So in your opinion Brit Hume was a raging righty? Bret Baier? Now let's take a look at guys like David Schuster and Anderson Cooper. It's not even close as to which ones are closer to the center than the wings. I'm closest ideologically to CNBC. Nice try, though. I'm no social conservative. I believe in freedom vs. government control. Your belief system is far more cookie cutter than mine. You really need to try watching a documentary that is more than a hit job. I bet you think Michael Moore is revelatory. It wasn't a FOX commentator, though. It was a guest. Again, you need to separate commentary from news. I keep asking you to do so, you keep telling me you have and you still are getting the two confused. Would you, by chance, be DaRizzle's 40 year old group member?
Fox News, whether you like it or not, is an important part of American society. The reason is simple: it provides a "contrary" voice to the left-leaning media in this country, which is prevalent, and it provides an "opposition" voice to the party in power right now. For the lefties out there, wouldn't you want CNN or ABC hounding a Republican administration day and night, looking for corruption?? Of course, you would. Case closed.
To me the article reads as being very slanted against Obama . . . but in general I agree with the idea that it is a bad idea for the white house staff to get wrapped into a war of words with a media outlet. I wonder if the administration is getting frustrated with public opinion of Obama these days . . . if not, why take on a battle with Fox. Just doesn't make much sense to me and comes across as desperate.
What's the old saying? Never get into a war with an entity that buys ink by the barrel? It's a real mistake by the Administration. If they have the courage of their convictions, they should be confident they'll be able to show up on FOX and make them look foolish for opposing President Obama's policies.
As somebody who likes open debate, I'd like to see the administration appear on there. From a strategic perspective, though, I can see why they don't. Most people who watch Fox aren't going to budge in their views. Obama isn't going to convince anybody. Just imagine Shooter sitting through a 20 minute interview with Obama and being convinced of anything good about our president. Ain't. Gonna. Happen. On the other hand, Obama has proven that he can pretty much live with right wing media sniping at him. In fact, it doesn't really matter. If a right wing media outlet like Fox were so important anymore to American thought, would Obama have won? Would the Democratic party have scored so hugely in the last election? Wouldn't there be much more support for the wars? Or Dubya? If Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly and the rest were such kingmakers, would McCain have been the Republican candidate? Would Palin have poled so badly among voters? Fox news is important to political media the same way Apple is important to computer manufacturers. Sure, it's huge. Just like there are a lot of Macintoshes out there. But relative to the overall US population, it's not terribly representative, or even watched. The right more and more resembles a pack of Mac fanboys, complimenting themselves on how true blue and sleek their product is, how without compromise it is. They'd never dare be in the same room with one of those disgusting and inefficient and ugly Windows PC's, no matter that it's what the majority of Americans are (ie, not conservative Republicans). Now, it appears, after years of getting sneered at, liberals come to conclude it's just not worth disrupting the fan club. In fact, the less they do to actually confront them, the more the fanboys will just compete among themselves about who is the most true blue, driving themselves even more to the fringe. After so thoroughly demonizing the word "liberal", they now seem to have turned their attention to the idea "moderate". And they don't seem to realize that it's a lot harder to demonize something that most people are. IMO, the problem isn't Obama's. The echo chamber hasn't hurt him yet, and it's certainly done its best. It's not really a problem for Fox, either. They have a captive audience--where else can the fan boys go? This is a problem for the Republican party. They have to realize at some point that it's not good enough to have 100% of a steadily shrinking base. They need to break free of the echo chamber and figure out a way to live with *gasp* ideas like "moderate" and "compromise." It's not going to be easy, though. Their media is against them. I hope they do, and soon. I'm liberal, but I'm not insane. One part rule is never a good thing in the long run.
Actually, I should revise that and say that Fox has been a problem for Obama. Clearly their coverage of the tea baggers and the "death panel" nonsense hurt him. I would amend it to say that it hasn't been an insurmountable problem. But all the obstacles like this in the past (the "madrassa" thing, Rev Wright, etc) he overcame without really confronting Fox. I'd also add that I don't see the strategic benefit of calling Fox out. If he wants to ignore them, ignore them. It always looks silly to tell everyone you know that you don't want to talk to somebody.
The white house attacking fox news is akin to them throwing raw meat in the cages of Obama's base of voters. The MoveOn.org, Huffington Post and DailyKos crowd. W left office with a terrible approval rating, which indicates he didn't keep his base happy. Legitimately, his base would be at least 40% of the population and his ratings would be that high, no? Yet 40% is on the low side. Republicans won seats in 2000, 2002, and 2004, while Democrats are pegged to lose seats and maybe control of the House (the way they're headed). What Fox ultimately can be is the megaphone for the opposition. What's lacking is a leader of the Gingrich (contract for america) or Reagan. I don't see anyone like that even in the wings, other than Newt, and he has enough skeletons in his closet to be dealt with.
Agreed. It's interesting that they are going after Faux news and not Mitch McConnell or other republican leaders. It shows who they see as their strongest adversary.
Where do you get that estimate from? Says here that registered Republicans account for 32% of the population. Is Bush's base bigger than the entire Republican Party? I somehow doubt that. When people usually talk about "the base," they usually aren't referring to everyone in a party. A lot of people check a box aligning themselves to a party without much conviction. I've always thought "the base" are the hardcore, true blue unwavering part of either party. The part who show up to stump speeches, listen to Limbaugh, watch Beck religiously, etc (or the liberal alternative on the other side). The tend to think of themselves as Very Important and Very Big and get their panties in a bunch over how many attended this or that rally. But the truth is that neither base really constitutes an overwhelming part of the population (thank goodness). Bush's popularity didn't fall because he'd alienated his base. He'd alienated everyone else.
The republican base is 40%, the democratic base is 20%. You're right that it isn't about voter registration, it's about who the voters elect. As I pointed out, they elected Republicans in 1994, then Bush in 2000, then increased republican majorities in both houses in 2002, then re-elected Bush in 2004 and increased the majorities again. What we have in between is "throw the bums out" and that mentality is not over - it'll affect the democrats soon enough. The country is right of center. When Clinton governed to the left he got blasted. When he figured out to govern right of center, he was enormously popular. Even so, he never won the presidency with 50% of the vote, though his approval rating was over 60% (more than 10% higher than Obama's now) even during the impeachment. Bush clearly lost the bulk of his base. He won reelection with over 50% and lost 30%+ in approval ratings by the time he left. The reasons are not because of the wars, but because of the big spending and big spending on social programs, his position of amnesty for illegal immigrants (he was governor of Texas, speaks fluent Spanish, what would he know about it?), and that sort of thing. There was a virulent hatred of the guy on the left from the time he was elected to the time he finished his second term. But they couldn't get motivated to elect a Democrat in his place, or Ralph Nader, or whoever. These things are what I observe and have long been backed by the polling data and election results.
Seems like a whole lot of wishful thinking there to me. Democratic victories are "throw the bums out", and Republican victories are evidence of the fundamental values of voters? Sure. The wars didn't affect Bush's popularity? Okay... Next tell me about the tooth fairy, please? barfo
I just don't know how to convince somebody who starts from this point. It's just so weird and so different from what I see in my own life. And I live in Idaho. I think both sides tend to hear less and less of the other and more and more of themselves. They think their side is the dominant voice, because they have self-selected out most of the media that disagrees with them. If you ask most extremely conservative people, I bet you'd find they'd all agree with you. If you asked most extremely liberal people, I bet you'd find they think the exact opposit--that Dems are 40% and Reps are 20%. That's life in the echo chamber.
I'm looking at election results. From 1980 on. Reagan, Reagan in a massive landslide. GHW Bush becomes the 2nd sitting VP in history to win the presidency. Clinton wins twice when Perot splits the republican vote (republicans still got 43% of the vote). Bush wins twice. Congress changes hands in 1994. Republicans gain seats in an off year election in 2002 (rare occurrence!) and gain seats again in 2004 (again, rare). Obama governs left of center and his popularity drops 20%+, and is barely 50% overall. And he's a rock star. I say it's throw the bums out because that was the sentiment in 2006 and certainly in 2008. I don't think people are happy with govt. at all, either party. I'm not happy with either party, and I'd much rather see split government and gridlock than either party pushing their agendas. How can you see it otherwise? Anecdotal evidence from your (long) neck of the woods? I think the actual data is more compelling.
These 2 sentences are mutually exclusive. Assuming the 2 candidates are not clones of each other, one is bound to be worse than the other, have more faults than the other, be less honest than the other. I would expect an accurate uncensored news reporting medium to be quite unbalanced in it's number of positive vs negative reports for each candidate.
Funny you didn't suggest this before Bushbaby bankrupted our wealthy, budget-surplus nation. Never work with exceptions, especially exceptions for the military-industrial complex that is the sole over-run. Abolish our entire military presence overseas (over 3/4th of the entire "defense" community costs) and provide free healthcare to every American with the savings. Use the extra for infrastructure catchup.
The Pew Research Center is a right-wing think tank founded by an oil baron. I'm sure you find their "research" to your liking.
Andrew Kohut President, Pew Research Center Andrew Kohut is the president of the Pew Research Center. He also acts as director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press (formerly the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press) and the Pew Global Attitudes Project. He was President of The Gallup Organization from 1979 to 1989. In 1989, he founded Princeton Survey Research Associates, an attitude and opinion research firm specializing in media, politics, and public policy studies. He served as founding director of surveys for the Times Mirror Center 1990-1992, and was named its Director in 1993. He is a past president of American Association of Public Opinion Research and the National Council on Public Polls. In 2005, he received the American Association of Public Opinion Research's highest honor, the Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement. He is a frequent press commentator on the meaning and interpretation of opinion poll results and the co-author of four books, including, mostly recently, America Against the World (Times Books). He received an A.B. degree from Seton Hall University in 1964 and studied graduate sociology at Rutgers, the State University, from 1964 to 1966.
Tom Rosenstiel Director, Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism Tom Rosenstiel is the founder and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. He is the former executive director and current vice chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, an initiative engaged in conducting a national conversation among journalists about standards and values. A journalist for more than 20 years, he is a former media critic for the Los Angeles Times and former chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek magazine. He is the editor and principal author of PEJ's Annual Report on the State of the News Media, a comprehensive report on the health of American journalism. He is the author of five books, including with Bill Kovach, Warp Speed: America in The Age of Mixed Media (Century Foundation 1999) and The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (Crown 2001), winner of the 2002 Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard University, the Society of Professional Journalist Sigma Delta Chi award for research in journalism and the Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism from Penn State. His writing also has appeared in such publications as Esquire, The New Republic, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review and The Washington Monthly. A former media critic for MSNBC's The News With Brian Williams, he is a frequent commentator on radio and television and in print.
