In the early days of 2017, before President Donald Trump had even been inaugurated, Fox News' last man standing Sean Hannity resolved that in this fresh new year, he was going to rise above it all, ignore his critics and stop fighting the "clueless failures and wannabes" who have dogged his career of late.
By "media critics," Hannity was most likely referring to his nemeses at Media Matters and CNN media critic Brian Stelter, who has chronicled Hannity's descent from all-purpose conservative loudmouth to full-on cheerleader for Trump as far back as summer of 2016. Remember those names.
Pres. Trump's eager little thick-necked water carrier Hannity spent the bulk of 2017 eagerly promoting every half-baked conspiracy theory that distracted from his new boss's chaotic first year as president. From the Seth Rich murder story to the CIA framing Russia for hacking the DNC to Uranium One to Robert Mueller is a secret Deep State operative working to overthrow the Trump presidency, Hannity aired them all and then acted like a rescue chihuahua on crystal meth when anyone challenged him on Twitter.
After tweeting fake news stories about Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) soliciting donations from Russia in February, Hannity duked it out with trans rights activist Chaz Bono online, which of course sent Hannity's millions of angry minions galloping Orc-like into Bono's Twitter mentions and hurling anti-trans invective.
In March, the New York Times called Hannity out as being a knee-jerk defender of even Trump's "most controversial behavior."
Writers at the Times hit back at Hannity, directly refuting his claims about the paper and pointing to how eager he was to participate in a Times profile of him in 2016.
In June, Hannity leapt to the defense of conspiracy monger Alex Jones, calling former colleague Megyn Kelly's interview with Jones a hit piece that he claims was deceptively edited.
He quickly ended up in a side-spat with CNN.
Hannity's biggest meltdowns of the year came late in the game season as advertisers began to flee his show thanks to a boycott facilitated by Media Matters and its president Angelo Carusone. Hannity's endorsement of accused child molester and failed Alabama candidate for U.S. Senate Roy Moore gave Media Matters additional fuel for their boycott and in October, he called the media watchdog group fascist totalitarians after Carusone spoke to Stelter on CNN.
Carusone told Stelter that he and other Media Matters staffers have received death threats in the wake of Hannity's angry smear campaign.
But no one this year appears to have gotten under Hannity's skin like Stelter, who Hannity has called a "little pipsqueak" and accused of being a Clinton operative. In a bonkers rant earlier this month, Hannity called the media critic "Humpty Dumpty" and "a bitter partisan."
Stelter appeared to take it in stride.
