Journalism

On Fighting Fire: The Best Quote You Might Hear All Week

123RF

Last Updated on February 1, 2022

Fox News Commentator Alan Colmes, who had a great quote about fighting fire in political debates, died this week at age 66.

How should one go about fighting fire? It depends on your point of view. Most insist you fight fire — at least fiery words of rhetoric — with fire. Alan Colmes didn’t agree with that sentiment.

Colmes was half of the Fox News program Hannity and Colmes, which aired on Fox News from 1996 to 2009. Sean Hannity, the other half of the team, called him “one of life’s most decent, kind and wonderful people you’d ever want to meet.”

I have to be honest: I never watched it. I tend to avoid political debate shows like the plague because I find almost no value whatsoever in such programming. I don’t know of anyone whose mind has been changed by such a program, no matter what network it happens to be on.

All too often, anything that begins as something resembling “genuine” conversation too easily degenerates into shouting matches from pigheaded people who don’t listen to each other anyway.

I don’t know if Hannity and Colmes followed this pattern or not. At this point, I don’t suppose it matters one way or the other.

Colmes died earlier this week at 66 after a brief illness, his family said.

His former co-host,

“People say to me, ‘Why don’t you fight fire with fire?'” he told The Associated Press in 2003. And here it is:

“You fight fire with water, not fire.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if more people — particularly those on Facebook — could remember that quote a little more often? Scanning the Facebook newsfeed makes it clear that we need a lot more water and much less flame.

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.