Colmes, Alan

Alan Colmes, (born September 24, 1950, New York, New York, U.S.—died February 23, 2017), American talk radio and television news commentator. Colmes came to national prominence in his role as cohost of the Fox News Channel’s political debate show Hannity & Colmes. He is also host of The Alan Colmes Show, a nationally syndicated late-night talk radio program on Fox News Radio.

Colmes graduated from Hofstra University in 1971 and began his media career in 1979, working in talk radio. He hosted late-night political talk programs for New York City radio station WABC starting in 1982. In 1984 the station moved him to a daytime slot, which increased his audience and boosted his popularity. In 1990 his talk radio show was syndicated nationwide.

Six years later Colmes joined the Fox News Channel to cohost Hannity & Colmes (1996–2009), with Colmes providing the liberal viewpoint and acting as a foil to Sean Hannity’s conservatism. Some liberal critics of the program claimed that Colmes was actually a political moderate and that Fox’s description of him as a “hard-hitting liberal” was merely a reflection of the channel’s conservative orientation. In addition to his radio and television work, Colmes wrote Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong (2003), a book of political essays, and Thank the Liberals*:*For Saving America (And Why You Should) (2012), a paean to the accomplishments of the political left in the United States.