Unless you were without electricity yesterday due to the violent storms that have moved in to stay over the Southeast, you could not have missed President Obama on the Sunday TV talk shows. That is, unless you're a Fox "News devotee. In that case you were treated to a round of whining by Fox "News Sunday host Chris Wallace, who phoned the equally immature Bill O'Reilly on Friday to throw a toddler-tantrum over Obama's snub of the NeoCon Network. Without a hint of irony, Wallace accused the White House of being childish:
When I covered Ronald Reagan for NBC in the 80's, you know some days you do a good piece, passive piece, and then you do a tough piece. And then you come in the next day and they always treated you professionally, I think it came from the top down from the old man, Reagan who felt, you know, I'm gonna get a good review today or a bad review tomorrow, nothing personally. These guys everything is personal. I gotta tell you, everything. They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.
You gotta be kidding me. Chris, if your Daddy was around he'd slap your lying, crying face. First, when you worked for NBC and covered Saint Reagan, it was an actual network. Fox "News is a legitimate network like Paris Hilton is a serious film actress. This is a "news network that has never broken a single news story, refused to air Obama's prime time healthcare address to Congress, and has hosts and frequent guest pundits who contort their faces and growl wild-eyed into the cameras that Obama is a racist, or make the outrageous claim that he is a combo commie-Nazi-fascist with a deep-seated hatred of white people, wants to kill our grandparents and disabled children, or -- more succinctly-- is simply the anti-Christ.
Gee Chris, I wonder why Obama refuses to join the "fair and balanced fantasy with you freaks? You questioned the legitimacy of his Presidency and now call him a crybaby? You dangerous idiots set the tone, organizing anti-Obama rallies and tea-bag parties all over the place; you urged parents to keep their children home from school lest they be mesmerized into zombies by Obama's scary mind-control speech about working hard and studying in school; you encouraged your brain-damaged Fox "News viewers to arm up and go to battle to fight the Big Evil in the White House.And, those are just the obvious assaults on rationality. Can you imagine the interview had Obama sunk to pre-K level and agreed to appear on Fox "News? I imagine it would've gone something like this:
Obama: "I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss the economic reality of this health care crisis. If we don't reform the system now, it will collapse.
Fox "News : "Perhaps, but what gives you the right to talk about health care, since you're not an American and therefore not the legitimate President?
Obama: "I was elected by the people of this country to bring about necessary change and, if we do nothing yet again, then we have failed to help the millions of uninsured Ameri "
Fox "News (interrupting): " "where's the birth certificate? Do you have it on you?
Obama: "Look, we need to focus on what we can accomplish to come to a bipartisan agreement on these reforms. I'm willing to listen to any plan the Republicans have that will provide health coverage for all Americ "
Fox "News (interrupting): "Death panels! That's settles that. Now tell our viewers why you support the pimps, drug-addicts, prostitutes, and commie terrorists at ACORN?
And so it goes. How can you snub a "news outlet that doesn't report the news, and instead throws carefully selected stories into the mix-master and spins them out to their inevitable, uber-right conclusions? Or that just invents stories and scandals altogether straight out of thin air? There's no snub of Fox "News because it isn't a legitimate news agency. Obama didn't appear on MTV, either, or Animal Planet, although he certainly would have been treated more fairly and respectfully on those networks than had he submitted himself to the Murdoch machine.
When asked about the snub-that-wasn't, a Deputy White House Press Secretary had this to say:
"We figured Fox would rather show ˜So You Think You Can Dance' than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform " Fox is an ideological outlet where the president has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again; not that the whining particularly strengthens their case for participation any time soon.
Isn't it gratifying to see an Administration brave enough to end the pretense that Fox "News is anything more than a right-wing propaganda entertainment channel? They ought to rename their shows: "So, You Think you can Report?
Never mind, we already know the answer.
