Fox News has a stellar lineup of commentators who say outrageous things, and their opinions got the entire Fox News organization in trouble with the White House. No matter what punches commentators like Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity throw, getting the President involved in blacklisting Fox News was a bad idea. The Becks, Hannitys, and Coulters just aren't that important. If Obama stepped into the fracas on his own, perhaps he should have taken advice. If that's the advice he was given, well, someone should be taken to the woodshed. Sometimes smart people are too smart by half. The president's advisors didn't clean up the lawn after the dogs were out, and now he's stepped in it.
It's never a good idea to argue with billionaires unless, like Vladimir Putin, you can rig criminal cases against them, lock them up, and seize their assets. The White House took on Rupert Murdoch, and it's hard to see them winning this scuffle. It's one thing for Democratic leaders to call out commentators when they make racist comments or cross the line. That's just political dog fighting. Rupert Murdoch has his pit bulls on the right – and they don't play fair, if there's such a thing as fairness in dogfighting. But there are plenty of pit bulls on left that can be thrown into the ring. Just because commentators uttering words with more vitriol than respect for civil discourse find an audience doesn't make them newsworthy.
So the White House has made several mistakes. Now Chris Wallace of Fox News has exacerbated the situation, and put not only his journalistic credibility at stake, but that of Fox News as well. Rahm Emanuel must be pounding his desk with glee.
Wallace closed his show today by asking panelists what they thought of the dust-up between the White House and Fox News. That's a questionable gambit, since he's part of the story. It's like a little kid asking someone to agree that he's being pushed around while he's in a fight. Wallace then went on to cite some supportive entries on his blog as if to say "See, Mr. President, even the people agree with me that you're a bully." Dana Perino, former press secretary to President Bush, answered Wallace's plea with a couple of swipes at the President and his advisors on her way to getting to the fundamental principle.
When we push other countries to respect freedom of the press, when we criticize them for jailing reporters, we must lead by example, and the example set by the Obama White House takes us off the moral high ground. The White House doesn't get to decide who is press and who is not; especially if they want to tell Iran, Russian, China, Myanmar and a host of other countries to stop harassing the media, that freedom of speech and of the press are fundamental principles of good governance. This week's White House blunder of trying to remove Fox News from the correspondent pool was way off base. It only compounded the errors already made in this showdown, which has been going on for more than a month.
Then Wallace and Fox News gave the White House a gift, and blew their entire case for being a news organization. Fox News Sunday's guest next week will be none other than that expert on everything, with in-depth knowledge of all worldly affairs equal to the decibel level of his opinions: Rush Limbaugh. Now there's someone capable of serious news reporting and coverage of the issues. If I were Chris Wallace I'd be concerned that Fox management might be giving Rush a test run to see if he can take over the Fox News Sunday segment.
This would be entertaining and maybe informative if it was some university president taking on the student newspaper. As it is, every two-bit dictator around the world can now justify using the bully pulpit to be a bully. So much for a shining city upon a hill; it's rough to be reminded that Washington was built on a swamp.
