Sean Hannity debuted his new show “Hannity” tonight on Fox News. It was interesting, entertaining and a little awkward. TV is a completely different animal to radio and one could tell that Sean was finding it a little odd that Alan Colmes was not sitting right next to him as he delievered his opinions. 

What was very odd and slightly off putting was Sean bringing on Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to be the sole commentator on his lead story, President-elect Barack Obama’s changing pledges on how many jobs he was going to create. Sean offered his commentary and brought Newt on to offer his, which was similar. (Though Newt blasted fiscally liberal Republicans over the past 8 years.) I have always thought that despite leaning right Fox always did the best job of letting the other side give their view, but there was no one on the other side to give their view, it was all Sean. 

The next segment was an interview with Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Now, I’ve had a crush on Elisabeth since she was on Survivor when I was just a young teenager and when I found out she was a conservative it made me like her even more, but when she tried to say that Caroline Kennedy was qualified to be US Senator and compared criticism about her to criticism of Sarah Palin, she just lost me. Again it was another conservative interviewing another conservative so it came off a little bit redundant, but it was nice, I suppose. 

Sean did a “liberal translator” that seemed like a conservative spin on something Rachel Maddow from MSNBC would do, something very serious with a humorous side. It fell a little flat, but that’s okay, Sean’s going to work on these things as they go along. 

The Great American Panel was interesting it featured Rep. Michele Bachmann from Minnesota (who is absolutely fantastic BTW! Are we making sure she runs for Senator or Governor or something in the future?) Rev. Al Sharpton, and Rocker Meatloaf. I would perfer if Sean would have had three serious people on the panel, when you’re making Rev. Sharpton look serious you know you’ve got credibility issues, Meatloaf didn’t belong there. The debate between Michele and Sharpton was interesting enough. Though there was an awkward moment when Meatloaf called for the “lynching” of the person who put a graphic of actual meatloaf on the screen as he was sitting next to Al Sharpton. 

Hannity then went to his interview with the President which was largely reverant and refreshing. It’s nice to see the President around people who actually like him and who aren’t out to get him. 

Overall, “Hannity” was alright. I’d perfer if he take a page from Lou Dobbs and have an actual news show and have actual correspondants and then offer his commentary following that if he’s going to do it solo. People had mentioned the idea of Kristen Powers replacing Alan Colmes, which would have been a cool thing, I could live with “Hannity & Powers.” It was his first night though and Sean will grow into the show and hopefully get used to doing it alone. 

One thing is clear though, Fox News is now clearly positioning itself as a conservative news source rather than a “fair and balanced” new source. I’ve always thought that while Fox leaned to the right it did the best job of remaining objective during it’s newscasts. This is a huge departure for Fox and we’ll see if it pays off.