Fox News on Obama's Fox Attacks

Barack Obama gave Fox News a hard time this week. He tweaked the channel at the last debate and mocked their coverage at the Al Smith dinner, with Rupert Murdoch sitting in the audience. The campaign says it decided to confront Fox more aggressively, as I recently reported, and now Fox is giving the issue prime time attention.

Greta Van Susteren devoted a segment to Obama's "Attack Fox Strategy" on Thursday, which ran as the show's top clip online all day Friday. Citing the remarks from the debate and the dinner, Van Susteren laid out the question. "It doesn't end there," she said. "According to the magazine The Nation, an aide to Senator Obama actually says this is part of a coordinated strategy by the Democratic nominee to take on Fox News. Why is Senator Obama doing this?"

The answer, at least according to writer and Fox contributor Bill Sammon, is nerves. "[Obama] must be a little nervous if he feels compelled to beat up on FOX News," Sammon said.

He also argued that coverage of Obama by other outlets has been damning: "There was a quote in The New York Times about Obama, and they're quoting Obama's assistant. He says Obama likes 'Chocolate roasted peanut protein and bottles of hard-to-find Organic Brew Black Forest Berry Hunt Honest Tea. You can't make that stuff up. FOX News didn't come up with that. The New York Times came up with that," said Sammon -- playing the old Organic Brew Black Forest Berry Hunt Honest Tea card. (It retails for $1.79 if you want to try it.) Anyway, I already gave my take on Obama's rationale in the original article, but it is interesting to see Fox insiders assess the whole thing. And unlike Sammon, Van Susteren gives Obama some credit for pressing his case with humor.

"I actually thought he was sort of funny," she said, "sort of poking us a little bit." " "Maybe I'm the only one," she added, as you can see in the segment:

Comments (19)

1. The only thing about FOX that is worth reminding voters of is that they are slavishly rooting for McCain, so when McCain says the media is against him, he is obviously excluding a major network with a large viewership.

   If you think MSNBC and FOX cancel each other out (and I don't), then you have to explain why CNN, ABC, and CBS IGNORED ETHICS VIOLATIONS FINDINGS in Troopergate, and refuse to give much airtime to Palin's REAL CONNECTIONS to secessionist political parties and the John Birch Society, which was founded by open and unabashed racists?

   Posted by Metteyya at 10/17/2008 @ 4:54pm

2. One of the founders of the John Birch Society who wrote the "Blue Book" which contians the core values of the group was Revilo Pendleton Oliver, a University of Illinois professor who later co-founded the racist National Alliance.

   You can read about this National Alliance group here:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Alliance_(United_States)

   With DEEP CONNECTIONS to such an obvisous racist group, Palin should be rejected out of hand by the mainstream press, as such open racism cannot be tolerated by ANYONE a heartbeat away from being president of this country.

   Palin groomed a John Birch Society operative to replace her on the Wasilla city council, and this fact should be front-page news for anyone who is concerned about racism in America.

   Posted by Metteyya at 10/17/2008 @ 5:02pm

3. Palin talks about "paling around with terrorists" while she "pals around with racist John Birchers".

   The guy she groomed to take over her city council seat is not only a John Bircher, he has guns buried in his front lawn to do battle with the government and "their nigger police".

   Posted by Metteyya at 10/17/2008 @ 5:36pm

4. Metteyya,

   I think it doesn't get the deserved air time because it sheds too much light on Obama's decades long ties with Rev Wrights Trinity church. Wright is an issue to anyone concerned about racism in America too.

   I think the issues cancel themselves out in the eyes of the media. Even worse, I think the media finds it is a boring subject. No one cares = lower commercial revenue. Concerns over McCain and Palin "fanning hatred" is much more commercially viable.

   Posted by freiheit1 at 10/17/2008 @ 5:37pm

5. Palin will soon be a footnote.

   Fox, alas, will not.

   Murdoch insures his power by offering cover to pols in power. In China, in the UK, in Australia, in NY (for Koch, when RM bought the Post). The rise of Fox TV tracks the rise (& fall) of W.

   Watch for a Murdoch cozying up to Obama after he wins. Rupert doesn't want an enemy in the White House.

   Posted by sloper at 10/17/2008 @ 7:08pm

6. Fox will survive, same as Limbaugh...

   even THRIVE with a "target" in the White House, rather than having to defend McCain when he sells them out.

   Posted by Maskdelta at 10/17/2008 @ 7:50pm

7. Posted by lvliberty1 at 10/17/2008 @ 8:09pm

   Actually, METTE, LVLIB is right.

   The Birchers (now a sub-group so small they could all meet in the Wasilla, Alaska Holiday Inn Meeting Room #2)...

   don't like McCain OR Bush, whom they consider both liberals and in true Ron Paul fashion, violaters of the Constitution.

   They're so far Right, they've joined the Left now.

   Posted by Maskdelta at 10/17/2008 @ 8:29pm

8. When I was a early teen in the 60's, my Dad came home with a John Birch coloring book from one of his trips. The one page I remember was totally blank with the caption that went something like "How many communists do you see on this page? We see eleven........It takes practice."

   Posted by cumchu at 10/17/2008 @ 9:11pm

9. It appears that the dirtiest campaign possible is the Republicans October Surprise.

   It will not work this time. It certainly will not work in Oregon no way, no how.

   But what if the facists did actually manage to steal this election? After all, that is what they are good at.

   My feeling is that if the election is somehow stolen, Mcain will not have an easy time governing, and I do not say that lightly.

   Posted by Steve C. at 10/17/2008 @ 9:57pm

10. Murdoch's evil, but he's not stupid. I give it a couple more years and it will be obvious that the increasingly irrelevant Fox is not going to attract any more viewers than it already has. At that point I expect an overnight transition to "El Zorro"--24-hour news en espanol.

    Posted by RocketJ at 10/17/2008 @ 10:18pm

11. i'm just happy that foxsnooze is unavailable on my t.v..

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/17/2008 @ 10:32pm

12. "My feeling is that if the election is somehow stolen, Mcain will not have an easy time governing, and I do not say that lightly."

    Careful, careful...

    Some righties have made similar statements and been accused of being racist, neo-nazis, hate mongers, barbarians, and on and on.

    It's a moot point though. Obama's taking this one in a landslide.

    Posted by bleedingheart at 10/17/2008 @ 11:15pm

13. I wish I could simply laugh when some earnest culture warrior of the Right invokes the name of Jeremiah Wright, the scary black pastor who hates America. It's a ludicrous claim. This man criticizes America because he loves his country and, unlike the conservatives who fear him, believes it can and should do better.

    Every African-American believes the "should" part of that statement, perhaps none more than Wright. But few African-Americans emphasize the "can" part more strongly than Barack Obama. We should all be grateful that a man like this is running for President.

    So I wish I could laugh off the smears. It thrills me that Obama feels confident enough to mock the Fox News Corporation. This is not "nervousness," as the talking heads at Fox nervously claim, but it may be overreaching bravado. Millions of US-Americans feel the fear that Fox propagates. And frightened US-Americans sometimes act violently.

    I can remember the body count of the 1960s, and I remember that the Left lost far, far more blood than the Right. The political Right, in its blind fear of change, not only downplays its own violence while seeing a bomb-throwing psychopath in every Liberal. It fails to see itself as violent at all. It fails to remember abortion-clinic bombers and Tim McVeigh. It fails to remember Jim Adkisson's recent assault on peaceful Unitarians. Whose violence was that?

    So I wish I could simply laugh. But I'm concerned that my laughter might come at the wrong time.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 10/18/2008 @ 10:06am

14. Rupert Murdock made some $900 million in 2007 yet paid not one dime in US tax's, He is Australian, who took US and alsoTurkish citizenship to further his publishing empire not for any love of America. How can a guy who pays no tax's in the US believe he has the right to yield such a heavy hand in American Politics.

    Posted by ROinReno at 10/18/2008 @ 2:27pm

15. How can a guy who pays no tax's in the US believe he has the right to yield such a heavy hand in American Politics. Posted by ROinReno at 10/18/2008 @ 2:27pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    wield, is what you meant.

    Posted by emile duBois at 10/18/2008 @ 5:12pm

16. wield, is what you meant.

    Posted by emile duBois at 10/18/2008 @ 5:12pm

    oops,

    more bad punctuation.

    "wield" is what you meant.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/18/2008 @ 6:31pm

17. Fox is as fair and balanced as Palin is intelligent.

    Posted by Minnehaha at 10/18/2008 @ 9:57pm

18. Limbaugh & Clear Channel are socialist, and so are the dittoheads like LV, Rio & Grits. Limbaugh's the ultimate propagandist-lobbyist hellbent on duping his dittoheads.

    Clear Channel's success and wealth are based on the now semi-exposed corrupt wallstreeter-government symbiosis = socialism. Complete evisceration of the founders' vision and role of 4th estate.

    OReilly, Hannity, Limbaugh survive so long as secretive private equity firms or similar sugar daddys rob the Treasury, Derivatives, mortgage-backed securities, no bid giveaways of our airwaves = Clear Channel, hate radio. This is largely how Kerry got swiftboated.

    Were there truly healthy capitalist conditions, true competition, the variety and scope of talk programming would reflect America. There'd be some fringe stations, on both ends, and some big dogs, similar to Comedy Central.

    Posted by winyahn at 10/18/2008 @ 11:04pm

19. I can't quite tell if you are just psychotic or stupid. Either way, you definitely should not be operating moving equipment. Posted by lvliberty1 at 10/19/2008 @ 12:19am

    Actually he makes a completely valid point. Just because it doesn't fit into your narrow and stupid world view doesn't mean he is stupid.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 10/19/2008 @ 6:23pm