Why Obama should drop his fight against Fox News
A good rule for public feuds is always to be punching up. Getting in a pissing match with someone of lesser stature only elevates your opponent's stature and diminishes yours, no matter who wins on points. But where does that rule leave the President of the United States? The leader of the free world may find it hard to find a worthy sparring partner, but that doesn't mean he's not sorely tempted to take a swing.Right now, that temptation is coming from the midtown Manhattan headquarters of Fox News, which has been needling Barack Obama in ways large and small since long before he moved into the Oval Office. Fox officials would say their network is merely filling the vacuum left by the sycophancy of all the other mainstream news operations, which are only too eager to polish Obama's bust. You can decide for yourself whether Fox's relentless focus on ACORN and that missing birth certificate constitute valid watchdogging or biased mudslinging. Either way, the question is, is it smart for the Obama Administration to hit back?
Hitting back it is, after months of trying to play (mostly) nice. The change in tactics, according to Time, comes at the urging of communications director Anita Dunn. Venting her frustration to Michael Scherer, Dunn doesn't mince words. "They are opinion journalism masquerading as news," she says. The White House took an even harder shot last week on its official blog, debunking a number of supposed "Fox lies" and accusing the network of showing "disregard for the truth" in a "partisan attack."
How to deal with Rupert Murdoch's cable channel has been a dilemma for Team Obama since the primaries, when the Illinois senator refused to participate in a debate hosted by Fox and turned down invitation after invitation to appear on Fox News Sunday and The O'Reilly Factor. The solution he eventually hit on was very cautious engagement: an interview with O'Reilly and Chris Wallace and a behind-the-scenes meeting with Murdoch and Fox chief Roger Ailes.
Clearly, Obama was expecting that these peace offerings would yield a softening in Fox's tone towards him. Yet ever since Obama's inauguration, the network has been more critical than ever towards him -- and its increase in stridency has been matched by growth in ratings. Last week, on the eve of its 13th anniversary, Fox News was the No. 3 channel in all of basic cable for the total day.
What this means is that Obama lacks leverage. He can make the rounds of all the Sunday shows while snubbing Wallace, as he recently did, but it doesn't matter. Ailes would much rather Fox be No. 1 in viewers and advertisers than No. 1 in access.
Obama can't win this one, but he can avoid spending his ammunition in a hopeless fight. He should take heed of what I advised John McCain over a year ago: that running against the press is a loser's strategy. It signals weakness. And all the more so for someone like Obama, whose greatest strength is his superhuman ability to keep his cool. Sending his advisors to meet quietly with Fox executives to plead their case, as he did two weeks ago, is a smart move. Trying to intimidate Fox with public barbs and snubs is not.



























Reader Comments (Page 1 of 17)
10-08-2009 @ 8:19PM
John said...
The so called mainstream media is nothing but has been media. They do not report the news, they cover it up by not reporting it.
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10-08-2009 @ 9:23PM
Bob said...
the real mystery here is aol's uncanny determination to prop up the lefty viewpoint when it knows by its own internal polling that it's audience is on the right. Read any aol poll and you'll find a higher percentage of conservatives putting their 2 cents where their vote counts on aol polls.. But here comes a stupid aol blog, Beta (test site) no less called dailyfinance.com, note that it's an aol child.... That's why your service is free folks. You don't know your customer well enough to charge..
10-08-2009 @ 9:35PM
El Cid said...
Well said John. I strongly believe it is being manipulated and twisted to some unknown political sect.
10-08-2009 @ 9:58PM
Dianne said...
LOL!!!!!!
And Fox is Far and Balanced???
10-08-2009 @ 9:51PM
Steve said...
Fox Faux "news" is the most corrupt tool of the Bilderburg oligarchy in existence. I actually turn it on sometimes for the sheer comic SHOCK value. Have they ever said anything that was NOT a Lie?!?!?!??!!
10-08-2009 @ 10:18PM
Jim said...
Hey, Bob, AOL knows what it is doing. You righties love to blow a gasket every time you see something that doesn't suit your twisted thinking and tired rhetoric. You want to believe everything moderate and left of center is leftist media bias. Have a field day. National polls are the complete reverse of AOL polls.
10-08-2009 @ 11:15PM
doug said...
ok, your media said Palin was not qualified to be a VP. Remember? She was only Gov. of Alaska? Your guy WAS qualified because he was a MINORITY community organizer from Chicago.
My news channel (FOX) gave us the FACTS.....Now we are stuck with a 4 year campaign tour. It kind of makes me wish Jimmy Carter was president again.
10-14-2009 @ 5:14PM
Abraham said...
I agree, John. People have really wised up to the fact that mainstream is nothing but a diversion to stop people from really thinking.
10-08-2009 @ 3:54PM
Adam said...
As that laughable Dan Rather letter fraud demonstrated, the 'mainstream' media are equally capable of partisan mudslinging. The problem, for Obama, seems that Murdoch's empire wasn't among the Obama-Biden campaign's $700M+ media-telecom donors. Those people want something from Obama's administration, probably overturning the Bush FCC's whitespace decision. The non-Fox media's 'news' coverage of Obama has ranged from slobbering propaganda (Chris Matthews being the worst offender), to outright self-censorship (e.g., that Presidential Protocol-violating bow to King Abdullah). Even the media's use of very un-journalistic terms for Obama's opponents--'nutjob', 'tinfoil hat-wearing', 'tea-bagger[sic]'--indicates bias on the mainstream media's part.
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10-08-2009 @ 8:22PM
dossthane said...
Hmmm--the contents of that Dan Rather letter were 100% accurate, and despite myth-making, IBM Selectrics that could produce the very italic characters that stirred the controversy were in use in the building where the document was said to have produced at the time it was produced. Now really, all that should matter is the first--that the document's contents were utterly accurate. Everything else is red herrings. So what's so laughable? That distortion by attack dogs has somehow managed to convince a portion of the populace simply to ignore the facts? That's rather sad, not funny. Do note that Rather's case was not laughed out of the courts.
10-08-2009 @ 4:02PM
Lurker said...
FNC doesn't go after Obama about his birth certificate. They ignore that crap.
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10-13-2009 @ 10:42AM
Steve said...
You are wrong Lurker, they DO go after FNC about the birth certifcate. Twice yesterday, I heard atalking head blame Fox for supporting the birthers when the fact is that Fox does not support them; in fact they TRY to discourage that notion.
10-08-2009 @ 4:05PM
outandabout333 said...
OBummer should quit complaining and get on with ruining the country. What does he want a monopoly, he already has the big 3 and some cable channels in bed with him.
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10-08-2009 @ 5:31PM
MyKisa said...
....afraid of Fox Fluffy news....he could never stand a real test with media...they may ask some questions, but they are still easy on most of that bunch of crooks
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10-08-2009 @ 5:32PM
flamingrose40 said...
I think Chris Wallace said it best about Obama and his administration..."They are the biggest bunch of crybabies Ive seen in my 30yrs of journalism" Obama cant stand it that some of us spit out the Koolaid!!
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10-08-2009 @ 8:49PM
boosmom said...
I completely agree with you. Obama & the dems. are always crying foul when Fox & Reps. are making sense to people who are not for bigger government and for this disterous health care package. When the GOP screw up we for the most part don't whine and moan about those who disagree with us. There are good dems and Independants but Obama and his crew can't take it without whining.
10-09-2009 @ 1:24AM
Vicki said...
well said!! I agree!! Well maybe puked up the KOOLAID!
10-09-2009 @ 6:00AM
matt said...
you dont hear republicans whine when they screw up, well maybe if there was any news organization that reported republican screwups they just might. to any thinking person Foxs complete lack of ever finding any fault with any republican destroyes thier credibility. Fox is a far bigger threat to this nation then bin ladin has ever been, thier only goal is to destabilize the government and make sure no meaningful reform can take place. and I am truely sorry to be the 1 to inform you of the truth, but Fox News is the kool-aid dispensor and the people who lap it up are the people who hate america
10-08-2009 @ 6:48PM
Frank H. Smith III said...
Obama is but a small child on the world stage! I wonder if he thinks Bush is at fault for his low poll ratings or the lost bid for the olympics?
Funny how CNN has his approval ratings way high! These news sources who are in bed with Obummer should go bankrupt when he resigns or is impeached!!!!
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10-09-2009 @ 12:29AM
Prinni said...
Actually Frank, it is Oprah that is being blamed for the failed Olympic bid.