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Jolie Rouge · 10-13-2009, 12:40 AM

Obama Administration: Fox News Is a Political Opponent
By DOUGLAS J. ROWE - TV GUIDE

The Obama administration says it's treating Fox News Channel as a political opponent, and executives at the top-rated cable news network are responding that the White House can't tell straight reporting from opinion.

White House communications director Anita Dunn recently told Time magazine that she thinks the channel offers "opinion journalism masquerading as news," and kept up the criticism on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday and in The New York Times Monday.

Fox's senior vice president for news, Michael Clemente, issued a statement Monday, saying: "It's astounding the White House can't distinguish between news and opinion programming. It seems self-serving on their part."

And Fox's senior vice president for programming, Bill Shine, told the Times every time the White House criticizes the network, "our ratings go up."

Late-night comedians turning on Obama

Fox has drawn a record number of viewers this year, averaging 1.2 million viewers, up from 1 million viewers last year. It's previous high came in 2003, the year the Iraq war started, when it had nearly 1.1 million viewers.

While Clemente maintained that the White House unfairly mixes its perception of the network's reporters and its pundits — whom he compares to "the op-ed page of a newspaper" — Dunn says she does indeed differentiate between White House correspondent Major Garrett and "the opinion guys" such as Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. "I'm talking about the overall programming," she explains.

White House, Fox News in Olympic struggle

The Times reported that the White House recently limited administration members' appearances on Fox News Channel. Last month, when President Barack Obama himself made the rounds of Sunday morning talk shows, he skipped Fox. That provoked Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace to call the administration "the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington."

Dunn says people from the administration would still talk to Fox and that Obama was likely to be interviewed on the network in the future. But, she says: "We're not going to legitimize them as a news organization."

On Monday, Fox did a comprehensive report about the battle and harkened back to when President Richard Nixon wanted to freeze out The New York Times.

When his program came on later, Beck averred: "They're more worried about the war on Fox than the actual war in Afghanistan."

http://www.seattlepi.com/tvguide/411086_tvgif12.html

White House targets Fox as it goes after press critics
By Chris Lefkow (AFP) – 6 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The White House has gone on the offensive against its critics in the press, singling out Fox News and going so far as to accuse the News Corp.-owned network of waging a "war against Barack Obama."

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has led the charge, appearing on CNN television and conducting interviews with Time magazine and The New York Times in recent days to make her case.

The unusual White House campaign comes as President Obama faces mounting opposition to his health care reforms, growing concern over the situation in Afghanistan and a continuing general economic malaise.

The president also suffered a setback recently when his personal effort to win approval for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics was rejected and his Nobel Peace Prize has met with more barbs than bouquets.

Speaking of media magnate Rupert Murdoch's Fox, Dunn told the Times in an interview published Monday: "We?re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. "As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don?t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave," she said.

In comments just days earlier to Time magazine, Dunn, a veteran Democratic Party communications strategist who joined the White House in May, denounced Fox as "opinion journalism masquerading as news."

"They are boosting their audience. But that doesn't mean we are going to sit back," she said.

Appearing on CNN on Sunday, Dunn said "the reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party."

Dunn said the White House would not be a "passive bystander" as opponents try to "tear down the president and his presidency."

"We will push back," she said.

The push back has included a blog post on WhiteHouse.gov in which the White House denounced what it called "Fox lies" and "an attempt to smear the administration's efforts to win the Olympics for the United States."

The White House blog singled out Glenn Beck, a conservative talk show host on Fox, for criticism, saying his program "has shown that nothing is worthy of respect if it can be used as part of a partisan attack to boost ratings."

Beck has been a relentless critic of the Obama administration and labelled the president a "racist" in a July appearance on another Fox program.

"This guy is, I believe, a racist," Beck said, adding that Obama, America's first black president, has a "deep-seated hatred for white people."

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said the White House may be lashing out at Fox "because the Democratic base is starting to be more critical of Obama.

"The world was expected to be transformed in approximately a month and it just didn't quite happen that way," Sabato said. "So if you're in that position and you need to rally your base, you need to find a common enemy.

"They're going on the offensive to rally the base and the base will rally to them because they hate the 'right-wing noise machine' too," he said. "Everyone needs an enemy in politics. Everyone needs a devil figure."

The White House offensive against Fox comes despite a reported meeting last month between senior Obama adviser David Axelrod and Fox News chairman and chief executive officer Roger Ailes.

Political news website Politico said Axelrod and Ailes met to discuss news coverage and the relationship between the White House and the network.

Fox, asked by AFP for a reaction to the White House criticisms, pointed to statements made by senior Fox executives to the Times and CNN.

"Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack mentality," said Michael Clemente, senior vice president for news at the Fox News Channel.

"Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about," he said.

Clemente also noted that Fox programming is a mixture of news and opinion.

"So, with all due respect to anyone who still might be confused about the difference between news reporting and vibrant opinion, my suggestion would be to talk about the stories and the facts rather than attack the messenger ... which over time, has never worked," he said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...qUqb8f3d2xxlHA

Quote:

Dunn said the White House would not be a "passive bystander" as opponents try to "tear down the president and his presidency."

Can't stand the heat.... so you shut down the kitchen ?

Funny when Bush was critisied it was "good reporting"... when this administration is critiseied" ... it is tearing down the President ?

Jolie Rouge · 10-13-2009, 01:26 AM

More interesting reading ...

The coming liberal thugocracy

Manufacturing the news

The War On The Free Press

Indoctrination of our youth

conservative political opinions = mental illness ??

A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives and Republicans

Quote:

The "A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives and Republicans" was created by and written by Michael Moore (petition@michaelmoore.com).

Quote:

To: Conservatives and Republicans
I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.

6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.

7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.

12. [u]We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST.

If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray.

Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

19219 Total Signatures to date ...

http://www.petitiononline.com/mmflint/petition.html

At least we are not sitting in our pj's for three days crying and depressed over the elections .....

Moore's red meat (or rather, blue meat) got thumbs up from Daily Kos commenters. But not all the lefties on the Internet are singing Moore's praises. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/14/11126/546

Jim Hoft noticed this long Democratic Underground thread by a liberal blogger justifiably upset with Moore's apparent cribbing of her open letter to dismayed conservatives published five days before Moore's. http://www.democraticunderground.com...esg_id=2716486

Here's a bit of her compare-and-contrast: http://lastmidnight.blogspot.com/200...long-time.html

Quote:
Moore: A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives
Me: Dear dismayed conservatives:

Moore: I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:
Me: I hereby make these promises to you.

Moore: Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.
Me: We will protect your lives and livelihoods.

Moore: We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs.
Me: We will listen to and respect your beliefs.

Moore: We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. // We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral."
Me: We will never try to force you to change your religion, sexual orientation, or first language.

Moore: We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.
Me: We will do our best to reduce the number of abortions in our country.

Moore: We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich.
Me: We will have no tolerance for corruption and cronyism, even in our own party.

Moore: And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST.
Me: ESPECIALLY in our own party.

Moore:We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.
Me: We will never tell you that you are unpatriotic. We will never tell you that your opinion doesn't count...

Moore: If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it.
Me: If we forget this, please, please, please, remind us.

Moore: You are every bit as American as we are.
Me: We need you to do this. You are America as much as we are. Let's go.

The DU commenters are siding with the blogger. As one commenter wrote in response to one of Moore's defenders who mused that "great minds think alike:" http://www.democraticunderground.com...esg_id=2716567

Quote: "Nobody thinks THAT much alike. Smells like plagiarism to me. And that's a shame."

MY favorite :

Quote:

We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST.

Reid.... Murtha ..... Jefferson ...... any of these sound vaguely familar ?

Jolie Rouge · 10-13-2009, 01:42 AM

Monday, October 12, 2009
WaPo Asks Who Keeps a Civil Tongue? ...
Answer: Conservatives By an 18:1 Margin

The Washington Post published an offensive and dishonest attack on conservatives this past weekend on their front page. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...002366_pf.html

The WaPo provided plenty of hate and few facts to smear conservatives as "sour, angry, even dangerous."

The DNC would have a hard time topping this awful piece of propaganda.

Michelle Malkin, who was mentioned in the article, rips apart this horribly biased piece of fiction. http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/12...es-part-99999/

If the WaPo really wanted to understand incivility on the internet this may help. Liberals are more than 18 times more likely to use foul language on their blogs. http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...er-say-on.html

The News Buckit performed a study on foul language on the internet. This is what was uncovered: http://thebuckit.repurblican.com/200...er-say-on.html

Quote:

So how much more does the Left use Carlin's "seven words" versus the Right? According to my calculations, try somewhere in the range of 18-to-1.

And, this doesn't even include the disgusting attacks on Christians, Jews and the military that you often find gracing the pages of the liberal blogs.

And, if they really wanted to get honest they'd write about Daily Kos diarist Barack Obama who urged liberals to "brook no compromise" when pushing a radical agenda: http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...e-website.html
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsv...0-h/obama+tone

How's that for civility?

Posted by Gateway Pundit at 10/12/2009 05:42:00 AM
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/20...ue-answer.html

Jolie Rouge · 10-14-2009, 01:39 PM

MM's column today follows up on yesterday’s Fox News Derangement Syndrome post. Who has Obama stocked his communications shop with, you ask? Beltway flacks for corruptocrats. Meet some of the key people behind the White House war on Fox News.

Who’s behind the White House war on Fox News?
by Michelle Makin

White House interim communications director Anita Dunn assumed the role of lead Fox News Channel-basher this weekend. The attack was a dud. The left-leaning Nation magazine ridiculed President Obama’s press shop for turning him into the “whiner-in-chief.” AOL media columnist Jeff Bercovici called the war on Fox a “loser’s strategy” that “signals weakness.” And that’s the friendly fire.

Dunn found refuge in rival CNN’s green zone, where she blasted Fox News as a “research arm of the Republican Party.” Unhappy with headline-generating Fox News hosts who have wrested control of the news cycle from Team Obama, Dunn complained about “opinion journalism masquerading as news.”

Well, that is certainly an apt description of an Obama-sympathizing “news” segment on Wolf Blizter’s CNN Politics show, which purported to “fact check” a Saturday Night Live skit mocking the president’s lack of accomplishments. Yes, the “real” news fact-checked the fake news to cover for Obama’s deficiencies. Zero complaints from the White House communications office about that. Or about authentic CNN journalist Anderson Cooper using his prime-time show to make vulgar sexual jokes about Tea Party activists. Or about the joint White House-ABC News health care reform infomercial that aired earlier this summer.

Some “opinion journalism” is more equal than others.

Debates about the blurred lines between opinion and journalism are all well and good. But don’t the talking points-crafters in the Oval Office have something better to do than carp about the talking points they don’t like hearing on the one cable network that hasn’t been completely overrun by Obama sycophants? (Full disclosure: I’ve been a Fox News contributor since 2001.)

Where are the seasoned press gurus to help Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama appear more presidential and less petty and thuggish?

The corruptocrat affiliations of Obama’s communications team are illuminating. His press shop can’t rise above the fray because they’ve been entrenched in the Beltway fray for years. They can’t help themselves.

Democratic media consultant Dunn’s claim to fame is her decade-long service as chief strategist for disgraced Democrat and former Senate Majority Leader-turned-health care lobbyist Tom Daschle. She was in the thick of his failed re-election campaign as Daschle asserted a bogus property-tax homestead exemption claim on his $1.9 million D.C. mansion – which he listed as his primary residence despite voting in South Dakota and claiming it as his primary residence in order to run for re-election. And Dunn was with Daschle during the years he failed to pay gobs of taxes on a luxury car and driver provided to him by crony donor Leo Hindery, Jr.

After working as communications manger for Obama’s political action committee and then as senior adviser to his 2008 presidential campaign, Dunn “trained” White House press secretary and anti-Fox sniper Robert Gibbs. Deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer is another young protégé of Dunn’s who worked with her on the disastrous 2004 Daschle re-election campaign.

(Another Daschle connection: Obama transition adviser John Podesta, who served as Daschle’s counselor and has helped staff the administration with many alumni of his left-wing think tank, the Center for American Progress. One CAP fellow, Hugo Chavez-admiring radical Mark Lloyd, has attacked conservative talk radio – second home of several Fox News hosts — and is now the FCC’s “Diversity Czar.”)

Dunn is married to Robert Bauer, a Washington, D.C. corporate lawyer who served as general counsel for Obama for America. It was Bauer who lobbied the Justice Department unsuccessfully last fall to pursue a criminal probe of American Issues Project (AIP), an independent group that sought to run an ad spotlighting Obama’s ties to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

It was Bauer who attempted to sic the DOJ on GOP donor Harold Simmons and sought his prosecution for funding the ad. It was Bauer who tried to bully television stations across the country to compel them to pull the spot. All on Barack Obama’s behalf.

While conservatives revel in the Left’s hysteria over Fox News Channel’s dominance, more of Obama’s friends hope he’ll wipe his nose and man up. Fat chance. As long as he’s surrounded by career flacks who demonize dissent to distract from the Beltway stench, the White House will remain an all-whine zone.

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/14...news/#comments

Mark Loyd is on the record as being an “admirer” of the Chavez regime’s “media policy” in Venezuela, namely targeting the opposition voices for intimidation and eventually government force.

No questioning will be tolerated. It would be “counter-revolutionary”.

These people have more in common with the Kremlin’s communications shop from the old USSR than any White House I remember (I was an infant in the Nixon days).

Another great column from Michelle. :

Obama WH’s war on Fox News: How Nixonian
Posted by: Sister Toldjah on October 14, 2009 at 11:10 am

Michelle Malkin has a great write-up this morning on the players behind the WH’s all-out assault on Fox News. It all sounds very Nixonian, what with both the vicious attempts at smearing a news outlet that refuses to roll over and crown Obama as King of America as well as a growing enemies list. And here I thought this administration was going to “change” things in Washington, DC, get away from the “same ol’ tricks” allegedly played by prior administrations? Turns out they have indeed “changed” Washington, DC – for the worse.

Meanwhile, what’s the WH’s admitted favorite “news” network been up to these days? Well, Chris Matthews was caught yesterday openly fantasizing on air about how “somebody’s going to jam a CO2 pellet into [Rush Limbaugh's] head and he’s going to explode like a giant blimp.” http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-fi...s-going-explod And liberal icon Keith Olbermann? He blathered on last night about how he felt Michelle Malkin, without the “fascistic hatred,” was “a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wi...ag-meat-lipsti

No wonder the WH likes MSDNC so much. It treats critics of the administration the same way they do. You know what they say: Birds of a feather …

http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...-how-nixonian/

Jolie Rouge · 10-19-2009, 12:29 PM

Caught On Tape: Obama Adviser Explains How To Control Media
The Nation
1 hr 36 mins ago

The Nation -- White House Communications Director Anita Dunn made headlines last week for calling out Fox News, now she's drawing attention for comments she made about how the Obama campaign managed to control and route around the traditional press. You can bet this video is going viral. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLR5jHlytRg ).

In footage from a January conference, Dunn candidly explains the campaign's disciplined emphasis on disintermediation:

Quote:

The reality is that whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech ... a huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover what Obama was actually saying -- as opposed to why the campaign was saying it, what the tactic was.... One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. We just put that out there and make them write what Plouffe had said -- as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it, as opposed to the press controlled it. And it did not always make us popular with the press... increasingly by the General Election, very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control.

The political establishment -- from top reporters to rival campaigns -- was slow to grasp this dynamic during the actual campaign. Back in January 2008, for example, Obama broke several viewership records on YouTube, reaching voters directly, without comment from the press or countermeasures by other candidates: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/277245

Quote:

Obama was the only presidential candidate to tape a rebuttal to President Bush's State of the Union for YouTube.... [it] was the most watched clip in the world... The public has shown overwhelming and sustained interest in hearing from Obama directly. This is the third Obama video to shoot into YouTube's top three in the past 10 days -- past clips of naked celebrities and Scientology rants -- and the first video that was shot specifically for web viewers, rather than broadcasting documentary footage of a speech.... The traditional media has been slow to grasp Obama's YouTube surge. (There has not been a single article in a major newspaper about the new records in the last 10 days.) YouTube politics are largely covered for gaffes (Macaca) and attacks (1984 ad).

But the press is starting to notice the flipside of the Obama Campaign's communication strategy. It's the part that affects them. As the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports in a new article:

Quote:

In an age of all-out political warfare, the Obama campaign is a bit of an odd duck: It is not obsessed with winning each news cycle. [Obama] remains a remote figure to those covering him, and his team, while competent and professional, makes only spotty attempts to drive its preferred story lines in the press... Obama often goes days without taking questions from national reporters... the absence of a senior official traveling with the press is a sign of benign neglect.... Newsweek correspondent Richard Wolffe [adds] "The contact is limited. . . . They see the national media more as a logistical problem than a channel for getting stuff out."

So reporters are noticing that Obama is not using them to get stuff out. As a presidential candidate, of course, he is getting tons of stuff out. But whenever possible, he is routing around the filters and gatekeepers so that he can speak directly to voters.

It is a classic disintermediation approach.

The campaign events, speeches and clips are targeted to reach the voting public and bypass media framing. Kurtz describes how a Times reporter finally confronted Obama on a recent trip with a question -- about whether Bill Clinton was getting "inside his head." It's the kind of vapid media framing that annoys candidates and voters alike. And apparently, many people would rather hear Obama speak substantively in response to the State of the Union than hear him take strategy questions. There is a potential downside here, of course. The media does not usually like being disintermediated.

I wrote that in January, though at the time, no Obama aides would confirm the strategy on the record. So Dunn's blunt assessment is illuminating -- at least from the insidery lens of political media -- to see how the upper echelons of the campaign prioritized primary sourced messaging over the tactical coverage that dominates political news.

Her conference video continues:

Quote:

Senator Obama himself did a lot of local television. We went to as much live television as posisble. So it couldn't be edited when it came to him -- it was live. So that he could speak in a longer than 12-second soundbite; So that what the voters heard we determined, as opposed to some editor in a TV station. But we went to alternative media a great deal.... One of the reason the website works so well is we used opportunities in the traditional media to drive people online, to basically say: 'That's where you can get more information; That's where you can get updated information.'

Notice that Dunn's emphasis is not the conventional description of Obama's web success, which focuses on (impressive) fundraising and field developments. She is interested in leveraging the reach of broadcast media to recruit and transfer audiences towards the campaign, as a primary source of media itself.

Dunn's conference video was buried on YouTube, racking up only 300 views on a Spanish language account in the 9 months since it was uploaded. It got a second life on Sunday night, however, when the sensationalist conservative website WorldNetDaily touted it in an overheated article that reads like it's from a Right Wing issue of The Onion:

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL White House boasts: We 'control' news media Communications chief offers shocking confession to foreign government

It always goes back to the foreign stuff, apparently. The article also echoes Glenn Beck's counter-attack -- the Fox anchor responded to Dunn's criticism of the network by noting that she once quoted Mao in an educational address. (The horror!)

Of course, it's a little rich that this footage about routing around sensational media is only surfacing because sensational media is counter-attacking Dunn for her criticisms of sensational media.

As she explains in the same video, however, "thanks to YouTube, anything you say you should expect to be on YouTube."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20...ion/15486076_1

Jolie Rouge · 10-19-2009, 12:30 PM

5/80Maddow Responds to Bush Sr. - And 9 of 10 Republicans Fear Her
The Nation – Sat Oct 17, 12:05 pm ET

The Nation -- Rachel Maddow invites Republican officials to appear on her show "every day," the popular MSNBC anchor said Saturday, but only about one out of ten take up her offer.

Those numbers suggest Congressional Republicans are especially wary of a Maddow interrogation, since most politicians jump at the chance to appear on prime time news shows with good ratings. The "incentives" to appear differ for elected officials and operatives, she said, and the show draws more conservative "lobbyists and P.R. guys," who are paid to push their clients anywhere they can. (See Phillips, Tim.)

Maddow's comments came during an appearance at The New Yorker Festival on Saturday, in a sold-out session moderated by staff writer Ariel Levy.

The forum also presented an opportunity for Maddow to respond to an unusual attack from George H.W. Bush.

On Friday, the former President said Maddow and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann were "sick puppies" who dished out "horrible" treatment to their ideological opponents -- and to George W. Bush. "When our son was president, they just hammered him mercilessly and I think obscenely a lot of the time," he told CBS Radio.

Maddow said she was "flattered" by the response. She said that the comments also drew a one-line note from her father, who asked if the barb meant that the former President watched the show.

Maddow also discussed the book she is writing, which analyzes why the American foreign policy consensus supports a kind of perpetual war, but warned that the release date is still "anybody's guess." Queried about the superficial pressures of a television career, she volunteered that it was a "great relief" that her appearance does not define her career. "I don't feel like my job depends on my looks," she said, noting as an aside that few would mistake her for a "Fox Business anchor."

And in response to the last question from the audience, Maddow said if she dresses up for Halloween this year, she will be a modified "man in the moon" -- with a black eye -- to mark NASA's recent program bombing the moon.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20...ion/15485675_1

Jolie Rouge · 10-19-2009, 03:21 PM

Picking a fight: White House vs Fox News
David Bauder, Ap Television Writer Sun Oct 18, 8:25 pm ET

NEW YORK – President Barack Obama's communications director says it was Fox News Channel, not the White House, that picked a fight.

Yet it was Anita Dunn's words during a CNN interview last week, saying Fox is like "a wing of the Republican Party," that ignited one of the most unusual verbal volleys between a presidential administration and journalists since Vice President Spiro Agnew complained during the Nixon years about the "nattering nabobs of negativism."

Dunn's stance cheered many of the president's supporters who seethe over anti-Obama stories on Fox opinion shows, but has caused a backlash among some who say it exposed the administration as thin-skinned.

White House unhappiness had been building. The president himself said there is "one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration." Fox's coverage of health care demonstrations over the summer, former administration official Van Jones and the community activists ACORN clearly knocked the administration off stride.

The White House blog attacked Fox commentator Glenn Beck for "lies."

"The administration was being attacked, members of this administration were being attacked, policies of this administration were being misrepresented — and that's a generous interpretation of how they were being described," Dunn said. "The reality is that at some point, the administration has to defend itself."

Fox has fought back hard. Network executive Michael Clemente said it was "astounding" that administration critics couldn't distinguish between news and opinion programming.

"It seems self-serving on their part," he said.

Fox said network executives have been told that no one from the administration would appear on a Fox show as a guest through the end of the year. Dunn denied there was a White House ban on Fox appearances. "We haven't said that to them," she said.

Last week on his show, Beck placed a red phone on his desk, saying it was a hot line available to Dunn anytime she thought something untrue about Obama was being said on his show.

"I don't think the White House actually wants a dialogue," Beck said. "They want to smear, isolate and destroy."

Dunn on Beck: "He's always good for a laugh."

Beck uncovered a speech Dunn had given where she referred to Mother Teresa and Mao Tse-Tung as "two of my favorite political philosophers." He said it was "insanity" that she was quoting the late Chinese dictator; Dunn said she was being ironic and got the idea for the reference from GOP strategist Lee Atwater.

Dunn also criticized Fox's Chris Wallace for referring to the administration as filled with "crybabies." ("We kept ourselves from ... responding, `I am rubber, you are glue,'" Dunn said). But there was a specific provocation: The president appeared on five Sunday morning public affairs shows on Sept. 20, every one except Wallace's.

"I would think that what this reflects is a pent-up frustration or rage at the coverage they get, not only from Fox but elsewhere," said David Gergen, a CNN commentator and former White House aide.

Gergen said he understands the temptation to go on the attack — he's done it himself — but it frequently turns out to be a mistake.

"My experience has been when the White House engages in personal or organizational attacks, it elevates the other side to virtually the same level of the White House, which is not their intent," he said. "It's going to spike Fox's ratings," which are already high this year.

If the White House wants to fight back, it's better to let surrogates do the work, he said.

Several critics have questioned the wisdom of Obama's approach.

"Whether or not you like Fox News, all of us in the press need to be concerned about the administration of President Barack Obama trying to `punish' the cable news channel for its point of view," wrote television critic David Zurawik in the Baltimore Sun.

Among grass-roots Democrats, many think it was important for the president to put his foot down, said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist. Many strongly believe that the president and his staff should have nothing to do with Fox, she said.

But research has shown that Fox, easily the top-rated cable news network, has independents and moderates in its audience that the president shouldn't ignore, she said.

"There is room for a more nuanced strategy," she said: Stay away from Beck or the morning "Fox & Friends," she suggested, but an interview with Wallace could be beneficial.

Dunn said the administration still deals with Fox reporters such as Major Garrett in the White House. Obama "has appeared on Fox shows in the past (and) he certainly will appear on them in the future," she said. There have been no backstage "peace talks" in the past week; Obama adviser David Axelrod met with Fox chief Roger Ailes about a month ago.

On Sunday, Axelrod reiterated on ABC's "This Week" that administration officials would appear on the channel, even as he said Fox News shouldn't be treated as a news organization.

In a written statement Sunday, Clemente accused the White House of continuing to "declare war on a news organization" rather than focusing on issues such as jobs and health care.

"The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues," he said.

"Given the challenges facing the country, you would think there were a lot better things to talk about, for a news network," Dunn said. "Maybe they would want to cover some of these issues — if they were a news network."

Gergen suggested it's time for a cooling-off period for an administration that finds itself in the usually no-win position of fighting a 24-hour news organization.

"The notion ought to be to restore professional relations to the extent possible and not make this a long-term war," he said.

___

On the Net:

http://www.foxnews.com

http://www.whitehouse.gov

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/...vs_white_house

White House advisers say Fox News is not news
Ann Sanner, Associated Press Writer Sun Oct 18, 2:34 pm ET

WASHINGTON – White House advisers pledged on Sunday to book administration officials on Fox News despite claims by the president's inner circle that the cable network is a GOP mouthpiece whose programming "is geared toward making money."

Last week, White House communications director Anita Dunn said Fox News operates "almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party." On Sunday, Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama's chief of staff, said, "It is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective."

In response to the criticism, Fox News executive Michael Clemente on Sunday accused the White House of continuing to "declare war on a news organization" rather than focusing on issues such as jobs and health care.

"The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues," said Clemente, senior vice president of news, in a written statement.

Fox News commentators Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have been strong Obama critics, and Bill O'Reilly has taken tough looks at the administration. Obama avoided "Fox News Sunday" when he visited five Sunday morning news shows last month; three aides carried the administration's message on Afghanistan, health care and the economy this Sunday to ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, but not Fox; and a recent White House blog post accused Beck of lying. Beck has called Obama a racist.

Karl Rove, a Fox News contributor and former White House adviser to President George W. Bush, said the Obama administration is trying to demonize Fox News for asking questions officials do not like. He compared Obama's approach to that of President Richard Nixon, who included journalists on an "enemies list."

"This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list," Rove said on "Fox News Sunday." "And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do."

Appearing on ABC's "This Week," senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said Fox News shouldn't be treated as a news organization. "And the bigger thing is that other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way, and we're not going to treat them that way," he said.

Still, Axelrod said administration officials would appear on the channel. He shrugged off News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch's remark to shareholders last Friday that since the White House began criticizing Fox News commentators their ratings have risen.

"You know, I'm not concerned. Mr. Murdoch has a talent for making money, and I understand that their programming is geared toward making money," Axelrod said. "The only argument Anita was making is that they're not really a news station. ... It's not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming. It's really not news. It's pushing a point of view."

Emanuel appeared on CNN's "State of the Union."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091018/...obama_fox_news

See Neuter the Chamber of Commerce ?

Jolie Rouge · 10-20-2009, 02:05 AM

CNN Analyst: Obama Can Talk With Ahmadinejad But Not FOX News? Obama Afraid of FOX (Video)
Monday, October 19, 2009, 12:11 PM
Jim Hoft

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com...-of-fox-video/

Every once in a blue moon a state-run media analyst nails it…
This weekend it was Marisa Guthrie from Broadcasting and Cable Magazine who delivered the blow to the Obama Administration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfT3o...layer_embedded

White House to Fox News: How Dare You Check Our ‘Facts’
http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/?p=7

[Rather than realize they are employing a game plan that will fail, the Obama team has escalated the war. Now they are not only refusing to supply any guests for Fox News programs, but they are also telling other news networks to "join the administration in declaring that Fox is 'not a news organization.'" Remember the picture that Obama and the media painted of him? He was supposed to be the person that brought the country together, right? What we are seeing through his use of race-baiting, prior administration bashing, and now the attacks against Fox News is that the arrogance and elitism of him and his advisors knows no bounds.]

via TRBO
http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/

via Politburo Echo Chamber
http://therealbarackobama.wordpress....-echo-chamber/

Dan Riehl at Riehl World View
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carniv...-advisors.html

[Axelrod and Emanuel might have at least made the talking point a little less obvious. But basically this is a straight up equation. If two alleged Senior White House advisers spend their Sunday talk show time telling other networks that a popular and growing cable news channel isn’t really a news channel, then they aren’t really Senior advisers to the President of the United States.]

meantime, i cannot help but yet wonder
again
what is going on behind this smoke screen..

or as Solaratov would put it..

Oh!
Look!
Over there!
A butterfly chasing a unicorn!
Watch the butterfly!
Pretty pretty butterfly ...

Jolie Rouge · 10-20-2009, 05:52 PM

“Open a notice of inquiry into hate speech in the media.”
By Michelle Malkin • October 20, 2009 12:12 PM

The criminalization of conservative speech has been a recurring theme on this blog.

In particular, I’ve spotlighted the efforts of open-borders groups to marginalize, criminalize, and demonize those of us who have raised our voices for years about lax immigration enforcement — and to impose a Fairness Doctrine-style policy on amnesty opponents.

Keep all that in mind as you read this important investigative piece by Jeffrey Lord into collaboration between FCC officials and far Left members of the UCC church on ginning up petition signatures for a federal probe into “hate speech” against “immigrants.”

Lord’s conclusion and wake-up call: http://spectator.org/archives/2009/1...to-silen/print

Quote:

About Contact Archives RSS Columns Photos

About Contact Archives RSS Columns Photos Michelle Malkin “Open a notice of inquiry into hate speech in the media.”
By Michelle Malkin • October 20, 2009 12:12 PM

The criminalization of conservative speech has been a recurring theme on this blog.

In particular, I’ve spotlighted the efforts of open-borders groups to marginalize, criminalize, and demonize those of us who have raised our voices for years about lax immigration enforcement — and to impose a Fairness Doctrine-style policy on amnesty opponents.

Keep all that in mind as you read this important investigative piece by Jeffrey Lord into collaboration between FCC officials and far Left members of the UCC church on ginning up petition signatures for a federal probe into “hate speech” against “immigrants.”

Lord’s conclusion and wake-up call:

Goldberg says that White House's message that Fox is not a real news organization "might become part of the bloodstream of the American culture"
16 hours and 2 minutes ago

From the October 19 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200910200001

White House's Battle With Fox News Comes to the Press Pool
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblog...with_fox_n.asp

The White House battle with Fox News, which Fox's direct competitors have already been forced to cover, has now become a press pool question, via another competitor—ABC. http://barracknow.blogspot.com/2009/...-of-obama.html

Helen Thomas, the New York Times and The Nation have all declared the fight a dumb one. http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblog...nyt_and_th.asp But the administration tried to infuse it with strategic importance this morning: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.c...B82862A69D6A04

Quote:

...Most of all, get other journalists to think twice before following the network’s stories in their own coverage.

"We're doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible," a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”

“And then you had a couple days of breast-beating from The Washington Post and The New York Times about whether or not they were fast enough on the ACORN story,” the official said. “And it's like: Wait a second, guys. Let's make sure that we keep perspective on what are the most important stories, and what's being driven by a network that has a perspective. Being able to make that point has been important.”

But some, including Jake Tapper of ABC apparently, have a different take on this strategy:

Quote:

To some media observers, it’s almost the definition of a “chilling effect” – a governmental attempt to steer reporters away from negative coverage – but the White House press corps has barely uttered a word of complaint.

Here's where Tapper comes in with what might be deemed an uttered word of complaint:—just about nothing http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...-10202009.html (click through for the whole exchange):

Quote:

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

(Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.

Jolie Rouge · 10-20-2009, 05:53 PM

W.H.: Media shouldn't follow Fox
By: Josh Gerstein and Mike Allen
October 20, 2009 04:16 AM EST

A White House attempt to delegitimize Fox News – which in past times would have drawn howls of censorship from the press corps – has instead been greeted by a collective shrug.

That’s true even though the motivations of the White House are clear: Fire up a liberal base disillusioned with Obama by attacking the hated Fox. Try to keep a critical news outlet off-balance. Raise doubts about future Fox stories.

But most of all, get other journalists to think twice before following the network’s stories in their own coverage.

"We're doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible," a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”

“And then you had a couple days of breast-beating from The Washington Post and The New York Times about whether or not they were fast enough on the ACORN story,” the official said. “And it's like: Wait a second, guys. Let's make sure that we keep perspective on what are the most important stories, and what's being driven by a network that has a perspective. Being able to make that point has been important.”

To some media observers, it’s almost the definition of a “chilling effect” – a governmental attempt to steer reporters away from negative coverage – but the White House press corps has barely uttered a word of complaint.

That could be because of the perception among some journalists that Fox blurs the line between reporting and commentary - making it seem like not the most sympathetic victim.

Fox denies its news coverage is slanted, and even White House aides say the network’s top correspondent there, Major Garrett, is a straight shooter. But in its non-news hours, Fox mixes in a steady diet of criticism of President Barack Obama by its prominent conservative commentators Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. It’s a formula that works for Fox, with the highest ratings in cable news.

And in fact, not everyone at the network is complaining at being elevated into Obama’s target-of-choice. Some of the lack of protest from the mainstream press may be driven by the sense that the assault on Fox is actually strengthening the network.

Fox officials didn’t respond to a request for comment. But on Monday night, O’Reilly and former Fox News Washington Bureau chief Brit Hume seemed to be reveling in the attacks by Obama’s aides.

“This is an effort in effect to quarantine Fox News and to discourage other media outlets from picking up on stories that originate here,” Hume said on “The O’Reilly Factor.” “My guess is it won’t work….Look at Glenn Beck, he’s having a field day with this.”

O’Reilly keeps a page on his own website that urges his audience “not to patronize or advertise with” 11 news outlets, including the St. Petersburg Times, the New Yorker, Newsday and MSNBC.

Some see the warring between the White House and Fox as a boon to both sides.

“This is a mutually beneficial deal,” said Paul Begala, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. “Fox's ratings keep going up, as they're seen as the voice of opposition to Obama. The Democrats need to do something to excite their base, which is suffering from a case of the blues.”

In the media world, the main reaction to the barrage of Fox criticism by the Obama White House has been less outrage, and more puzzlement as to what Obama’s aides hope to gain by taking on the network so forcefully.

A day after White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said other journalists should no longer treat Fox as a bona fide news outlet, the comments generated only a single, tangential question at the White House’s daily briefing for reporters.

Still, the comments set off alarm bells with some journalists and media analysts.

“I can never remember a White House urging news organizations to boycott other news organizations. That strikes me as unprecedented,” said Thomas DeFrank, a Washington journalist who has covered eight presidents and now serves as the bureau chief of the New York Daily News.

“I see it as bullying a news organization, by the time you get to telling ABC or some other news organization how they should behave to another news organization,” said David Zurawik, media critic for the Baltimore Sun. “Someone should tell them: you’re one branch of government. We’re something else over here. Don’t lecture us about how we should behave towards one another.”

The salvos from Axelrod and Emanuel built on remarks a week earlier in which White House Communications Director Anita Dunn accused Fox News of operating as “a wing of the Republican Party.”

“They’re not really a news station,” Axelrod told ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming if you watch, it’s really not news….The bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.”

“It’s not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” Emanuel said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “More importantly, is to not have the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization.”

The direct attacks, if leveled at another news outlet or by another White House might have aroused a torrent of criticism, but the flow of outrage from the Washington journalistic set has been more like a trickle. “In the past, whether it was a Democratic or Republican president who stood up and attacked quote-unquote news organizations, the natural instinct of the Fourth Estate was to rally around and support that entity regardless,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist and communications aide in the Clinton White House. “The rest of the press corps winds up being the umpire on that.”

Lehane noted that the Clinton White House did campaign to de-legitimize some news outlets by drafting a “Conspiracy Stream of Commerce” report that traced the progress of anti-Clinton rumors from fringe media outlets to British newspapers to second-tier U.S. papers to major newspapers. However, Lehane said that lobbying was done one-on-one with individual reporters and not from the White House podium, to avoid triggering a backlash.

The Obama White House appears to have concluded that the media is now so splintered that an attack on one is no longer an attack on all. But other political veterans said they were baffled by the White House’s strategy.

“I’ve become more puzzled by the week about what this is ultimately all about,” said David Gergen, an adviser to four presidents who now teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School and is a paid contributor on CNN. “It does seem to me when CNN, MSNBC or anybody else—over the air networks—report on the Glenn Beck-Van Jones fight, that’s legitimate news,” said Gergen, referring to Obama’s “green jobs” czar, who later resigned. “Fox was a player in the resignation of Van Jones…..I think it would be irresponsible to avoid that story.”

At least one prominent Washington journalist publicly embraced the White House’s anti-Fox crusade.

“By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations,” former Slate editor Jacob Weisberg wrote in Newsweek. “Respectable journalists—I’m talking to you Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs.”

Liasson, a National Public Radio reporter who is a regular on Fox News’s “Special Report,” did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

White House grudges against news outlets and individual journalists have a long and storied history.

President John Kennedy asked the New York Times to transfer David Halberstam because of his critical reporting on the Vietnam War.

In 1987, a Newsweek cover about then-Vice President George H. W. Bush, “Fighting the Wimp Factor,” led Bush’s presidential campaign to freeze the magazine out.

DeFrank, then a Newsweek reporter working on the magazine’s campaign book, remembers taking a call from the vice president’s son, future President George W. Bush. “Tommy, I got bad news for you. You’re out of business,” he said.

In 2004, several news outlets, including the New York Times, complained that they were being excluded from Vice President Dick Cheney’s official plane because of dissatisfaction with their coverage. Cheney’s aides denied any purposeful snub.

Tom Rosenstiel, a former Los Angeles Times media critic who now runs the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said the Obama team’s explicit, public call for other outlets to ignore Fox was somewhat different from run-ins between past White Houses and specific news outlets. But he said that’s just an indication of a new media age. “There was a time you could drop a polite line in a meeting in the Oval Office with White House reporters and ice a whole news organization. Not anymore,” Rosenstiel said. “You have to speak in blunt terms to consumers who are making the decision for themselves how much credence to give to things in different places.”

Still, Rosenstiel said no one should doubt that the White House’s critiques have a political agenda. “You should beware of politicians playing press critic. There’s always an ulterior motive, even if they’re sincere,” he said. “They’re working the refs.”

Jolie Rouge · 10-21-2009, 03:40 PM

Senator sees Obama making Nixon mistake
By Thomas Ferraro – 1 hr 28 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top U.S. Senate Republican invoked the memory of the scandal-marred Nixon administration on Wednesday to urge U.S. President Barack Obama: "Don't start an enemies list."

Senator Lamar Alexander told Reuters he sees the Obama White House adopting an attitude similar to that of the Richard Nixon White House four decades ago, that "everybody is against us and we are going to get them."

Alexander cited as examples the Obama administration threatening to strip the insurance industry of its exemption of federal anti-trust laws, "taking names" of bondholders who opposed the auto bailout, its reported aim to "neuter the U.S. Chamber of Commerce," boycotting Fox News Network and "calling out" of others who oppose it.

"I'm suggesting to the president that he back up and start over," said Alexander, a member of the Senate Republican leadership. "Don't start an enemies list."

"We want to work with you," Alexander said.

Alexander made the comments at the Reuters Washington Summit, a series of interviews of key Washington figures.

Obama took office promising to reach out to Republicans in Congress, but they have lined up to oppose many of initiatives, including his bid to overhaul healthcare.

The Nixon White House compiled an "enemies list" of journalists, business and labor leaders as well as members of Congress and others.

Nixon was the only U.S. president to resign, forced to do so in August 1974 after a series of scandals, including "Watergate," the bungled break-in at Democratic headquarters and botched cover-up of White House involvement.

"We've been down this road before and it won't end well. An 'enemies list' only denigrates the presidency and the Republic itself," Alexander said later in a speech in the Senate.

Alexander's comments drew a nod of concurrence from Republican Senator Judd Gregg. Earlier this year, Gregg agreed to cross the political aisle and join the Obama administration as commerce secretary -- only to later back out.

Alexander said he was offering "friendly advice" to the White House and expressed hope it would accept it that way.

But as a senior Republican aide put it, "This is going to tick them off. But they have to realize, you can't behave like this and expect bipartisan cooperation."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091021/...litics_enemies