Hannity No Longer Skeptical About Ed Klein's Anonymous Sources

It appears that Sean Hannity and Ed Klein have patched up their differences in order to peddle Klein's new anti-Obama book.

Klein appeared on Hannity's radio and Fox News shows to promote The Amateur, a re-packaging of several previously discredited conservative complaints about Obama. Like Klein's other books The Amateur boasts anonymously sourced, inaccurate anecdotes that are often too good to be true.

Apparently a taped audio interview conducted by Klein with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a Hannity obsession for years, was enough to rekindle the Klein-Hannity alliance, as seen in this clip from the May 16 of Fox's Hannity:

Hannity appears willing to accept Klein's anonymously sourced writing, despite his own previous skepticism of Klein's methods.

In 2005 Hannity questioned Klein about the insinuation in his book The Truth About Hillary that Bill Clinton raped Hillary Clinton. Hannity was skeptical of such an incendiary claim based on one source and asked, “Is one anonymous source enough, then, to go to print with something like that?” Klein initially responded that “it's one source who I checked out very carefully,” then claimed “sometimes I had several sources.”

Later in the interview Hannity discussed Klein's habit of using innuendo to question Hillary Clinton's sexual orientation, noting that “there's no evidence,” asking, “Is it fair? Do you consider her daughter in all of this?” Klein replied that “she's given all kinds of signals that her sexuality is in question.”

In 2007 Klein was a guest on Hannity & Colmes to promote his book Katie: The Real Story, about anchor Katie Couric. Hannity had concerns about the salacious nature of the book, asking Klein (via Nexis), “Two little girls. They don't have a father. I couldn't write a book like this about somebody's personal life. Why -- why did you want to write this? Why is that important to you?” Klein's response was that “this is one of the great stories in journalism today.”

Later in the interview Hannity said, “Why don't we stay, though, on the issues of pointing out her bias, her on-air performance and ignore the personal side of things, considering, you know what? I sort of feel that's off bounds.”

These uncomfortable interviews with Hannity apparently led Klein to lampoon him in his terrible novel The Obama Identity: A Novel (Or Is It?). In the book Klein describes Hannity as a buffoon who praises a 9-11 truther as a “great American.”

But it appears that all is forgiven now that Klein has targeted Obama, Hannity's current favorite target.