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Alan Colmes, Sean Hannity’s Liberal Partner on Fox News, Dies at 66 Alan Colmes, Sean Hannity’s Liberal Partner on Fox News, Dies at 66
(about 4 hours later)
Alan Colmes, Sean Hannity’s moderately liberal sparring partner for 12 years in Fox News Channel’s most tangible effort to fulfill its “fair and balanced” credo, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 66. Alan Colmes, for 12 years the mild-mannered and moderately liberal sparring partner to the conservative firebrand Sean Hannity in Fox News Channel’s most conspicuous effort to fulfill its “fair and balanced” credo, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 66.
His death was confirmed by his wife, Jocelyn Elise Crowley, a professor at Rutgers University. No cause was specified. His wife, Jocelyn Elise Crowley, a professor of public policy at Rutgers, said the cause was lymphoma.
Mr. Colmes, the grandson of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, was raised in New York. He worked in radio and as a stand-up comic before he was recruited in 1996 as the counterpart to Mr. Hannity, an Atlanta talk-radio host who had been selected by Roger Ailes, the Fox News founder and chairman, so far in advance that some insiders referred to the show as “Hannity & Liberal to Be Determined.” Mr. Colmes, the Brooklyn-born grandson of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, worked in radio and as a stand-up comic before he was recruited by Fox News just before the channel made its debut.
After auditioning prospective co-hosts, Mr. Hannity, a conservative firebrand, was said to have preferred the affable Mr. Colmes. “Hannity & Colmes” was born and remained on the air nightly until 2009. Mr. Hannity, an Atlanta talk-radio host, had already been selected by Roger Ailes, the founder and chairman of Fox News, to represent the right — so far in advance that some insiders were referring to the show as “Hannity & Liberal to Be Determined.”
Mr. Colmes also ran the Liberaland blog, contributed to AOL News and wrote several books, including “Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right and Right Is Wrong” (2003) and “Thank the Liberals for Saving America” (2012). After auditioning prospective co-hosts, Mr. Hannity was said to prefer the affable and witty Mr. Colmes. (“He was hired first and suggested me as a co-host,” Mr. Colmes later recalled. “I hope this answers, once and for all, why his name comes first in the title of our show.”)
In a statement, Mr. Hannity described Mr. Colmes as “one of life’s most decent, kind and wonderful people you’d ever want to meet.” “Hannity & Colmes” was born in October 1996 and remained on the air nightly until January 2009.
Mr. Colmes attended New York public schools and received a bachelor’s degree from Hofstra University’s School of Communications. On radio he was the host of “The Alan Colmes Show,” heard on Fox News Talk. The two men were billed as co-hosts, and Mr. Ailes insisted that producers deploy a stopwatch to make sure they received equal time. But many liberal critics considered the pairing lopsided. Some characterized Mr. Colmes as a punching bag, even as a sacrificial lamb being neutralized by the considerably more combative Mr. Hannity.
Starting in 2015, he supplied the voice of The Liberal Panel, an animatronic robot face, on Fox News Channel’s “The Greg Gutfeld Show.” Al Franken, the comedian who went on to become a United States senator, described Mr. Colmes in his book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right” (2003) as “a moderate milquetoast.” The media watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting harrumphed, “If the Harlem Globetrotters have the Washington Generals as their nightly fall guys, Sean Hannity has Alan Colmes.”
Mr. Colmes said he preferred to be in the minority among Fox’s stable of mostly conservative commentators than just another voice preaching to the liberal choir — though he sometimes described himself as a moderate, at least in his demeanor.
“People say to me, ‘Why don’t you fight fire with fire?’ ” he told The Associated Press in 2003. “You fight fire with water, not fire.”
In his book “Thank the Liberals for Saving America” (2012), Mr. Colmes argued that “almost every American holds many liberal views,” and that “conservatives have many more of them” than they admit.
“Sorry if that makes certain heads explode, but this ain’t Iran,” he wrote. “We live in one of the freest nations on earth, and that, in and of itself, makes you a liberal.”
Alan Samuel Colmes was born on Sept. 24, 1950, the son of Louis Colmes, an auctioneer, and the former Fay Was. His parents owned several jewelry stores.
He grew up listening to the late-night radio hosts Long John Nebel and Barry Gray, graduated from Lynbrook High School on Long Island, attended Ithaca College and graduated from Hofstra University.
He landed a drive-time slot on WABC radio in 1984 (he was billed as W. Alan B. Colmes, to match the station’s call letters) and switched three years later to WNBC. He was also heard on WMCA in New York and WZLX in Boston before being hired by Fox.
After “Hannity & Holmes,” he appeared on Fox as a guest commentator; was the host of “The Alan Colmes Show,” syndicated by Fox News; ran the Liberaland blog; contributed to AOL News; and wrote several books, including “Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right and Right Is Wrong” (2003). Starting in 2015, he supplied the voice of the Liberal Panel, a robot face, on Fox News Channel’s “The Greg Gutfeld Show.”
He was introduced to his wife through her sister Monica Crowley, another Fox News Channel contributor. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a sister, Susan Colmes Braitman.
“Hannity & Colmes” was Mr. Combes’s first venture into prime-time television.
“When we started, neither of us had a lot of TV experience,” Mr. Hannity said in an interview on Thursday. “Every day we would go to work and say, ‘Somebody made a mistake,’ and say, ‘What are we doing here?’ We felt like the luckiest guys on earth. We built the show together, and we were both really proud of it.
“The thing that most people never understood about us,” he added, “is, we had political differences, but were best friends. What we did on the air was real, but when the show ended we put all that aside, and we could do that because of his fundamental decency.”
“Alan always held his own,” Mr. Hannity said. “And when he left, he said: ‘I did my job. I got Barack Obama elected.’ ”
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