The official portrait of President Barack Obama could be considered revolutionary. The former president broke from tradition and was painted sitting among green foliage, with flowers that represented the three places he'd called home in his life. But Fox News host Sean Hannity didn't see the flowers or the magnificence. Nor did he have a critical reaction to the Kehinde Wiley painting.
Instead, he saw “secret sperm cells” hidden within the image.
“Obama portrait – a stark contrast to predecessors with inappropriate sexual innuendo,” Hannity tweeted in a now-deleted message. His tweet linked to a story on his website written by “Hannity Staff,” identifying the location of the supposed secret gamete.
Hannity Staff claimed that Wiley had a "trademark technique" of “concealing images of sperm within his paintings.” The proof, according to Hannity's site, was a review of the artist published in The New York Times — a media organization Hannity has dubbed unreliable. But Times art co-chief critic Roberta Smith wrote, “His portraits initially depicted African-American men against rich textile or wallpaper backgrounds whose patterns he has likened to abstractions of sperm.”
That's a big rhetorical leap, even by Sean Hannity's standards.
Hannity has since deleted the tweet — and the article — but the URL is still there, and many Twitter users took screenshots, because nothing ever dies on the internet.
The Fox News host did not give an explanation on Twitter or on his show.
Hannity often criticizes major news outlets, claiming they are inaccurate and insisting that he actually fact-checks his work. "Earlier today my web staff posted content that was not reviewed by me before publication. It does not reflect my voice and message and, therefore, I had it taken down," Hannity said in a statement yesterday.
Hannity has previously railed against “lazy liberal media” on his show and has called out The New York Times for its use of anonymous sources. Ironically enough, he didn’t confirm his own website's reporting.
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