I have been amused by watching the members of the chattering class fall all over themselves to defend Fox News and to be critical of the White House’s decision to freeze Fox out of guests from the administration. These talkers hate Fox News and wish nothing but professional ill will to anyone involved with the network. They believe that Fox gives journalism a bad name and yet they pretend this outrage at the White House’s exclusion of the network.
The President and his people can speak to whomever they choose and not speak to whomever they choose. There is a long history of Presidents and staff freezing out certain reporters, newspapers, radio stations and now cable news networks. Bush 43 did not allow his people on MSNBC. It’s not like the people who only watch Fox are really interested in anything the President has to say. After all they have an addict and a philanderer to tell them what is moral and the right way think. The chatterers are trying to make it sound as if the President is ignoring large quantities of voters. The viewer ship for any given FOX show is a few hundred thousand and we are a nation of over 300 million people. If you only get your news from Fox the chances are that you are not going to vote for many Democrats or the President anyway. How many tea bagging birthers do you know who are saying positive things about Barack Obama?
I am not sure it was wise to telegraph this strategy as publicly as the White House did; it has become yet another distraction. On the same token I understand why the President would not want to reward the network that has spread the birther movement, created that racist tea bagger event in DC and led the ridiculous drumbeat against his stay in school and work hard speech during the first week of school.
The critics of the President say he is only speaking to friendly questioners or at least questioners who have shown proclivity to the center left. I watched most or part of his most recent Sunday chatathon. The questioners asked the tough question and did not seem to hold back. The downside that morning of all things Obama was the lack of diversity in the questions there was some slight variations but overall the questions were all very similar. Despite the best efforts of the punditry that were left out of the marathon the President seems to be well served by the effort and one can point to that weekend was when his numbers began to rebound.
The Fox News networks conservative bias is clear. The critics like to point out the MSNBC is also biased but in the more liberal direction. It may is true that some of MSNBC’s stars are more to the left than the hosts of Fox but a show hosted by Joe McCarthy & Joe Kennedy would be to the left of Fox. For the critics to compare the bias found on Fox to the bias found on MSNBC is like comparing the intellectual drive & pursuit of knowledge by Sarah Palin and that of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yes, Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow tend to side with the President on most issues but I have also seen them come after him when they believed he fell short. How many times did we see Fox challenge Bush/Cheney? Does Fox have a host that leans left to compare with the conservative leaning MSNBC host, Joe Scarborough? If The Fox News network showed even a slight interest in covering both sides of the story I believe the President would reward them with some of his staffers but as long as the network continues to carry the conservative/ Republican message as loyally as a staffer of the RNC, they deserve to be left out of the good graces of the Obama administration.
Amen.
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