Topic category:  Partisan Politics

Sean Hannity is a tv and radio star who tried and failed to stop President Obama from being elected and reelected and is determined to stop the Clintons from returning to the White House as residents.

Bret Stephens is a Wall Street Journal foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor who recently rated Sean Hannity "Fox News' dumbest anchor."

Instead of asking jocularly whether Stephens knew Shepard Smith, Hannity ignored the smart advice to get into the mud with a pig, because the pig likes it, and tweeted back that he "will hold [expletive deleted] [Stephens] "accountable" if Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is elected instead of Hannity's choice, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Stephens had disparaged Hannity's intelligence after Hannity declared on air that he is "sick and tired" of prominent congressional Republicans like Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell criticizing Trump's pushback against the Kahns, Muslim parents of a U.S. Army captain who died heroically in action more than a decade ago.

Like Trump, Hannity chose to "punch down."

Those Gold Star parents had parlayed their son's death into an opportunity to attack Trump from the platform of the Democrat National Convention and Trump had down what comes naturally to him--counter punch hard against an unfair attack.

Opinions differ as to whether that is a good strategy for a presidential candidate, but it would be better if folks planning to bother the United States had to worry about a strong President who would not walk away from his own red lines, pay disguised ransom to a terrorist nation and begin his presidency with an international apology tour.

The hypocritical liberal media ignored the fact that Mr. Kahn had initiated the personal attacks as his wife stood beside him in traditional Muslim garb offering silent support and pretended that Gold Stat families have immunity for character assassination (at least when the character being assassinated is Trump's and not Hillary Clinton's).

Nevertheless, Republicans like McConnell and Ryan pathetically played to the liberal media by distancing themselves from Trump instead of defending him and pointing out that Mr. Kahn, a lawyer with Clinton ties, had made it personal and Trump had lauded their war hero son.

I'm with Hannity on this one.

I'm disgusted with these shortsighted establishment Republican politicians attacking Trump for not letting such attacks go, because he would be "punching down" and should spend his time until the election attacking his opponent and President Obama and ignoring the likes of the Kahns and Republican candidates who think they will benefit from criticizing Trump and not be made to pay a prohibitive price by Trump supporters,

That includes Newt Gingrich, whom Hannity urged Trump to pick as his running mate.

Fortunately, Trump ended the vice presidential suspense by picking Mike Pense.

Gingrich proved Trump right even before Trump announced his choice, by calling both Trump and himself "pirates" and musing that Trump might not want two "pirates" on the ticket.

Gingrich fancies himself a pirate and obviously knows himself.

Trump is a world class businessman undertaking to make America great again when America has no time to lose, not a pirate.

America needs a President, not a pirate.

After Trump's vice presidential announcement, Gingrich proved Trump right again, by claiming that Trump needs "an intervention."

Trump is running against the Clinton machine and the liberal media, and a disgruntled establishment Republicans including a bunch of hypocritical sore losers who pledged to support Trump if he won the Republican presidential nomination and have reneged to date, showing their pledges to be worthless.

Trump needs to be true to himself, not a typical politician manipulated by the Republican political establishment.

Trump is now the head of the Republican Party, not Speaker Ryan or Senate Majority Leader McConnell. They and other disgruntled establishment Republicansd, especially those running for Congress, need to accept that, or they will need "interventions."

Instead of telling Trump to do nothing but attack Hillary Clinton and President Obama and raise funds for the Republican Party, they should stop quibbling about Trump, take their own advice and attack Hillary Clinton, and remember that the judicial appointments by the next President (and Senate) will either save or destroy the country.

Bottom line: Hannity's right on the main points: (1) it is critical that Trump be elected and (2) Trump's Republican critics are sickening and tiring.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.