During the 2008 election, there was a single moment in time where Robert Gibbs, fed up with conservative smears, obliterated Fox News. He didn't do it by shunning media opponents - instead, in an articulate, full-frontal assault, he diminished them to the vapid characters that they truly were. In essence, he gave them a taste of their own medicine. He was calm, intelligent and strong. And, he won.
President Obama doesn't have to cater to Fox News' scheduling requests; however, I am of the mind that President Obama's staff can and should take on every media outlet to ensure that his agenda spreads beyond his base - yes, Independents and Conservative Democrats matter (and, yes, many of them watch FOX News).
Watch these videos and I think this will make more sense....
Unfortunately, these are examples depicting Democratic representatives discussing topics with Sean Hannity. To be clear, at this juncture, I do not believe that anyone in the White House should lower themselves by appearing on Hannity or Beck; however, I think it's acceptable to appear on Special Report With Bret Baier, FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace, and, yes, maybe even The O'Reilly Factor (believe it or not, the highest rated cable "news" show).
Here's why. Fox News' main counter argument to the White House's ban has been that they are a news organization that have "some opinion shows." In fact, the hosts of the three "acceptable" shows mentioned above have all gone as far as to state that the Hannity-Beck types are over-the-top. So, let's accept that argument for a moment.
Imagine for a second this scenario: Gibbs is interviewed by Chris Wallace; he is talented and articulate; he doesn't take the bait; and, at some point, research and transcripts in hand, he gets Wallace to agree with him that Hannity and Beck are illegitimate and dangerous to the national discourse.
I think that scenario would be eviscerating - watching a so-called "real news" FOX interviewer acknowledging that his co-workers were not fit is where we want this argument to end up. Let's watch them cannibalize each other rather than having them win this argument through their faux statements about freedom of the press or comparing the Obama Administration to Nixon.
Still not convinced? Yesterday, the White House stated that WITH THE EXCEPTION OF FOX NEWS all of the major news networks could interview Kenneth Feinberg. The other networks (NBC, CNN, ABC, and CBS) banded together and stated that if FOX was excluded, then none of them would interview Feinberg.
New York Times Article-- In a sign of discomfort with the White House stance, Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Tuesday to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a "pool" camera crew shared by all the networks.
If you can't see that we are losing this argument, then you are blind.
Meanwhile, FOX News' ratings are skyrocketing...Huffington Post Article; ...Cable News Statistics......Nielsen Ratings
The wars I think about every single day are occuring in Iraq and Afghanistan - senseless, horrible and destructive. I for one am not going to enlist in a war against FOX News. It's a stupid surge that may fire up knee-jerk-us-against-them reaction, but I do not see a winning end game.
Let me be very clear here - the Obama Team can beat FOX News - in the very same way that they won the election. After all, this talented group of people defeated the Clinton Machine, they broke down formerly intractable racial barriers, they won in states that liberals never thought could be won - the list is very long. However, Anita Dunn's Anti-Fox strategy is not working.
PS - Democracy Now with Amy Goodman - always worth watching