The Obama White House's war on Fox News heated up when President Obama appeared on five Sunday talk shows in September, but snubbed Fox's Chris Wallace. Then White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told CNN's Howard Kurtz, "Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party." On ABC's "This Week" Sunday, Obama guru David Axelrod commented on Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch's "talent for making money" — and added that Fox News programming is "not really news."
Such scruples, you may marvel, from the office of a president who just spent quality time on CBS's "The Late Show" with David Letterman. President Obama quipped that he appeared on the show to sneak a peak at a "heart-shaped potato." I know because I read about it on the CBS News Web page.
OK, so Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., went too far in suggesting that Obama was drafting an "enemies list." White House aides have a right to criticize a news organization, even question its credibility.
In the same vein, pundits are free to mock the administration's risible attempts to dress up its thin-skinned ways as love for unbiased reportage.
Note: This phony act has backfired. It set the stage for conservative critics at WorldNetDaily to post a January video of Dunn telling a Dominican government conference that the 2008 Obama campaign strategy focused on "making the press cover what we were saying" — often by not talking to reporters. "It was very much, we controlled it," said Dunn, "as opposed to the press controlled it."
Dunn's idea of a good journalist then would be: a zombie.
A few members of the walking dead are parroting the White House lines.
The self-styled watchdog group Media Matters, staffed by former journalists and politicos, proclaimed Fox "a 24/7 political operation" — its way of lumping news shows with Fox's primetime opinion shows.
The irony here is: Media Matters is Fox News — at its most opinionated. As its website explains, the group's focus is "monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." (My italics, their emphasis.)
In a Newsweek column, Jacob Weisberg suggested that "respectable journalists" like NPR's Mara Liasson should "stop appearing on" Fox News. Weisberg complained about Fox's "all-pervasive slant" — then criticized any journalists who might try to present a liberal or moderate point of view. Weisberg's real lament then is that Fox is not slanted enough. It makes you wonder if the real goal of Fox critics — Weisberg anyway — is to turn the network into a living hell of All Glenn Beck All The Time.
When Republicans were in power, the answer to unwelcome speech was, of course, more speech. They called it a dialogue. For Team Obama, however, the antidote to unwanted comment is challenge the credentials, not only of critics when they get their facts wrong, but any professional associated in any way with Obama critics.
Now, I happen to agree with Obama boosters who argue that the president has no obligation to appear on Fox News shows. If Obama and his minions don't think they can hold their own with Chris Wallace, they are free to cower in their comfy offices.
E-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com. To find out more about Debra J. Saunders, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
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Ma'am;.... There is not one single voice on Fox that is objctive, let alone fair, or balanced... It is safe to say that the truth is not fair...The truth is what it is, and when we let a balanced opinion be expressed in the face of physical reality, we do truth, and ourselves, an injury...For example...There was nothing to be gained by going to war in Afghanistan, or Iraq, and less than nothing to be gained by staying there...The physical reality of the distance, and the difference in culture, and our own division argued against our going... Yet; Fox trumpeted us into war becaause the republicaans wanted war... Are they stuck with the cost??? They get off free, and stick America with the bill for their slavishness...This fact means they are irresponsible... I watch Fox occasionally...They do not ever report the news when they do not slant it in a particular direction; against the liberals... Worst of all, they force news organizations like cnbc, and cnn inevitably to the left because they divide the population between them, the Fox sheeple, and the intellligent, thoughtful, and aware...Fox has not had one good word to say about Mr. Obama as president...The democrats won the election, but there shall be no peace...Why should anyone have peace???.Why should any one be allowed to do their job, the job for which they were elected without endless chatter and carping from the minority??? If you have no respect for the people, you will not have any respect for their elected representatives, but such dissing is poison... Unity is one goal of our constitution, and we might argue that the constitution has failed if discord can so easily divide us... Still; we might also argue that the division is not natural, and that the frustration of the people can always be manipulated by demogogues... But such demogogues, who are traitors to the spirit of our constitution should be supressed, and not just ignored... The freedom of the press is not the right to spread poison any more than freedom of speech is an invitation to lible...If you use the right, you must uphold the right, and return the right justified to the people... We could live without freedom of the press, and should, if press freedom does not support general freedom...The same is true of freedom of religon... Religion has done nothing good for this land, or this people...Religion has only spread prejudice, bigotry, and division...Even property should not be a right if it cannot be shown to be in the public interest...We have a rich man, Rupert Murdoch, who is schooled in Socialist Economics, whose rights are protected by the government and society, who is using the bile of Fox to attack the society and government which protects him...We are a house divided...We may some day have to fight a civil war to define once more the limits of property rights... In Fox, that war has already begun, and they rally their troops... They do not seek unity, and they do not seek justice, freedom, tranquility, or our general welfare...There is no good they seek, but wish us every harm... Let me say it: They have no right... They are pure propaganda, and Mr. Murdoch is only an opportunist...There are certain legitimate goals of all governments, and Aristotle lumped these goals under the heading of Good, because that is the aim of all human activity... When my good conflicts with your good, it is time for a meeting of minds, and not a barrage of babble... Fox is so much babble...Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Thu Oct 22, 2009 5:21 AM
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