More and more unflattering commentary – and news – is coming out about the White House war on Fox News. And the other major media are covering that news – and refusing to sign on to Obama administration efforts to hurt Fox.
This is backfiring on a truly grand scale.
At first, there was little reaction from other media. Then on Thursday, the administration tried to make them complicit in an actual boycott of Fox. The Treasury Department made available Ken Feinberg, the executive pay czar, for interviews with the White House “pool” news organizations — except Fox. The other networks admirably refused, saying they would not interview Feinberg unless Fox was permitted to as well. The administration backed down.
This was an important defeat because there’s a principle at stake here. While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they’re engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
A White House effort to undermine conservative critics is generating a backlash on Capitol Hill — and not just from Republicans.
“It’s a mistake,” said Rep. Jason Altmire, a moderate Democrat from western Pennsylvania. “I think it’s beneath the White House to get into a tit for tat with news organizations.”
Altmire was talking about the Obama administration’s efforts to undercut Fox News. But he said his remarks applied just the same to White House efforts to marginalize the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a powerful business lobby targeted for its opposition to climate change legislation.
The heated back-and-forth between the White House and Fox News has brought equal delight to Fox’s conservative commentators, who revel in the fight, and liberal Democrats, who have long characterized the network as a purveyor of right-wing propaganda rather than fact-based journalism.
Speaking privately at the White House on Monday with a group of mostly liberal columnists and commentators, including Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC and Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich and Bob Herbert of The New York Times, Mr. Obama himself gave vent to sentiments about the network, according to people briefed on the conversation.
Closely related, although not dealing with Fox News, per se, is this shot from CNN. Yes, CNN.
A well-known Democratic strategist in Virginia is blasting the White House for placing anonymous quotes in the Washington Post in a pre-emptive effort to blame Creigh Deeds for what might be a loss in the state’s upcoming gubernatorial election.
David “Mudcat” Saunders, who gained political fame helping Democrat Mark Warner reach out to rural voters during Warner’s successful 2001 gubernatorial bid, told CNN Friday that trying to blame Deeds is “bulls**t” when Democrats around the country are “just tired of politics.”
I honestly believe that the White House gang never even considered exactly how their thug tactics would come across, even to a media who has largely given them a free pass up until now. Because the message from the White House is very simple:
“Lick our boots and we’ll talk to you. Oppose us and we will shut you down.”
That may be Chicago-style politics, but it is also the same tactic that banana republics like (T)Hugo Chavez’s Cuba South use. In fact, (T)Hugo is shutting down media that opposes him, too.
What the White House gang is attempting is not in line with American values. Even the major, non-Fox media is getting that now. And they are backing away from the White House as a result.
Links via Memeorandum.
The tactics of the Obama administration is not solely “Chicago” style.
This increasingly frightening regime resembles the totalitarian countries of Stalin, Castro, and Chavez. All the signs are there, including the bullying tactics and economic domination utilized by these dictators.
Beware the slippery slope of tyranny.
This is the only way they know how to work the system. It’s reflexive, thuggish and crass. Works well in small locales with centralized power structure. Nationally, failure is to be expected.
They ain’t gonna learn, small fish, big pond, with predators, etc.
Obama(& Co.) is truly becoming scared of Fox news.
Heck, I don’t want those sober, steely eyed reporters from Fox on my bubbas either; uncovering the acres of maryjane, our jugs of Hwy 90 proof and our trailer park known as”Bawdy House” up by the Florida line.
Oooops!