Hannity baits Utah Demo

In the past few days, Utah Democratic Party chairman Donald Dunn has called Sean Hannity a "pimp" and "lackey" for the Republican Party and claimed his talk show was the radio version of the National Enquirer.

Hannity has even verbally sparred on-air with Dunn — now infamously known by Hannity's legion of 14 million listeners as "Donald Duck" — a couple of different times this week on national and local radio after the Democratic leader blasted him in a local newspaper. Hannity also asked Dunn for a public apology.

Not exactly somebody you'd think the conservative radio host/best-selling author would want to invite to his highly publicized Salt Lake City book-tour stop, right?

Wrong.

Hannity personally invited Dunn to come on the Abravanel Hall stage with him Wednesday night for a friendly political debate during his lecture on his New York Times No. 1 nonfiction hardback, "Deliver Us From Evil."

But Dunn declined, even turning down Hannity's offer to donate $10,000 to his favorite children's charity and telling Doug Wright on his KSL Radio show that he "didn't want to take his bait" because he'd be at "an unfair advantage."

He was right about that — unless, that is, you consider the highly rated host and his crowd of 2,500 "Hannitized" souls against a lonely liberal to be good odds.

And though he was a no-show, Dunn was hardly forgotten.

"Where is that coward!?" yelled one attendee when Dunn's photo was shown.

"I don't want this guy out of power (in Utah)," Hannity joked. "He's doing such a good job losing, it'd be such a travesty."

Dunn wasn't the only one Hannity targeted. The Democratic chairman might take pride in knowing that he was booed as loudly as other so-called liberal foes of the conservative crowd — Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, among others — whom Hannity railed against during his well-received speech. Hannity said Dunn's name-calling typifies the liberal leadership in the country now, which is why he says he was stunned Dunn called him "divisive."

That's the main reason Hannity says he's doing this nationwide book tour. He wants to pick a fight with modern liberals who he says have betrayed the party's old-fashioned ideals and leadership and are engaging in "unsubstantiated" Bush bashing and "hate speech" while the country is at war.

"It has gotten so reckless and irresponsible. We're angry and fed up. We've had it," Hannity said. "They criticize a good president and a good man who has shown moral clarity and courage."