Alan Colmes - Criticism and Satire

Criticism and Satire

While Colmes describes himself as a liberal and his Fox News biography touts him as "a hard-hitting liberal," he has sometimes been referred to disparagingly as a "token liberal" or a "Fox News liberal" by liberal sources. Colmes told USA Today that he considers himself "quite moderate."

During his run on Hannity and Colmes, Colmes was criticized for being less charismatic and telegenic than Sean Hannity, and just a "seat-filler" for the liberal side. Some newspapers reported him as being Hannity's "sidekick". Democratic Senator Al Franken criticized Colmes in his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, saying he refused to ask tough questions during debates and neglected to challenge erroneous claims made by Hannity or his guests. Franken claimed that Colmes did not speak as much as Hannity during the show. Some liberal critics questioned whether or not both hosts receive equal time to interview guests. Some of Colmes's liberal critics, notably commentators at Media Matters for America, praised him toward the end of the show's run. He began to cite their reports in interviews with some conservative guests on the program.

Bob Garfield, interviewing Colmes for On the Media in 2003, asked him if he was "the human straw man" and a "foil" rather than an equal of Hannity. Colmes replied that if the conservative members of the audience saw him that way, that was "their problem," and said "It's more fun for me to be in a situation like this than to preach to the choir."