Sean Hannity, Obama, and Dijongate

last updated 8 January 2015

"Freedom-fry loving conservatives" have started another food fight, said Mary Ann Akers in The Washington Post. Led by Sean Hannity on Fox News, the angry right is accusing President Obama of being an elitist for ordering a cheeseburger with Dijon mustard instead of ketchup. (watch reaction to "Dijongate" by Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Steyn via Media Matters) But that's not all—Hannity and Co. also blasted the liberal media for covering up "Obama's Dijon mustard eating ways."

Talk about a non-story, said Ed Morrissey in Hot Air. OK, so it's true that MSNBC broadcasters talked over Obama's order, so you couldn't hear Obama asking for the Dijon. That's not because they think the president's mustard preference "represented an enormous insult to the working-class families that Obama and Joe Biden claim to represent. It's probably because it's just mustard."

Of course it's just mustard, said Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson in Legal Insurrection (hat tip Memeorandum). The tweaking of Obama's condiment choice—by me and other bloggers was "tongue-in-cheek." Our real target was the "absurd extent to which the Obama administration went to create a 'real guy kind of quality' image of Obama/Biden" eating their burgers, and the shameful way in which "MSNBC played along like a loyal worshipper." (watch Daily Show host Jon Stewart's take on MSNBC's report)