Krauthammer: White House Tactics Go Too Fr

[Chuckiechan]

RealClearPolitics - White House Tactics Go Too Far

Quote:

(edited)
Defend Fox from whom? Defend Fox from the likes of Anita Dunn? She's been attacked for extolling Mao's political philosophy in a speech at a high school graduation. But the critics miss the surpassing stupidity of her larger point: She was invoking Mao as support and authority for her impassioned plea for individuality and trusting one's own choices. Mao as champion of individuality? Mao, the greatest imposer of mass uniformity in modern history, creator of a slave society of a near-billion worker bees wearing Mao suits and waving the Little Red Book?

EDIT: A Related Article:

NYT: Behind the War Between White House and Fox

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/us...BoPYzNJ+agAQZA

This could be a watershed issue in the USA. Essentially, the free press is being called out by the White House. This may force some news organizations to turn against the WH in a hope to save themselves. They are stuck in the middle of losing market share because they are irrelevant, and following a party line which no one cares about anymore.

The majors see the implicit threat against advertisers who accepted government funding, to as I interpret "to more thoughfully consider the ramifications of their ad placement".

This is a fight that needs to be fought.

[Pexster]

OMG, is he serious? Are you serious?


Gee, can anyone say "CBS?" How about the "New York Times?"

You guys are whacked!!!

No, on second thought I like Ed's "Psycho Talk."

[MTAtech]

That's terrible that Anita Dunn was quoting Mao. Nobody in their right-mind would do that, except perhaps GOP strategist Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove.

You guys on the right are exactly what Richard Hofstadter wrote about in 1964, in "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." The right-wing believes there is a conspiracy with a sinister president pulling strings and has secret minions doing his bidding.

The fact is, that since Obama was nominated for president, Fox News has made it their agenda to undermine him any way they can. In doing so they stopped being a news organization that's job is to report the news but instead they're a political organization. Obama is merely placing the cards on the table instead of pretending that Fox is a legitimate news organization.

[mad1]

MTAtech;3038428

Quote:

The fact is, that since Obama was nominated for president, Fox News has made it their agenda to undermine him any way they can. In doing so they stopped being a news organization that's job is to report the news but instead they're a political organization. Obama is merely placing the cards on the table instead of pretending that Fox is a legitimate news organization.

Sounds like you are describing how the New York Times treated Bush, did you get the name wrong?

[Theophylact]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTAtech

In doing so they stopped being a news organization that's job is to report the news but instead they're a political organization.

Stopped being a news organization? They never were one. All of the other networks have CEOs who have a background in news. Roger Ailes has never been anything other than a Republican apparatchik. He came straight from being a media consultant for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I to being the founder of Fox "News". The whole purpose of Fox is to be a front organization for Republican propaganda.

[MTAtech]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mad1

Sounds like you are describing how the New York Times treated Bush, did you get the name wrong?

Perhaps with half the opinion columnists (the others are conservatives.) But the NYT news was neutral. Elisabeth Bumiller, the Times WH reporter, was biased in favor of Bush.

[Theophylact]

Look, when even Mickey Kaus admits it, the game is up:

Quote:

I guess there are two distinct axes on which you can judge press organizations--actually, there are many more than two (see below), but two are important here: 1) Neutrality--Are they attempting to be "objective," trying to serve the "public interest" in some balanced way, or are they ideologically (or otherwise) driven in a way that inevitably colors their coverage--what topics they pick, what 'experts' they rely on, etc. 2) Independence--Whether they are biased or generally neutral, can somebody--a political party, a Mafia family, a government-- tell them what to do?

I think it's pretty clear MSNBC and the NYT and Breitbart.tv are not neutral. They all have an agenda and they pursue it. But they are independent. The Obama White House can't tell Bill Keller what to do. They can't tell Keith Olbermann what to do. (They can suck up to him, and it will probably work, but that's a different issue.) Breitbart is for sure independent--I can't see anyone telling him what to do.

I think Fox is also not neutral (which, again, doesn't bother me) but it's also not independent (which does). This isn't because it's owned by Rupert Murdoch--moguls are, typically among the more independent sorts. It's because it's run by Roger Ailes. I have zero faith that Ailes is independent of the Republican party or, specifically, those Republicans who have occupied the White House recently--the Bushes. As I said, I think if Karl Rove called Ailes in 2003 and said "We don't want so much coverage of X" it's extremely likely that X would not be covered on Fox. A ... suggestive example of Fox's loyalty is the debate on immigration, in which Ailes' network initially seemed to try valiantly--against the beliefs of most of its audience--to push the Bush White House line in favor of "comprehensive" legalization (while brushing aside its viewers' views).

It's certainly possible, in theory, to have a faux news organization that pretends to be an ordinary, ideologically biased journalistic outlet but that, at the top, is actually taking orders from Moscow, or from Kennebunkport. That news organization might have lots of viewers and money and White House press passes and some great on-air correspondents--it's not as if you could rip off their masks to uncover the alien underneath, like in V. ABC's Jake Tapper would refer to it as "one of our sister organizations." But that's not what, ultimately, it would be about. It would be different in nature, just like Organizing For America would be different in nature if it decided to buy some cameras and cable time and start reporting the news.

[mad1]

This administration wants to avoid any media outlet that is not in line with their policy. A prime example of this is the intentional attempted exclusion of Fox from the pay czar Kenneth Feinberg interview. This is a direct attempt to control the media and its reporting. The White House lost its attempt to ban Fox, the remaining media threatened to boycott the interview.

Quote:

"I'm really cheered by the other members saying "No, if Fox can't be part of it, we won't be part of it,'" said Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, calling the move to limit Feinberg's availability "outrageous."

"What it's really about to me is the Executive Branch of the government trying to tell the press how it should behave. I mean, this democracy -- we know this -- only works with a free and unfettered press to provide information," he said.

Administration Loses Bid to Exclude Fox News From Pay Czar Interview - Political News - FOXNews.com

Can anyone site an example of the last time the White House went to this extreme to control the media?

[MTAtech]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mad1

This administration wants to avoid any media outlet that is not in line with their policy.
...
Can anyone site an example of the last time the White House went to this extreme to control the media?

First, the administration wants to avoid media outlets that are partisan and actively try to defeat their policy.

Second, they didn't invite Mother Jones either.

Third, Obama isn't trying to 'control' the media. That's just hysterical paranoia at work. You only need to look back to the last administration to see one that wanted to control what got said. If you were a journalist that said nice things about Bush policies, you got access (even if you weren't a journalist but a gay prostitute but pro-Bush you got access.) If you were critical, you didn't get access.

Limiting access wasn't a problem for any of you when Bush was doing it. Now that Obama is using the same tactic, you are all up in arms.

If this sounds like equivalence, I apologize. Bush was far worse. Bush paid columnist Armstrong Williams to write favorable columns. Syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher didn't disclose a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help create materials used to promote Bush's $300 million initiative encouraging marriage to strengthen families.

HHS later disclosed that a third conservative columnist, Michael McManus, had received $10,000 to promote Bush's marriage initiative, according to an Associated Press report. His weekly column appears in about 50 newspapers.

Obama never did these things.

[Cmptr-Gy-Dv]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTAtech

First, the administration wants to avoid media outlets that are partisan and actively try to defeat their policy.

Second, they didn't invite Mother Jones either.

Third, Obama isn't trying to 'control' the media. That's just hysterical paranoia at work. You only need to look back to the last administration to see one that wanted to control what got said. If you were a journalist that said nice things about Bush policies, you got access (even if you weren't a journalist but a gay prostitute but pro-Bush you got access.) If you were critical, you didn't get access.

Limiting access wasn't a problem for any of you when Bush was doing it. Now that Obama is using the same tactic, you are all up in arms.

oh the great uniter don't want any opposition, sounds like partisan politics to me

I remember when John Edwards started the I will not debate on fox,

and all the Dem's fell in line with him, but yet the republicans are forced to debate on the lib stations

which I think is fine but if I'm running for office and I want votes seems the smart thing to do would be to debate on the network that my opposition watches, debating on NBC,CBS,ABC,CNN,MSNBC, is pointless everybody watching those stations are already voting democrat, so I have nothing to gain,

now if I want to gain votes than I should want to debate on the oposition network,

so Obama the great don't like fox, well seems if Obama thinks he's right than he should jump at the chance to go on fox and sell his ideas, more people watch fox than all the other networks combined, so Obama the great Uniter lets see you cross the isle Like you said you were going to, oh wait that was just one of your storys you told to get yourself elected,