Fox News is evil -- unless you're selling an Obama book
The Obama administration has in recent weeks picked a silly fight with the Fox News Channel to help keep impatient supporters on its own left from rebelling too much. If you've got a common enemy, you've got to stay together, right? Even if you're unhappy with the progressive progress on numerous Democratic fronts.
It's a silly fight for several reasons. It makes a president who must face down other nuclear powers look timorous and thin-skinned about something as inconsequential as the most popular U.S. cable news channel.
It ignores the fact that more than a third of Fox News viewers are Democrats. So the David Axelrod-Anita Dunn communications strategists are willfully forfeiting an opportunity to get their message out to millions more likely supporters.
And, worst, to pick and prolong a partisan fight with lowly D.C. journalists goes directly against the fundamental message that Barack Obama made a keynote of his $750-million holy campaign last year: changing the partisan tone in Washington once and for all. Change to believe in. No podemos si.
As a result, you haven't seen Obama administration officials interviewed much over there on Fox News, despite the invitations.
Come Thursday night, that won't change. That's because David Plouffe is not an official member of the Obama administration. He is, however, the single individual arguably most responsible for getting Obama into the White House.
Why will the Obama campaign manager appear, you might ask?Because he wants to sell his book ("The Audacity to Win"), would be the answer. Which is apparently different than selling a political message. So Plouffe, who still loyally touts the official Obama line (he was nattering at Fox News again over the weekend on other outlets), has apparently received a presidential dispensation to appear on the evil empire.
Our diligent colleague Mark Silva, who broke this story, has much more detail here.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.
Photo: David Plouffe. Credit: Associated Press
Fox Propaganda is evil.
Posted by: whamo | November 03, 2009 at 04:20 AM
Hmm... since when does a politician get to simply ignore a hostile or uncomfortably probing press? Did George Bush get to do that? Would everyone have been ok if he had just announced that questions from CNN and MSNBC were off limits? So then why is the press so quiet when Obama does essentially the same thing?
Oh... that's right. They're in the tank for him, and they've decided to toss all so-called professional "ethics" into the crapper. (And they wonder why the rest of us stopped taking them seriously.)
Posted by: Mike | November 03, 2009 at 05:34 AM
Obamie doesn't like Fox. Stalin didn't like Radio Free Europe. [Commies hate the truth]
Posted by: JCH | November 03, 2009 at 06:04 AM
Secretary Clinton went on there yesterday. Does that count? I hope her book will sell well. Oh wait, she's in the government, weird huh?
I fail to see why Obama can't argue with the 9-12 movement and the tea party protesters when they're being run by Fox News. It'd be one thing if Fox news was opinionated, but it's another thing running a third party movement out of their commentary shows and then promoting it on their daytime news programming.
If you need any proof they should be promoting an event on thursday at the capital at noon that will protest the health care bill, and I bet their daytime shows will report on it. Hmm...Fox news isn't evil, they just want Obama to fail.
Posted by: Clinton? | November 03, 2009 at 01:50 PM
Long live Fox News!!!!
Posted by: steve rodriguez | November 03, 2009 at 08:18 PM
Slow news day, eh?
On the up side there are only five comments to this tripe.
Shame on me!
Posted by: Jim Again | November 10, 2009 at 01:09 PM