UNDER THE FOLD: WHAT IS SAID THERE, STAYS THERE...

Fox News Channel conservative talker Sean Hannity will be visiting Lakeland on Friday as the featured speaker for Southeastern University's scholarship fundraising event, but don't expect to hear a lot about what is said during his hour long presentation.

Hannity's standard contract mandates that media representatives can only watch and photograph the first ten minutes of his address, then be escorted out of the venue. In addition, there will be no media interviews during his time in town, except for a ten minute bit with a reporter from the local Fox affiliate (in this case, Tampa's WTVT-13, which is owned and operated by Fox subsidiary New World Communications).

Officials told the Lakeland Ledger that such restrictions are more common with media personalities due to contractual requirments with their employers and concern for competition.

Southeastern University is a small liberal arts school which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God religious demonination. Hannity's appearance at the President's Scholarship Gala is sold out, and is expected to raise $250,000 for the school's scholarship fund. The event's big money donors --- $10,000 for a table of eight --- will get 16 signed copies of Hannity's latest book, "Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism" among other perks.

Southeastern's decidedly hard right influence was also noted in November when it tapped as it's winter commencement speaker Drayton Nabers, Jr., Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. In 2004 Nabers was chosen to replace Roy Moore, who was removed from the bench for refusing to follow a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state's judicial building. Nabers has a strong conservative lean as well, shown in his book "The Case for Character: Looking At Character From A Biblical Perspective".

In the book, Nabers condemns abortion, supports school voucher programs and cites the breakdown of traditional families as the root of what he considers the country's moral collapse.

Kinda like hearing the men chatting it up in the barber shop or feed store when I was a kid in Mississippi, talking about how "them damn n*****s" were going to be the destruction of humanity by wanting a decent education and seeking respect...