Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Containment
The real reason the White House is attacking Fox News.
The major networks are all transparently ideological. There are at least five, including CNN and MSNBC that are, in the main, to the left of the American center in attitude and emphasis, and one, Fox, that is to the right. This idea propounded on the left that Fox is the lone departure from objective professionalism is, of course, ridiculous, and it has not been laughed in to oblivion only because it is also in the best commercial and ideological interests of the rest of the mainstream media to contain Fox.
18 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Oct 21, 09:18:00 AM:
Actually, Fox claims that ratings between 5 and 9PM are greater for each show than all the other network news channels combined during the same time period.
That validates one of Dick Morris' pieces this week ... that a lot of liberals and independents watch Fox, and the more people learn, the less they like this Administration and its policies.
By , at
Wed Oct 21, 09:31:00 AM:
While we while away the hours talking about distractions; FOX News, menstruation and credit scores; Victor Davis Hanson is busy trying to point out that, through silly indecision, President Obama may well be missing an enormous opportunity to capitalize on the struggles of our nation in the GWOT. This is "fail" on a truly mind-boggling level.
I usually expect to get this sort of biting insight on international affairs from TH. What's going on? You seem preoccupied. Big quarter, or something?
By , at
Wed Oct 21, 09:57:00 AM:
I'm not trying to discount the hard work of people at Fox News, but the reality is they have no competition on TV.
By 
K. Pablo, at
Wed Oct 21, 10:02:00 AM:
Although it may be in the best ideological interests of the left partisan media to contain Fox, it might not be in their best commercial interests. I think the administration's nightmare scenario would be if these organizations began to see favorable ratings from breaking stories that were unfavorable to Obama. They might be amplifying Fox now, but if they started outfoxing Fox..?
By , at
Wed Oct 21, 11:22:00 AM:
Pablo goes in an interesting direction. By demonizing Fox it raises awareness of how much more commercially successful critical conservatism is than critical or fawning liberalism. It's bound to dawn on some of the other networks that if Team Obama cannot shut Fox up, it will be in their better interest to throw some commercially viable balance in their "news." Some, though, may prefer to go down flailing and screaming about nazis.
M.E.
By Willuz, at
Wed Oct 21, 01:13:00 PM:
The administration's attack on Fox is having precisely the effect that was intended. It get's Fox and conservatives talking about trivial politics instead of the health care bill fiasco.
By , at
Wed Oct 21, 01:36:00 PM:
Willuz ... you clearly don't watch Fox programming. Plenty of time to cover all the bases, but they are HAMMERING this issue of free speech, the Maoists he's appointing, the ineptness of Rahm, etc.
And clearly the narcissist-in-chief is pulling all those strings, and people get that.
The attempt is to try to rebrand Fox as whackjob partisan news, but it's not working. They're just picking up momentum.
Time for Bambi to start getting things done with his super-majority, or kiss the opportunity goodbye. Mid-terms will be here soon enough.
By JPMcT, at
Wed Oct 21, 05:38:00 PM:
You know, I keep thinking these guys in the East Wing MUST have some occult, clever, Machiavellian plan for going after Fox News.
By insulting Fox, they insult everyone who watches Fox and sponsors Fox. Fox is the most popular cable news outlet in the world. If P, then Q...they are insulting a HUGE number of businesses and listeners, whilst enticing non-Fox viewers with the Forbidden Fruit.
Unless somebody can tell me of some justification for the policy, I will have to label it as unprofessional, self-destructive and...well...just plain idiotic!
Far from being threatened, all of the Fox newsstaff wears the threat like a badge of honor.
The man is really earning the moniker: Obamateur!
By , at
Wed Oct 21, 10:13:00 PM:
So now Obama is saying that Americans care more about the jobs he's creating and how he's handling 'the situation in Afghanistan' ... than, you know, what a TV network that operates as 'talk radio'.
So ... not all of it's talk radio, and since he mentioned it. How about those jobs we haven't created, and WTF is up with not giving our team the resources they say they need? I realize the POTUS is CIC, but let's be honest, the boy doesn't know sh*t from Shinola about war. He escalated it, it's on him to get the job done.
By , at
Wed Oct 21, 11:51:00 PM:
From Link,
For reasons of needing to grind on my day job -- and one other nameless reason -- I'm signing off here. Nice knowing you all. I want to leave with a last note.
I've looked at you guys on TH as a proxy for the Republican Party, which doesn't bode well. You're a shrinking one-third of the electorate. You're tone deaf politically, on a lot of things. The recent marijuana post was a small example.
Politics in the USA was often about building surprising coalitions to capture a majority. No longer. Our two parties are built on being divisive ... this was Karl Rove's master strategy. Axelrod expands on this. We're a politic artificially divided into three parts, because of it. This affects MSM coverage -- there's a lot more than 1/3 of America that doesn't want to listen to either Keith Olbermann or Glen Beck.
For all the media bluster, have you ever heard any MSM report on what I've ranted about here for months: you could raise marginal rates on our top 5% earners to 90% and not cover the fiscal gaps we already have. Hell, you could raise marginal rates on anyone earning over $75,000 to 90% and not cover the fiscal gaps we already have. This is before Healthcare, before Energy. This isn't left v right ... it's just basic math. We're a rich country, but we're already structurally broke.
"... the things you could do with a trillion dollars ..." A typical small business requires less than an a million dollars to start ... you do the math.
George W Bush put us on a path to perdition. The WASP Ivy League class are dead as American leaders. Blame yourselves. Bush fucked up ... royally, and you keep defending him. Sidebar to Dawnfire ... you must know this deep down. We won't be able to afford your foreign adventures, even when necessary.
Obama is a smart, cold-assed "abandoned child" freak of nature. He got adopted by bad people. He's on a mission to "level" America, or worse.
Putin wakes up every morning with a raging hard on, and goes to sleep with a smile.
The real political fight is between "those who get government checks" vs "those who pay for them." While our two parties want to deny this. the elephant in the room is that our public fiscal system will go broke. It's inevitable.
In most scenarios, "strivers" like me get fucked. But even the "established" like most of you are at risk. I used to worry more ... now I realize I've already got nothing to lose.
Link, over and out
By Simon Kenton, at
Thu Oct 22, 12:14:00 AM:
Link, don't go. Go dark for a month or two, come back with diminished frequency, but don't shut off. You're too valuable a member of this community to lose.
For what it's worth, the RNC calls me regularly and for reasons you sketch, they are sent away hat in hand.
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Oct 22, 12:22:00 AM:
Aww.
I wish I had fans. But I suspect I'm too ornery.
By JPMcT, at
Thu Oct 22, 07:11:00 AM:
Link, sorry to see you give up a pressure release valve.
Your sign off advice is no revelation to me...or to many of us here. I know a lot of politicians from the days when I used to contribute more...now I'm just a conservative who doesn't give these people any money until I hear what they have to say...and then often close the checkbook.
I don't think this group is "Republican" in that sense of the word...maybe disaffected Repubicans.
I think most of us are just sitting in awe of a group of incompetent fools who are inexorably destroying our way of life...right before our eyes...and seemingly getting away with it.
Au revoir.
By , at
Thu Oct 22, 10:23:00 AM:
Boy .... Link was sure in a dark mood. Let's see. The TH commentariat sucks and the world's going to hell, but Link is going to keep striving in his day job even though it is pointless. Got it. Adios Link. I hope your mood improves. I always looked forward to reading your comments. And that is a sincere compliment. Not sarcasm.
By , at
Thu Oct 22, 11:07:00 AM:
Link,
I understand that re-typing all that contradictory gibberish with your own fingers is hard work. So don't strain, just cut and paste.
By , at
Thu Oct 22, 09:29:00 PM:
Oh, this is baloney. How can you have a left- or right-of-center view when there is no centrist view?
All of this caterwauling by both sides is juvenile.
Quick. Name a centrist view on healthcare reform. How about Afghanistan? What about Gitmo?
Name a centrist view on anything of national significance and then compare and contrast it with the right and the left perspective.Go ahead.I dare you.
The whole concept of right and left has been adulterated by the parties.
The centrist view has been lost in America.
By , at
Thu Oct 22, 09:43:00 PM:
RC ... I'll bite. How about you tell us what you think the centrist's views are on those issues? The shrill bleating from either side's extreme attempts to move the definition of 'center' in their direction. You don't honestly believe that every GOPer is what the far left thinks they are, or every Dem what the far right thinks they are, do you?
The 'healthcare' issue comes down as many of the other 'financial' issues. Half of us pay, half of us don't. Those who pay think they pay too much, and those who don't feel like the 'rich' government should do more for them. I've worked my ass off for 3 1/2 decades, and paid a ton in taxes. I don't want to pay more for slackers who won't get up and do for themselves, or commit to a long term so they can earn what the 'evil' higher-paid guy gets. On Gitmo, call me radical. I think we should've done the harshest interrogations deemed necessary and then put a single .357 to the brain, in country. In the Afghan theatre, I think we're insane to wage war, and Obama is an idiot for escalating. I don't care where Osama is.
And I don't believe that what each 'party' carves out as their platform is a proxy for what matters to their constituency. It's a science to figure out how to get segmented votes, or figure who'll vote for (for ex:) gay rights over border security, where the gay rights voters care about both issues, but more on the gay issue, so the vote can be picked up.
Our politicians work for themselves, curry huge favor and access to cash and power. They play a game to stay there and milk a system that takes schmoes and makes them elite. They make deals and scratch backs to get into office, and pay back THAT constituency in spades once they're in. How the fuck else could you have pedophiles like Barney Frank, assclowns like Reid, or Pelosi, or Murtha, to name some Democrats. Why else do you think Wall Street has been paid so handsomely? why else is the President's shadow cabinet of Czars so full of the kind of scum he has appointed?
If, for example, these people represent the Dems, where's that skew the center point?
By , at
Thu Oct 22, 10:30:00 PM:
Dark precedes light.
Missing Link.
M.E.
PS
Ornery is the new flu.
