Obama Can't Counter So He Must Discredit Fox News
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If the first rule of Fight Club is not to talk about Fight Club then the first rule of the Obama administration is if you can’t rebut a charge you must attack the person/people/organization making the charge.
And so it is with Fox News. The level of pandering shown by the Obama administration over the weekend towards CNN and other news organizations is simply pathetic. I hope different people are in charge of things like the economy, Afghanistan, Iraq, healthcare, etc. Probably not but here’s what was said about “evil” Fox News:
The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox.”
Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is “not a news organization.”
“Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way,” Axelrod counseled ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “We’re not going to treat them that way.”
Sounds to me like an administration that is upset people are questioning its message. Presidential hubris is something we’ve seen before. Nixon made an “enemies” list of reporters he disliked. But shutting out an entire network because they don’t kiss ass the way CNN and MSNBC do?
White House Communication’s Director Anita Dunn went on the attack last week and what did Chris Wallace, the man whom she attacked, have to say about it?
The White House stopped providing guests to “Fox News Sunday” after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August.
Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was “something I’ve never seen a Sunday show do.”
“She criticized ‘Fox News Sunday’ last week for fact-checking — fact-checking — an administration official,” Wallace said Sunday. “They didn’t say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check.”
“Let’s fact-check Anita Dunn, because last Sunday she said that Fox ignores Republican scandals, and she specifically mentioned the scandal involving Nevada senator John Ensign,” Wallace added. “A number of Fox News shows have run stories about Senator Ensign. Anita Dunn’s facts were just plain wrong.”
I proved in an article last week that Dunn’s assertion the Chris Wallace never “fact checked” a politician in the previous 12 months was wrong. But if you repeat something long enough people seem to think it’s true. Ironically, this is what the Obama administration says Fox News does.
Taking on a news administration, particularly one that dominates cable, is a bad decision. Not only does it show Obama to be weak, thin skinned, and petty, but also arrogant if he thinks he can control the information and convince other organizations to play ball in attempting to marginalize Fox.
Check out the article tomorrow showing just what how the Obama administration likes to “portray” their message.
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8:42 AM
funny how first amendment rights work against fascist regimes.
“White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox.”
that’s kind of delusional. barring extreme scandle, i just don’t see cnn following fox’s lead on anything.
“Nixon made an “enemies” list of reporters he disliked.” Obama already tried this. Didn’t work because people saw instantly what it really was.
11:40 PM
By making Fox News a story they will be forced to cover it. Whether they will see that they could be threatened in the same way Fox has been is another point unto its own.