I apologize for calling another poster out but I am curious if Giddyup will defend Dunn's use of Mao as he did Sowell's use of Hitler.
I think this is the more interesting aspect of this whole story: Apologies in advance for quoting FoxNews. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/18/white-house-escalates-war-fox-news-1925819282/ [rquoter]White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News Senior Obama administration officials took to the airwaves Sunday to accuse Fox News of pushing a particular point of view and not being a real news network. 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. Top political strategists question the decision by the Obama administration to escalate its offensive against Fox News. And as of Monday, the four other major television networks had not given any indication that they intend to sever their ties with Fox News. But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox "opinion journalism masquerading as news" in an interview last Sunday. 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." Asked Monday about another Axelrod claim that Fox News is just trying to make money, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that while all media companies fall under that description, "I would say sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating those profits." But by urging other news outlets to side with the administration, Obama officials dramatically upped the ante in the war of words that began earlier this month with Dunn's comments. So far, none of the four other major networks has given any indication that they wish to disinvite Fox News from the White House pool -- the rotation through which the networks share the costs and duties of White House coverage and the most significant interaction among the news channels. 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." Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues." Observers on both sides of the political aisle questioned the White House's decision to continue waging war on a news organization, saying the move carried significant political risks. Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said on CNN: "I don't always agree with the White House. And on this one here I would disagree." David Gergen, who has worked for Democratic and Republican presidents, said: "I totally agree with Donna Brazile." Gergen added that White House officials have "gotten themselves into a fight they don't necessarily want to be in. I don't think it's in their best interest." "The faster they can get this behind them, the more they can treat Fox like one other organization, the easier they can get back to governing, and then put some people out on Fox," Gergen said on CNN. "I mean, for goodness sakes, you know, you engage in the debate. "What Americans want is a robust competition of ideas, and they ought to be willing to go out there and mix it up with some strong conservatives on Fox, just as there are strong conservatives on CNN like Bill Bennett." Bennett expressed outrage that Dunn told an audience of high school students this year that Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, was one of "my favorite political philosophers." "Having the spokesman do this, attack Fox, who says that Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in her life, was not...a small thing; it's a big thing," Bennett said on CNN. "When she stands up, in a speech to high school kids, says she's deeply influenced by Mao Zedong, that -- I mean, that is crazy." Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who was the top political strategist to former President George W. Bush, said: "This is an administration that's getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off." "This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do," Rove added. "That is over- the-top language. We heard that before from Richard Nixon." Media columnist David Carr of The New York Times warned that the White House war on Fox "may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling." "While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence," Carr wrote over the weekend. "So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year." He added: "The administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight."[/rquoter] What's going on with this? How does this WH correspondant rotation pool work?
you know I am having a pretty crappy Monday then I log onto CF I see a new basso thread and I smile thanks basso! just needs one thing here!
and the Times, of all places, had an interesting take on O's assault on Fox: [rquoter]The Media Equation The Battle Between the White House and Fox News By DAVID CARR The Obama administration, which would seem to have its hands full with a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan, opened up a third front last week, this time with Fox News. Until this point, the conflict had been mostly a one-sided affair, with Fox News hosts promoting tax day “tea parties” that focused protest on the new president, and more recently bringing down the presidential adviser Van Jones through rugged coverage that caught the administration, and other news organizations, off guard. During the health care debate, Fox News has put a megaphone to opponents, some of whom have advanced far-fetched theories about the impact of reform. And even farther out on the edge, the network’s most visible star of the moment, Glenn Beck, has said the president has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Administration officials seemed to have decided that they had had enough. “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, said in an interview with The New York Times. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.” Ah, but pretending has traditionally been a valuable part of the presidential playbook. Smiling and wearing beige even under the most withering news media assault is not only good manners, but also has generally been good politics. While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence. Not that they haven’t tried. In his second Inaugural Address, Ulysses S. Grant said he had “been the subject of abuse and slander scarcely ever equaled in political history.” President William McKinley labeled a gathering of the press a “congress of inventors,” and President Franklin D. Roosevelt assigned less favored press members to his “Dunce Club.” Sometimes the strategy worked — or caused no lasting damage. McKinley, like Grant, was elected to a second term. Roosevelt also won a third and fourth. As Americans turned to TV for news, enmity from presidents soon followed. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew said “self-appointed analysts” at the Big Three networks exhibited undisguised “hostility” toward President Richard M. Nixon, subjecting his speeches to “instant analysis and querulous criticism.” Later, in the dispute with The Times over the Pentagon Papers, Mr. Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, accused the newspaper of treason. Neither of the Bush presidents had a particularly cozy relationship with the press. George H.W. Bush finished the campaign in 1992 with a bumper sticker that suggested, “Annoy the Media. Vote Bush.” And George W. Bush, in the words of ABC’s Mark Halperin, viewed “the media as a special interest rather than as guardians of the public interest.” Bill Clinton, too, distrusted the press, as did others in his administration. When Vincent Foster, Mr. Clinton’s deputy White House counsel, committed suicide in 1993, he left behind a note accusing the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page of lying. Even though almost all the critiques contained a kernel of truth, in each instance the folks who had the barrels of ink, and now pixels, seemed to come out ahead. So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year, and the network basked for a week in the antagonism of a sitting president It could all be written off as a sideshow, but it may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling. In his victory speech he promised, “I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.” Or not. Under the direction of Ms. Dunn, the administration has begun to punch back. On Sept. 20, the president visited all the Sunday talk shows save Fox News’, with Ms. Dunn explaining that Fox was not a legitimate news organization, but a “wing of the Republican Party.” The one weapon all administrations can wield is access, and the White House, making it clear that it will use that leverage going forward, informed Fox News not to expect to bump knees with the president until 2010. But Fox News, as many have pointed out, is not in the access business. They are in the agitation business. And the administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight. Tactics aside, something more fundamental is at risk. Even the president’s most avid critics admit he exudes a certain cool confidence. The public impression of him is that if anyone were to, say, talk trash on the basketball court with Mr. Obama, he would not find much space for rent in Mr. Obama’s head. Mr. Obama has also shown a consistent ability to disarm or at least engage his critics. When he eventually sat for an interview with the Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly two months before the election, it made for great television. But for the time being, détente seems very far away and the gap seems to be widening. On the official White House Web site, a blog called Reality Check provides a running tally of transgressions by Fox News. It ends with this: “For even more Fox lies, check out the latest ‘Truth-O-Meter’ feature from Politifact that debunks a false claim about a White House staffer that continues to be repeated by Glenn Beck and others on the network.” People who work in political communications have pointed out that it is a principle of power dynamics to “punch up “ — that is, to take on bigger foes, not smaller ones. A blog on the White House Web site that uses a “truth-o-meter” against a particular cable news network would not seem to qualify. As it is, Reality Check sounds a bit like the blog of some unemployed guy living in his parents’ basement, not an official communiqué from Pennsylvania Avenue. The American presidency was conceived as a corrective to the royals, but trading punches with cable shouters seems a bit too common. Perhaps it’s time to restore a little imperiousness to the relationship. [/rquoter]
I agree that taking on Fox News seems very petty on the White House's part. [rquoter]Media columnist David Carr of The New York Times warned that the White House war on Fox "may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling." [/rquoter] When did David Carr quite playing football?
It may appear to be petty in the here and now, but for a long term strategy, it is the right thing to do. If you can isolate Fox now and start to make it a stigma for other networks to pick up their manufactured drivel, then you are significantly better off in the next election... if Fox runs with something absurd, you theoretically have license to dismiss it or use it as an avenue to attack the "communications arm of the GOP" and it makes it tougher for the other news nets to run the "controversy/he said, she said" stories. The idea is that you do everything you can to not let the filth run out by Fox become a time sink and message warp for the 2010 and especially the 2012 campaigns.
it's a charming idea, albeit a profoundly un-american one, and one at odds with everything Fauxbama ran on, and as. it's also unlikely to have the effect you envision.
It certainly isn't against anything he ran on. You have to be wrong more often than anyone on the history of the board.
This seems to be the entirety of the Republican strategy. Make up a strawman and tear it down. Rinse. Repeat. If Obama promised 1/10th of the things that they claim he promised, he would have been running for saint, not President. Though now that I think about it, the Republicans fabricate claims in that regard, as well.
proof that naked partisanship is something Obama ran on, or, at least, proof its rejection is *not* not something Fauxbama ran on?
How 'bout you provide the first bit of proof that Obama promised, Jesus like, to turn the other cheek in the face of boldfaced lies and hateful attacks? I must have missed the campaign promise to eat a **** sandwich from Fox News every day with a smile. Can you point that promise out to us?
Basso, why did you ignore my question above? What do you think of McCain quoting Mao in reference to his campaign....that Mao saying the night is often darkest before the dawn kind of thing - and McCain picked that quote and even credited it to Chairman Mao.... Tell us how this is not a double standard or condemn McCain please. Or STFU. By the way, I think criticizing Faux News is a mistake by the White House - it only goes to show they are getting under Obama's skin. While the propaganda and lies put out by Faux News is damaging and a danger to the republic, the best way to attack it is simply by telling the truth. The white house should just put up a site: Lies of Faux News and show how each of the statements made by Fox is a lie. Then people can go and fact check all the things Fox News puts out, without having to get into a stupid war of words.
Good point. And thanks for your routine defense of the press during the Bush administration. I'm glad to see your many posts on the Bush administration's war on the NYTimes. Your detailed posts on the ridiculousness of the NYTimes never receiving an interview with candidate or President Bush are legendary, as is your outcry regarding the conversation between Bush and Cheney where they referred to NYTimes reporters as "major league assholes." I am in awe of your brilliant posts dissecting the unAmerican activities of the Bush WH when they continually emailed the NYTimes asking for more favorable coverage. Your service is appreciated, as is your concern that Obama meet the ideas you think he ran on. That you hold Dems to these standards and ignore similar standards in Republicans shows how much more you expect from Dems. And by the way, "American" is capitalized, even when preceeded by "un."
Basso and right-wing republicans like Glenn Beck must condemn Mccain now: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GYJ15vbo15w&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GYJ15vbo15w&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
