We Have Seen the Enemy and It Is FOX News

posted at 10:13 am on October 13, 2009 by
[ Media ]    printer-friendly

When candidate Barack Obama said during the presidential debates that he would sit down with any world leader without precondition, it was a rookie blunder. Everyone at the time saw it as such — even, I’m sure, Obama. But at the risk of seeming merely mortal and being someone with the gift of never being wrong (even about the surge in Iraq), he made that abjectly idiotic stance part of his platform and won election in spite of it.

Yet now it turns out there is one “enemy” Obama won’t sit down with, and that’s the FOX News Channel. Over the weekend, White House communications director Anita Dunn declared war on FOX News, stating that “we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

This is not the first time an administration mixed it up with a member of the press. Richard Nixon avenged himself on the Washington Post by attempting to revoke the license of a Miami-based TV station the Post Corporation owned. But the Obama administration isn’t just any administration. This is The Administration — the one we’ve been waiting for. It is an administration with a professed singular devotion to post-partisanship and an end to petty politics. Now suddenly in the face of tough coverage they are singling out one news network for banishment from the realm. Sounds pettier than ever to me.

But rejecting the legitimacy of FOX News doesn’t just look bad to fair-minded observers. It is bad, from a political standpoint. Michael Clemente, senior vice president of the network’s news division, correctly observed in response to Dunn’s declaration that “Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode.” He added (borrowing a page from the “distraction” section of Obama’s campaign handbook) that “perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about.”

Another downside to the move include its seeming repudiation of voters who happen to be regular FOX News Channel viewers. (In Obama’s America, everyone is equal, but FOX News Channel viewers are less equal than others.) To make matters worse, FOX News’s ratings tower above those of the other cable news outlets, coming in in fact at fourth behind the major broadcast networks with a 13 percent market share for much of its broadcast cycle. That’s a lot of ears, many belonging to the independents that he so desperately needs for support of among other things his health-care reform proposal, that won’t be receiving his message.

Cross-posted at Zombie Contentions

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One mistake, mis-judgment, partial truth and hollow promise after another…Yet, none of this is the Obama administrations fault, someone or something else is always to blame.

jeanie on October 13, 2009 at 10:35 AM

Howard, one other thing is for sure and that is that Newsweek is most certainly not the enemy.

Track-A-'Crat on October 13, 2009 at 11:15 AM

Track: Not just not the enemy but a defender in its most recent issue of Biden. Good luck with that battle!

Howard Portnoy on October 13, 2009 at 11:23 AM

I read this article, and agree with Portnoy.

As a teen, I read Portnoy’s Complaint, and in today’s context I am reminded of the recent Australian comedy skit where an “avid fan” was pleasuring himself to a pic of Obama. A closer look might have shown this to be a caricature of Chris Matthews, Keith Olberman, or any of the other so-called “journalists” carrot-wackers in the mainstream media.

Many of us have learned long ago to abandon MSM and seek alternatives for any semblance of unadulterated truth in the news of the day. Fox News has proven to be a valued and trustworthy source, and I find it insulting and unacceptable that the current precedent now refuses to deal with Fox News.

If no-balls peace prize winner zeroBama had his way, our only news source would be the state-run media, as the all-knowing Rush Limbaugh refers to them.

All the more reason to stick with Fox News, Rush, Sean, Laura Ingraham, Glenn, and Mark Levin.

Lastly, I only hope the health scare bill goes down in flames today, otherwise we’re screwed.

Sweet_Thang on October 13, 2009 at 11:29 AM

Lord Almighty, when the organization you work for (and which isn’t called the Democratic Party ) collectively decides to promote The Sheriff as one of the most underestimated political minds of our time, you know something has gone gravely wrong.

Do they only listen to his speeches on mute and add their own words, or can they really be that full of mushy-brained Left-wing emotion-as-logic arguments?

Track-A-'Crat on October 13, 2009 at 11:31 AM

so fox is bad because they put out a differnt view than every other network? god forbid we have a network to watch that leans right

larry harris on October 13, 2009 at 11:48 AM

Campaigning is easier than governing, and in the Obama Administration’s case, far easier than explaning why the governing you’ve done for the past 10 months has been such a miserable failure.

It easier to stay in campaign mode and attack Fox than admit that what you’ve done so far hasn’t exactly gone according to plan. And from a 2010 standpoint, the White House and Democrats in general need something to fire up their voters, who aren’t likely to be rushing to the polls based on the positive things Obama’s done, Nobel or no Nobel. Better to try and fire up the true believers with basically ‘negative campaigning’ except with Fox News substituting for John McCain or (closer to the target) Sarah Palin.

jon1979 on October 13, 2009 at 12:51 PM

More proof that the libs require 100% blind devotion inside a sealed echo chamber to their cause. Just pitiful.

Then again, they tried this with Rush Limbaugh first. Then it was “town hall protesters”. Now they’ve moved on to “Fox News”. Seems like they always need an enemy to deride.

LibTired on October 14, 2009 at 8:52 AM