we all know.
MOY: That’s Cindy Sheehan.
HANNITY: The president is a lying, filthy bastard and worse, right?
MORGAN: Worse.
MOY: Worse. And then the other family, the father also did something that some may say is extreme, in that he went to war and fought to kill the terrorists.
HANNITY: Yes, now…
MORGAN: He blamed the terrorists for the death of his son.
HANNITY: And you’re saying that — and she’s blaming George Bush.
MORGAN: And she’s personally blaming George Bush.
HANNITY: You do two things in the book. Number one, you describe how Cindy Sheehan had met President Bush a year before she became critical and was very complimentary of him. The media seems to have not done their job.
And the second thing you uncover in this book is that she worked very closely with the Kerry people. This was — she, in essence, was used by them. Explain that.
MORGAN: We have documents from the FEC that tracked the money, and that’s generally how you get to a good investigative stories. And we’ve spent a lot of time in putting this all together.
It was John Kerry’s political campaign, John Kerry personally, along with Michael Moore, went to Cindy Sheehan just days and a couple of weeks after the death of her son and asked her to make a commercial for him.
And they did the same thing, political operatives, they asked the other families.
HANNITY: So here’s a woman that said nice things about the president and then was used as a political pawn in a campaign and continues to be used, is that fair?
MOY: No.
MORGAN: No, she has divorced herself because she feels that John Kerry is not now representative and not anti-war enough and not radical enough, so she —and they broke up their association. It was a financial arrangement that took care of her daughter, Carly, and her expenses.
MOY: They kicked her to the curb because she became too radical — if you could believe that or not — for people like Hillary Clinton, even.
HANNITY: Why does the press ignore — you can go through and you chronicled, which, by the way, the media never did, the insanity of some of the things that she said. Why don’t you give us examples, and then answer the question: Why did the media ignore this side of her?
MORGAN: The media was a willing and complicit factor in this whole story. Cindy Sheehan was not just an ordinary, suburban, Vacaville, California, mom who suddenly planted herself, and woke up one morning, and said, “I’ve got to do something about the war in Iraq,” and went to Crawford to ask the president, “What noble cause did my son die for?”
What happened was, she was financially assisted — hundreds and thousands of dollars were spent to help her to create a media message, which she, in fact, began to unspooling every night on the 6:00 news.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: You know what, let me just say something. I find that going after Cindy Sheehan the way you are is despicable. This is a woman who lost her son. Everybody grieves differently.
In your book, for example, you talk about Cindy Sheehan having an affair with Lew Rockwell. You say she’s addicted to online porn, which has nothing to do with anything, as far as I’m concerned. You tie her to David Duke and the KKK and Hugo Chavez. And I really think it’s disgusting.
I really think it’s disgusting what you’re doing, in terms of talking about her being online in chat rooms, doing porn stuff. What does it have to do with anything?
MORGAN: Let me answer that question for you, and I’m happy to answer it, Alan. Because she introduced the subject of her personal life herself. She created a biography for herself that was largely untrue and uncorrected by the media.
We were doing a biography on Casey Sheehan and Justin Johnson, the two boys who were best friends. The families were also part of the story. And we also dealt specifically with the Johnson family, who also had addiction that became part of their reaction, their extreme reaction to their grieving, and we were sorry to have to report this kind of…
COLMES: You didn’t have to report anything. What does it have to do with anything?
MORGAN: Oh, of course we did. Why would we be dishonest in doing a biography?
COLMES: First of all, I think it’s a smear job to talk about her online, having affairs, doing online porn, as if that has anything to do with anything. This is a woman — everybody goes through a grieving process differently.
MOY: Absolutely.
COLMES: And the Johnson family clearly did it differently than the Sheehan family.
MOY: Alan, the truth is truth. It’s not conservative; it’s not liberal; it’s the truth. Some people can’t handle it. In this case, this just fills out a little bit of the story. It had to be in there. I mean, we talk about instant messages with other people now, don’t we? And I know you talked about it, because I’ve heard you.
COLMES: Well, we’ve talked about it because it was a news story.
MOY: And she’s a public person, too, and it is a news story.
COLMES: Is Cindy Sheehan a policymaker? Is she an elected representative?
MORGAN: She thinks she is.
MOY: She affects policy.
COLMES: Is Cindy Sheehan somebody that the American people have chosen to represent them in any legislature? She’s an individual citizen who’s chosen to speak out based on her grief.
MORGAN: We give her kudos for her brave voice. We do. And just like I have been very vocal on the other side of the issue, we don’t have a problem with that.
We have a problem when the story is not told accurately. There has been a travesty in the media.
HANNITY: We’ve got to run. Does it only matter if Republicans have Internet…
MOY: Messages that are…
HANNITY: … inappropriate messages? Is that the story…
COLMES: Mark Foley was an elected representative protected by the leadership of the Congress.
HANNITY: Is that it? Is that the story?
MOY: She’s a public official, and she made herself be one. She’s a public person now, not an official. You’re right.
HANNITY: Double standard?
MORGAN: There’s a double standard and hypocrisy at work, and we are not going to let it stand.
HANNITY: Good to see you both.
MOY: Right. Good to see you.
HANNITY: Thank you for being with us.
MOY: Thanks.
HANNITY: Appreciate your time.
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