Product Description

As Americans, we face two fundamental questions:

First, are we truly prepared to fight this new war to wipe out terrorism and terrorist regimes, and win it decisively -- no matter what sacrifices it requires or how long it takes?

Second, are we once again prepared to teach our children the fundamental principles and values that make this country great -- the values that make this country worth fighting for, living for, and dying for?

Sean Hannity is the hottest new phenomenon in TV and talk radio today. His gutsy, take-no-prisoners interviews and commentary on the Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes have made him one of cable television's most popular personalities. And his ascendance to the top of the talk radio world with ABC Radio's The Sean Hannity Show has won him a huge and devoted following that includes not only conservatives but anyone else who values straight talk over pandering and excuses.

Now, in Let Freedom Ring, Sean Hannity offers a survey of the world -- political, social, and cultural -- as he sees it. Devoting special attention to 9/11, the war on terror, and the continuing threat we face at home and abroad, he makes clear that the greatest challenge we have to overcome may not be an attack from overseas, but the slow compromising of our national character. And he asks why, particularly in this time of war, should we entrust our future to the voices of the Left -- the very people who have spent decades ravaging so many of our core values and traditions?

Our nation, as Hannity reminds us, was founded on the idea of freedom. And in order to protect our freedoms, he argues, we must stand vigilant against liberal attempts to compromise our strengths. From our military and intelligence forces, to our borders and airports, to our unified commitment to root out terrorists at home and abroad, he reveals how our strongest lines of defense have come under attack -- by left-wing voices within our government, media, schools, and elsewhere. And he shows how even domestic issues like taxation, education, patriotism, and the family have been exploited by liberals with their own agendas -- with potentially disastrous results.

Filled with the commonsense commentary and passionate argument that have made Sean Hannity the most compelling conservative voice since Rush Limbaugh, Let Freedom Ring is an urgent call to arms. For, as Hannity warns, "We are engaged in a war of ideas. And civilization is at stake."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23281 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02
• Released on: 2004-02-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author

Sean Hannity, the hottest talk-radio personality in the country, is the host of Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, the number one debate program on cable television today, and ABC radio's The Sean Hannity Show, which is heard on four hundred stations by more than twelve million listeners. His first book, Let Freedom Ring, rode the New York Times bestseller list for seventeen weeks. Hannity lives on Long Island, New York, with his wife and children.

From AudioFile
Hannity is a younger, East Coast version of Rush Limbaugh. Like Limbaugh, he has strongly conservative political views and forceful communication skills. As host of a radio show on WCBS in New York and co-host of a program on Fox News, Hannity has an excellent sense of how his audience hears his words. While that can be seen in this work, the production seems more like highlights from radio broadcasts than the reading of a formal text. Throughout the work, he reads comfortably and conversationally. As for content, the book defends the Bush Administration on most matters and is, in general, a compendium of conservative political views with some biographical details thrown in for good measure. M.L.C. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

I caught a fish, this big!
In Let Freedom Ring, Sean Hannity sends out the subliminal message that he and his writing are about truth, justice, and the American way. The cover is cloaked in red, white and blue, and the title represents everything true and good about him and America. Liberals he concedes are loving parents, good people, hard workers, but misguided. (He actually is far kinder than Savage here.) But they just don't know how to defend or lead a country. For his five-star reviewers his message reinforces any pre-conceived beliefs and Hannity's words, not his sources, validate those beliefs.

If this was written by a ghost writer, he should have withheld payment. If it wasn't written by a ghostwriter, Hannity should have one for his next attempt at literary hyperbole because this reads like a collection of poorly constructed arguments based on faulty, unwarranted assumptions.

The first chapter is written in a maudlin, "those-were-the-good-old-days" wistfulness of his immigrant grandfather whom he describes as an honest man of integrity, and a believer in the American dream. But before you can say "Erin Go Braugh" he is talking about the courage of George W. Bush for standing up to terrorism. Exactly how G.W. does, he doesn't elaborate. How he morphs from grandfather to Dubbya is almost magical.

Hannity's next trick is to impugn Clinton and Gore as being soft on terrorism. His source for this is, of all people, Dick Morris who knew the Clintons and now works for the Fox Republican Advocacy Network. He quotes Morris who makes such vague statements as "It seemed they were afraid of talking about terrorism," or "they seemed to be indifferent to terrorism." These "Morris mind-reads" are conjectural, but Hannity quotes them as if they are undisputed fact.

Let's take a closer look at Hannity's unimpeachable source for a moment. It was Dick Morris who quit the Clintons shortly after the second election. It was Morris who had a penchant for streetwalkers, did some jail time, and entered alcohol rehab. You'd think SH could find a better source if he expects freedom to ring!

But, Hannity doesn't skip a beat. He points out how democrats such as Senators Kerry and Daschle voted against certain defense-spending bills. What he neglects to inform his readers are the reasons they did because of riders that were attached to the bills, or the number of republicans who also voted against the same bills, or the many defense bills that Kerry and Daschle did vote for. He never once advises his reader of the defense spending programs that were killed by Dick Cheney when he was Secretary of Defense. Such deception is called propaganda.

Propaganda is something that Hannity has no compunction using here. This he does in continuing to tell a tale that has long since been debunked. Namely, it is the story of President Clinton being offered Osama bin Laden by the Sudanese government. Again, it's what he doesn't say that misdirects the reader. Sudan made the offer in the hope of having the economic sanctions against them for slave-trading, lifted. However, the FBI determined that the Sudanese were playing us because they had neither the ability nor the intent of handing over bin Laden. The Sudanese also made the offer to Saudi Arabia, but the Saudis had revoked bin Laden's citizenship, and refused to take him.

He also states that Clinton should have gone after Osama bin Laden employing overt or covert operations. In fact, Clinton tried (and failed) several times to get bin Laden. Unfortunately, the President of the United States forgot to consult or advise this conservative pundit each time he tried. The fact that Bush failed on a grander scale seems to be of little consequence.

Benjamin Franklin said "Statistics is a liar." Hannity uses charts for the same purpose. He shows how under Reagan, the army bought over 500 tanks. Under Clinton, the army bought none. This leads one to the assumption that Clinton did nothing for the services. He doesn't mention that the army buys tanks, not presidents. He doesn't mention the army had all the tanks they needed for armored warfare against the Soviet Union that never came. He doesn't mention that the army began changing its warfare strategies which would include more transportable fighting vehicles.

Be grateful that Hannity cannot rewrite famous works of literature as he attempts to do with history. If he could, instead of seeing a dead Captain Ahab being killed by the whale in "Moby Dick," we might just see a grinning captain standing next to a tethered whale with the caption: "I caught a fish this big!"

There's something very fishy about his facts, his historical parallels which aren't parallel, and what he chooses to tell you, and what he chooses to leave out.

In this book, he tells whale-sized whoppers!

he always thinks hes right
The title of my review is in the promo of his radio show and does aptly describe him. I have listened to Hannity on WABC on my drive home from work each day but only for 1 hour. I have only been partially Hannitized. I have also on occasion watched parts of the Hannity and Colmes show on the Fox News network. Any regular listener of his show would know what to expect in this book. It is a clear and uninterrupted account of his views. The book presents his views on politics, abortion, the war on terrorism, American education, etc. The theme is the danger he sees in members of the liberal left wing of the Democratic Party. He has his facts right and present his case well.
I am a middle of the road Democrat, so there is a "but" coming in my comments. On some issues his interpretation is dead wrong and I think that his tactics somewhat like those of Ann Coulter paint an exaggerated picture of evil and danger on the left just as they rightfully complain about the dangerous and evil picture the Democrats effectively portray of conservatives.

First, I agree with him about the moral decay in the country, I agree that our primary and secondary school education needs an overhaul and I agree that some Democrats like Tom Daschle hold extreme views and could be dangerous if they ascend to the Presidency. I disagree with him on his admiration of Reagan and North and his deamonizing of Hilliary Clinton. Hilliary and Bill Clinton do come across as phonies but their politics is not dangerous to America.

To make my point, Hannity believes that it was Reagan's efforts to build up the Defense Department that led to the end of the cold war. He also thinks that the Democrats that supported unilateral arms reduction put the nation at risk. I see it differently. During the Reagan years I was working for the US Air Force Space Defense program. Everyone knowledgeable on "Star Wars" knew that a missile defense system was dangerous because it would be extremely expensive, impossible to thoroughly test, and probably would not work. Also even to do research in the area was destabilizing because if the Soviets felt they couldn't match us they might strike first fearing that we might do the same when our system was in place.

The nuclear missile build-up was insane. Each side had more than enough arms to destroy the other 10 times over! So SALT and other arms limitation and negotiations provided hope to break the insane cycle of build-up and bring about trust. The threat of an accidental launch that would spiral into a devastating nuclear war was real. The Democrats in proposing unilateral reductions were looking for a way to calm the Soviets fear of us and gain trust that would lead to bilateral disarmament (of course never would we completely eliminate our arsenal). It was not a sign of weakness. Being Macho all the time can cause problems.

Reagan happened to be in the right place at the right time. The Russians spent themselves into bankruptcy trying to keep pace with our missile defense development. Gorbachev came along and was receptive to the peace process. This I think would have happened with a Democrat or a Republican in the White House.

This is a highly entertaining and well researched book. Read it. I think you can trust that Hannity has his facts right. But don't always be taken in by his rhetoric. I think his views do follow those of mainstream America. I agree with him on many issues but do not follow him blindly as many of his regular callers do.

I give him 4 stars for hard work, thought and persuasiveness. He also is kind to Democrats. He even has an extreme leftwinger, Flipper as his call screener. I take one star away because "even when he's wrong he's sure that he is right".

Since the time I first wrote this, I have not kept up much with Sean Hannity. I know he has written other books and promotes the work of Ann Coulter and other extreme conservatives. The Hannity and Colmes show still airs on the Fox News Network. He has also written a few more books.

very disappointing
I was asked to read this book by a friend of mine. While I don't share Mr. Hannity's views, I am open to hearing from the other side. I have read many classical works of political theory and many of them represent an intellectual conservatism - i.e. such authors as Edmund Burke, Michael Oakshott, and Milton Friedman. Although I have seldom been convinced by these canonical texts of philosophical conservatism, I have never ceased to be stimulated. Mr. Hannity's book has done nothing to convince me that I have arrived at anything other than the right conclusion when I look upon what passes for conservative writing these days as pablum. This book is just an angry diatribe that seldom offers any real insight. Mr. Hannity is a propagandist of the highest order and his book reads like a written down version of shouting down your brother-in-law in a bar. If you really want to read what conservatism has stood for through the ages then read folks like Harry Jaffa and the classic authors I mentioned earlier. Don't waste your money on this over-the-top tantrum.