Obama vs. Fox
Brendan Monroe
Issue date: 11/13/09 Section: Opinions
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What a match-up, right? Wrong! For as much as I dislike the three Fox commentators (although O'Reilly kind of grows on you, I must say), for President Obama to be battling the commentators and their news organization is beyond sensible. The Obama administration's recent war on Fox News is wrong for so many reasons, starting with the obvious one. By engaging the right-leaning organization in an open and hostile exchange of words and refusing to appear or allow members of his administration to appear on the channel, President Obama is setting the Fox News Channel up as a primary rival and simultaneously giving them the credibility that they never would have received otherwise. This problem has been exacerbated in the wake of Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett's disastrous appearance on CNN with Campbell Brown when, in a fair and predictable exchange, Jarrett revealed fully the depths of the Obama administration's rancor toward Fox News.
Campbell Brown began by asking the obvious: "Do you think Fox News is biased?"
To which Jarrett responded, "Well of course they're biased, of course they are..."
The trouble started when Brown asked Jarrett her next question: "Do you also think MSNBC is biased?"
Despite this being a pretty obvious question, one Jarrett and the Obama administration should have anticipated being asked, Jarrett made the notorious mistake of trying to backtrack: "Well, you know what this is, this is the thing, I don't want, actually, I don't want to just generalize all FOX is biased, or another station is biased..."
Now this is where there is a problem with what the Obama administration is doing. It would be one thing entirely for them to call Fox News out, as they have done, for unfair, inaccurate reporting and misrepresentation-this is what President Obama promised to do in his address to Congress in September. The problem arises when the administration singles out a news organization for espousing a negative opinion of the President's policies and, as in Jarrett's case, ignores bias on the other side. While no one could deny that Fox News is anything but "Fair and Balanced," the same could be said for MSNBC, in particular the programs hosted by mainstay's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. These shows, particularly Olbermann's "Countdown," are as left-leaning as Hannity's is right.
Jon Stewart provided some much-needed clarity for the Obama administration on his Oct. 29 episode of "The Daily Show," instructing them to say, "Of course MSNBC is biased, but they agree with us! So we're not fighting with them!"
Stewart has it right, and the administration might as well admit what we all already know. Instead, Obama and his staff have been acting downright Nixonian, going so far as to forbid fellow Democrats from making appearances on the station.
One Democratic strategist interviewed in the Nov. 8 edition of the "L.A. Times" spoke of receiving a phone message after appearing on the station saying, "We better not see you on again," and threatening that "clients might stop using you if you continue."
The strategist was interviewed anonymously so as not to risk a backlash from the White House. This is a most dangerous proposition for a White House that has been incredibly conscious of how the public perceives it. Other news organizations that have been bitterly opposed to Fox News in the past are now in the position of defending Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. An administration that decides to censor a news organization for content has to be called to task, whether the target is Fox News or the Washington Post. If the Obama administration does not like the way Fox is reporting something, what is to stop them from censoring a different news outlet the next time? All this "war" on Fox News is really doing is making the President seem like a petulant child and making Fox News garner even higher ratings. But the thing that is most disconcerting in all of this is that the insipid crocodile tears the White House is crying over Fox News is taking time and focus away from the pressing issues facing the country. Clearly, President Obama and his administration have crossed a line and they had better step back from the edge before it is too late.
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