Jesse Ventura slams Sean Hannity: "He's scared to death of me"

(Huff Post)
Jesse Ventura, the former Minnesota governor and presidential candidate, vows that if he waterboarded Sean Hannity, he'd get the right-wing Fox News host to say that "Barack Obama is the greatest president."

In an interview with Huffington Post, Ventura reiterated his opposition to the use of waterboarding, which he himself experienced as part of his training as a Navy SEAL, and other forms of enhanced interrogation, expressed skepticism about Obama's national security strategy, and revealed his strategy for his appearances on Fox News.

Ventura says that Hannity cut short his interview with him before they had a chance to discuss waterboarding because he's afraid of the former governor and pro wrestler.

"He's scared to death of me," says Ventura. "It was over in a few minutes and that was it."

Ventura offered his own version of Keith Olbermann's vow to give a thousand dollars to charity for every second that Hannity undergoes waterboarding.

"I'll bet [Hannity] a thousand bucks that I can get him to say 'Barack Obama is the greatest president' -- if I get him to say it, he'll give the thousand to charity and if I can't, I'll give the money to charity."

Ventura also says that Bill O'Reilly is afraid to have him on the show. "I always want to go on, I've got something, I'm going to blast him for something. I don't want to reveal what it is so he can't prepare. But he doesn't have the courage to have me on... I saw him once in the lobby at Fox and he tells me he'll have me on and then he never does. Bill Maher is the same way."

Jesse Ventura and Sean Hannity go face to face

This is a new line from Hannity: "George Bush inherited the negative impact of 9/11." That's apparently a new counter to the old refrain about how Obama "inherited" all sorts of turd sandwiches from his predecessor.

Hannity attempts a weird a rambling case about the Clinton administration's inattention to terrorists, and just as I am imagining the obvious rebuttal, Ventura calmly enunciates it:

HANNITY: There were a group of radicals that were at war with the United States and we weren't at war with them. We saw the first Trade Center bombing, the Embassy bombings, the USS Cole, and we think radicals that think God is going to reward them in Heaven with virgins. Jesse, how do you stop them.

VENTURA: Well, you pay attention to memos on August 6 that tell you exactly what bin Laden's gonna do.

But the best moment comes toward the end when Hannity basically presents LOVING REAGAN as some sort of personal accomplishment, earned through diligence and sweat, only to have Ventura shoot him a withering "so what?" face.

Top it off with these Ventura nuggets: "Republicans spend like Democrats, except they charge it. Democrats are cash-and-carry."

"Kept us safe. The biggest attack in history on (Bush's) watch. I'll thank him, Mr. Don't Read Memos".