ALAN COLMES

'Alan B. Colmes' (b. September 24 1950, New York City) is an American television journalist and radio talk show host who is best known as the moderate liberal^[1][2][3] half of the Fox News Channel's political debate program ''Hannity & Colmes'', opposite conservative Sean Hannity.

Contents

Early life and education

Career

Criticisms

References

External links

Early life and education

Colmes is a graduate of Hofstra University. Colmes is married to Dr. Jocelyn Crowley who is currently assistant professor in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, where she is also affiliated with the Department of Women’s Studies. She is the sister of Monica Crowley, who has substituted several times for Hannity on ''Hannity & Colmes''.

Career

Colmes started his radio career as a comedian in New York when WABC hired him to do the morning drive time show billed as "W. Alan B. Colmes". He was later fired, however, and got jobs at WNBC and WEVD. In his later professional life, he dropped the middle initial B.
When WNBC signed off forever in 1988, Alan Colmes was the final personality on the station and signed off with the words, "I'm Alan Colmes thank you god bless you and for the last time, this is 66 WNBC."
He was a well-known radio talk show personality in the New York City area before he was hired by Fox News Channel CEO Roger Ailes.
Colmes hosts his own nationally syndicated radio show, ''The Alan Colmes Show'', formerly ''Fox News Live with Alan Colmes''. Colmes has written one book, '' (ISBN 0-06-056297-8) which was published in October 2003.
Colmes says that, despite their philosophical and ideological differences, his relationship with Hannity is a warm one, and that the reason for the success of ''Hannity & Colmes'' is "''because'' of our differences, not in spite of them."

Criticisms

Alan Colmes has been criticized for not being as aggressive as Hannity on television. Al Franken, a personal friend, is one of Colmes' most vocal critics; he printed Colmes' name in a smaller font throughout his book ''Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them'' ("Hannity and Colmes"). Franken apologized for this on the October 27, 2005 edition of Colmes' radio program.
Colmes has sometimes been referred to disparagingly as a "Democrat In Name Only" or a "Fox News liberal".^[4]
Bob Garfield, interviewing Colmes for ''On the Media'', asked him if he were "the human straw man" and a "foil" rather than an equal of Hannity. Colmes replied that if the conservative members of the audience saw him that way that was "their problem", and said "It's more fun for me to be in a situation like this [where much of the audience disagrees with him] than to preach to the choir!"^[5]
On ''The Daily Show'', Jon Stewart refers to the show as ''Hannity and Whatever''.
Conservative Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro has attacked Colmes, declaring him a "self-hating Jew" for some of his views on Israeli military policy.^[6]

References

1. http://mediamatters.org/items/200702060009
2. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hannity_%26_Colmes
3. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1158
4. ''An Aggressive Conservative vs. a Liberal to be Determined'' By Steve Rendall
5. No Liberal Limbaughs-onthemedia.org
6. Townhall.com, Ben Shapiro, Aug 26, 2006

External links

★ Alan Colmes's personal website

★ Official website of The Alan Colmes Show

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