It has been exactly two weeks since White House Communications Director Anita Dunn called Fox News "a wing of the Republican party" and failed to recognize the organization as "a news network, the way CNN is."
Days later, the White House continued the assault with a timely notice to the network that President Obama would grant no interviews to the its programming until at least 2010.
Then, just last Sunday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod took it even further:
"They're not really a news [organization]...and the bigger thing is that other news organizations ought not to treat them that way, and we're not going to treat them that way."
Thus, there are a few appropriate questions that call for critical answers:
1) Why is the Obama White House - headed by a visionary executive that campaigned on a platform of post-partisanship - resorting to paranoia and tactics reminiscent of the Nixon administration's affinity for blacklisting political enemies? Can we expect taped locks and botched late night break-ins at Fox News Washington in the near future?
2) In the midst of the abysmal situation(s) and growing instability in Afghanistan - coupled with U.S. unemployment figures that continue to bloat - is the White House's foremost concern really a petty schoolyard shoving match? In truth, the only winner thus far has been Fox News! Last week, Rupert Murdoch painted the following picture:
“There were some strong remarks coming out of the White House about one or two commentators on Fox News. And all I can tell you is it has tremendously increased their ratings.”
3) If flagrant bias, "pushing a point of view," entertainment masquerading as news and shoddy journalism are high on the White House's list of pet peeves, then why not stonewall MSNBC with identical fervor? Are Keith Olbermann, David Shuster and Rachel Maddow more reserved and objective than Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck?
In his September address to a joint session of Congress on the issue of health care reform, President Obama said:
“The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed.”
It would be most unfortunate if these resonant words died under the Capitol Rotunda.
- Jared Pliner
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