Apparently, Fox is trying to enlist allies in its war on the White House, inviting Bruce Josten, the top lobbyist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, onto its Sunday "News" program to whine and moan about the Obama Administration.
Isn't it great that we have the Fair & Balanced Fox News to make sure that we get to hear from corporate lobbyists? I mean, without Fox, what would hard-working influence peddlers like Bruce Josten do with themselves?
Josten, by the way, has just gotta' love Fox. Even though he admitted that the Chamber's actual membership total is 300,000, Fox's Chyron claimed the Chamber has 3 million members. Seriously, that "typo" alone just proved Fox's Chyron machine is worth its weight in gold, at least to the Chamber. It's not everyday that somebody will inflate your membership by 1,000 percent!
Of course, for the most part, Bruce Josten doesn't have any better of a grasp on reality than Fox. For example, he accused the White House of having said "in their words, not mine" that they plan to "neuter" and "marginalize" the Chamber. "Neuter" and "marginalize" ... oooh, scary. Big bad Obama gonna' come and take Mr. Josten away.
The thing that Mr. Josten forgot to mention is that those were Politico's words -- not the White House's. But give this to Josten: he had no fear -- he didn't just offer up his false talking point once, he did it twice. Hurray for the ill-informed!
Finally, towards the end of his interview, Josten finally 'fessed up to what his real beef with the White House is: he doesn't like being invited to meetings where there are other people, and you don't get to ask questions in private. You see, Josten knows how important he is to the world, and he believes that if the Chamber cares about something, then the Chamber is entitled to sit down face-to-face with White House staff whenever it wants. In Josten's fantasy, it's just the Chamber and the White House, sitting down at a table, working out a deal together.
That's what we call democracy...Fox-style. We tried it for eight years. Didn't work too well.