Besides an enlarged hathos gland, what makes me watch? I don’t share Tilton’s faith or his theology. Maybe I’m trying to glimpse what makes sick and dying people send him their money instead of spending it on medical treatment or leaving it to their families.
The patron saint of hathos connoisseurs, H.L. Mencken, was a brave soul, but even a fellow as sturdy and unstinting as he might have been struck dumb in the presence of the extravagantly hathotic Kathie Lee Gifford.
2003 — Andrew Sullivan, "Drudge and O'Reilly", The Washington Times, 19 December 2003:
I wonder how much of his ratings are based on hathos — the enjoyment you get from hating someone, the same delicious feeling you get reading a Paul Krugman column or listening to Senator Biden.
The episode of the Merv Griffin Show that so inspired Heard a quarter-century ago has now been supplanted in the annals of hathos by the epic new cinematic document named Sex and the City 2.
