Fox News Sunday at Brave New Films

How FOX Won and Obama, Clinton, and Democrats Lost

2008-07-07T00:28:28Z

No Republican would go to speak at a MoveOn event. John McCain won’t be going to YearlyKos or the Take Back America conference, and you won’t be hearing him on Air America or see him talking to Keith Olbermann. So why are Democrats told and why do they continue to believe they should go on FOX?

Chris Bowers wrote a great piece for OpenLeft that explains why it’s important for Democrats not to legitimize FOX by appearing there, and why Barack Obama’s appearance on FOX News Sunday was a huge step backwards in the Left’s efforts to identify FOX as what it is — a Republican propaganda mouthpiece. I voiced some similar opinions in a post here.

And then Hillary Clinton appeared on the O’Reilly Factor. Apparently the chance to join FOX and the Republicans to talk about Rev. Wright for the 8 millionth time was enough to make her forget the way that FOX has talked about her, her husband, her daughter, her friends, and Democrats for the last 12 years.

I’ve been seeing and reading a lot about these two appearances in the past few days, and “conventional wisdom” seems to be saying that going on FOX is a very good thing for Democrats to do. When I was on MSNBC last Friday, I was the only one on the panel who felt that Obama was making a big mistake going on FOX. But, as is usually the case, CW is completely wrong.

Democrats, especially prominent ones like Clinton and Obama, should not go on FOX. Never.

Obama Legitimizes FOX by Failing to Confront Them

2008-07-05T14:32:47Z

Barack Obama didn’t call out FOX for what they are — a Republican propaganda outlet — when he appeared on FOX News Sunday to talk to Chris Wallace. Unfortunately, this means Obama, the Democrats, and American democracy lost.

Obama did a respectable job answering Wallace’s light/medium-biased questions, but he didn’t go after FOX the way his campaign claimed Obama would in a Friday statement to Talking Points Memo. Instead, he made the error of treating the interview as if it was actually an interview, not an ambush staged by enemies committed to destroying him. Because FOX had two main goals for Obama’s appearance: to further the appearance that FOX is actually a news organization and to gather ammunition against Obama.

FOX clearly accomplished their first goal, since nothing could legitimize FOX more than having a top presidential candidate (and a Democrat, no less) do a sit-down interview with them. What Obama and his campaign failed to realize is how destructive it is to the Democratic party, as well as America and its democracy, to have people think that FOX is anything other than a Republican propaganda outlet. By legitimizing FOX, the stories they run, the lies they tell, and the opinions they espouse are also legitimized. There’s no better example of this than the recent ABC debate, where George Stephanopoulos thought that Sean Hannity would be a good person to ask for questions to ask Obama. Why would Stephanopoulos think that Sean Hannity—a racist, serial liar, and FOX’s strongest, most consistent purveyor of anti-Obama misinformation—is a “fair and balanced” authority on Obama? Because Hannity is on FOX, and Stephanopoulos thinks FOX is a news organization. “Fair and Balanced” is right there in their slogan. And because more high profile democrats don’t identify FOX for what it is, FOX is allowed to retain its appearance of legitimacy, which is all they want. They don’t want to be a news organization — they simply want to create the appearance that they are a news organization to provide cover for their propaganda. And, sadly, Obama was a willing participant in furthering that appearance.

DJK on MSNBC's Verdict with Dan Abrams!

2008-07-06T22:40:59Z

Yes, you read that right — that's really me, DJK (aka Jonathan Kim) on MSNBC's Verdict with Dan Abrams! It's my first television appearance, and I have to tell you that it was a very strange experience. But more on that later.

The topic of discussion was whether it was a good idea for Barack Obama to give in to Chris Wallace and his Obama clock and appear on FOX News Sunday on April 27. As you can see, I think I was probably the most adamant about the fact that Obama really has little to gain from "addressing the FOX audience" since FOX will dissect every possible aspect of the interview to extract every possible microgram of negativity conceivable. And FOX is perfectly willing to lie to do it. And Abrams pointed out, Obama is legitimizing FOX as a news source, which is exactly what allowed FOX to gain the influence it has — by maintaining the appearance of a news network when they are really a republican propaganda machine.

The best way for Obama to turn his bad decision into a positive is if he goes after FOX and shows democrats and the world that he is, in fact, "in touch" with what democrats and most of the world knows — that FOX is a republican propaganda machine. He'll earn more respect of his base and show that he understands the role that FOX plays in legitimizing republican talking points. He'll show that he knows how the system works.

And if there's any fear that he might lose votes by alienating FOX voters, remember this — in the 2004 election, 88% of FOX viewers voted for George W. Bush while only 7% voted for John Kerry. Even white evangelicals, gun owners, Iraq war supporters, and conservatives didn't produce margins like that.

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