He’s sorry not so much in a “I feel remorse for my nastiness” way but more of a “I need to cut my losses before I alienate any more of my friends” way.

I knew he’d be the first to quit, though. If being a star in partisan political media means anything, it means you cannot capitulate to the other side. No matter whose jabs were harder, it was a cinch that Hannity would be the last one to stop throwing so that he could say he won.

Most of the headlines about this yesterday claimed, by the way, that Kimmel “apologized.” True — but not to Hannity.

re. @seanhannity pic.twitter.com/DMtWJTMsDU

— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) April 8, 2018

Hannity’s reply: This ain’t over.

https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/983047698772307968

Why’d Kimmel quit, apart from the fact that he was bickering with a guy whose media niche requires him to continue bickering until he can claim “victory”? It’s because many of his hardest shots at Hannity during their back-and-forth on Twitter tried to demean him by calling him gay (for Trump in particular), a conspicuous blind spot in his otherwise orthodox liberalism. It’s ironic too since it was another conspicuous blind spot, his treatment of women on air as co-host of “The Man Show” years ago, that Hannity was badgering him about to begin with. Kimmel seems every inch the doctrinaire progressive nowadays but rough him up a little and the “Man Show” dudebro reemerges. Other liberals noticed too:

Why do “progressive” comedians so readily jump to homophobic jokes when it comes to mocking conservatives? Either insinuating that they like receiving anal sex via bottoming—or any other homosexual sex act—is the surefire way to knock someone down a peg. Because insisting that they’re gay must be the ultimate insult, right? Because the insinuation that a man might want to have sex with another man is somehow funny. The act itself is comical.

They’re not the first liberal comedians to resort to such cheap jokes. Just think of last year, when Stephen Colbert used homophobic jokes of his own to attack President Trump on The Late Show. “The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster,” Colbert said to Trump during a 2017 monologue. Once again, the idea of a man engaging in a sexual act with another man is seen as funny. It’s the worst way to insult a straight man: implying that he might be gay.

I’m mighty curious to see if Hannity picks up on this critique tonight. It’d be something else to watch Fox News primetime lecture America’s liberal late-night “conscience” about proper sensitivity to gays. (Bonus points if he has Ric Grenell on and ties it somehow to Democratic obstruction of Grenell’s ambassadorship.) Although you know what Kimmel will say in his defense if Hannity presses him on this: “It’s not that *I* think there’s anything wrong with being gay, it’s that *conservatives* do.” He was just rubbing Hannity’s face in the right’s anxiety about masculinity. Think his gay fans will buy it?