Laying the Groundwork
by Mike on Oct.20, 2009, under Political
In the last week or so the Obama administration has opened up a full scale barrage on Fox News. First, WH Communications Director Anita Dunn threw out a few opening salvos:
“The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. And it is not ideological… what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party.”
“Obviously [the President] will go on Fox because he engages with ideological opponents. He has done that before and he will do it again… when he goes on Fox he understands he is not going on it as a news network at this point. He is going on it to debate the opposition.”
“[Fox is] widely viewed as a part of the Republican Party: take their talking points and put them on the air, take their opposition research and put it on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news organization like CNN is.”
This is so wrong an a number of levels, but I will deal with that later.
Sunday morning, it was WH Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and WH Senior Advisor David Axelrod’s turn. Emanual ripped Fox News claiming it “is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective.”
Then WH Senior Advisor David Axelrod claimed about Fox News that “It’s really not news — it’s pushing a point of view.”
These would be hilarious if these guys were a couple of lefty bloggers on the Huffington Post. But they are not. Emanuel and Axelrod are the closest confidants of the President and other than the inept Robert Gibbs, Anita Dunn is the primary mouthpiece of the administration and its policies.
So where is this going? Watch closely and you will see this rhetoric build to a crescendo about how Fox News is an extension of the Republican party, misrepresents the facts about the President’s policies, deceives the American people, etc. Then someone will “notice” that Fox has the highest news ratings so there must be lots of people being misled by Fox News the deceiver. This will then morph into a drumbeat for reimplementation of the fairness doctrine. Since Fox is “not news”, Fox needs to present offsetting opinions to “balance” the RNC propaganda they are spewing. Never mind that there are 500 other stations on the channel dial, including Obama handmaidens MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, etc. Never mind that the print media is in the bag for the liberals or that there are a host of bloggers on the web presenting opposing views to Fox. Fox has the numbers so they must present the opposing viewpoint.
Watch this and see if this plays out. In my mind, the administration is just “laying the groundwork.”
ps. Anita Dunn – what an idiot! When is the President going to go on Fox? Why has the White House refused to provide any administration officials to go on Fox News Sunday to be interviewed by Chris Wallace since August? When the President made his 5 Sunday news show blitz a few weeks ago, why was Fox News omitted?
And she demonstrated she really understands what a real news organization is when she stated “let’s not pretend they’re a news organization like CNN is.” Is she referring to the same CNN which fact checked a Saturday Night Live skit critical of the President but did not see fit to fact check inflammatory quotes they attributed to Rush Limaugh? Then when they were called on their erroneous reporting, issued the correction via Twitter? That is one top flight news organization – no doubt about it!
