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September 29, 2010

Obama's anti-Fox schtick feels like Hugo

Yesterday, we posted on Barack Obama being back on his absurd anti-Fox news schtick, this time claiming that Fox News is "destructive" for U.S. growth." Today, Jay D. Homnick's piece at American Thinker puts Obama's anti-Fox News crusades into a perspective it well deserves - it's so Hugo Chavez-like it's mind-numbing and alarming. All one need to do is think back to our first clue that Hugo Chavez was an autocrat, bent on subverting those national institutions which did not refract his glory. It was when he came out against various newspapers and television stations, saying much the same things as our own El Presidente.

Homnick writes:

[...] We live in a surreal time. The Presidency we are experiencing does not merely bend the rules of civility, it alters the outlines of reality. The danger posed by someone filling the vessels of our national institutions with bad content is limited. The next custodian of the vessels can refill them more healthily. The greatest danger occurs when the vessels are smashed or vitiated by misuse. There is no guarantee that a successor will be able to effectuate repair.

I want to say that I am shocked by the President's latest utterance about FOX News, but I fear that we have moved past shock into numbness. Mister Obama, in a chatty colloquy with the publisher of Rolling Stone, while being treated with deference befitting a royal, thought it sporting to hound FOX. That network is destructive to America, he said, hawking a clearly discernible viewpoint like the Hearst papers of yore. It has been a successful strategy in fiscal terms, he noted: "wildly successful as an economic enterprise." Good for Rupert Murdoch, bad for America. (Well, shiver me timbers, our fearless President has managed to unmask yet another profiteer!)

The idea that the journalism at FOX is unique by species is specious. The news is presented fairly and a rightward tilt often peeks through, no more prominently than the leftward tilt at CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN et al. Yet even if it were somehow more egregiously skewed, how is this destructive when so many viewing options are available? Remember, this fox came to the table last, long after the wolves had been seated. Who can reasonably argue that having one strident right-wing voice amid a gaggle of left-wing voices, or even amid neutral voices, is to inject a moral havoc into the culture?

Furthermore, everyone is aware that 89-91 percent of journalists covering Washington admit to voting Democrat. This is not seen to pose any threat to balance. Why would anyone accuse them of coloring the news to suit their views? (Not to get sidetracked here by citing the recent Journolist scandal, where many of the nation's top reporters admitted -- to each other, at any rate -- that they were fighting for liberal objectives under the pose of objectivity.)

With radical Islamists threatening us at home and abroad, our borders being invaded by illegal aliens and Mexican Drug gangs, a war raging in Afghanistan, a nuclear Iran looming on the horrizon, increasingly powerful China and Russia at odds with our economic and diplomatic interests, a terrible economy at home with millions of Americans out of work, and yet Barack Obama takes time out of his day for an interview with Rolling Stone in which he attacks an American news outlet that dares to present views that differ from his own (along with the views of those that do agree with his)? This tells us much about the man and his bone-deep priority - control and power over the American people. If this isn't 'sooo..' Hugo Chavez-like, what is?

This isn't Venezuela and we didn't elect a Hugo Chavez as our president (albeit it appears that we got one). And our earliest opportunity to register how much we dislike being teated like it is comes on November 2nd. Make it count. It just may be our last chance to divert our nation from its current trend toward a nanny state that began with Barack Obama's election.

Meanwhile, while Obama: finds Fox News to be "destructive," he finds MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow to be "Invaluable."

Related: Gallup: Big Media's underwater trust numbers.

Posted by Richard at September 29, 2010 7:18 AM

• Obama's anti-Fox schtick feels like Hugo - Sep 29, 2010