Obama's Declared War with Fox News Channel

[Anonymous]

Because they have absolutely no context for thinking they could have been purposely excluded

[Anonymous]

Now I have to ask - are you saying Talking Points Memo is a 'news organization' and Fox News is not? If I was to judge the veracity of the the two, based on past experience, TPM would not come out on top. How about a source from the pool?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The "War on Fox" is starting to bum me out; reminds me of Hugo Chavez. Maybe not the extreme, but the shutting out is silencing. What is he scared of? Please. Shutting out media from the pool etc. is not a good road to go down.

Ha, ha! This is hilarious! Chavez shuts down a whole tv station while Obama is reluctant to talk to one, which continues to say whatever it wants about the president. Wow, you must have gotten at least 200 points on the logic portion of the SATs! Bizarre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now I have to ask - are you saying Talking Points Memo is a 'news organization' and Fox News is not? If I was to judge the veracity of the the two, based on past experience, TPM would not come out on top. How about a source from the pool?

How's Associated Press? They are a "news organization" and they don't have a stake in the beef between WH and Fox. It quotes another network executive on background because the pool doesn't want to get in the middle of the mess. But AP is reasonable.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5grZ9qgSRNN5sAMW8smsQXGMwrwzgD9BH47R02

[Anonymous]

I think the WH is making a big mistake. Whether or not they think Fox is a "real news station" is irrelevant. Fox will always get the last word.

Don't pick a battle you can't win. How does the WH win this battle? What is the end game here - to convince America that Fox does not support the WH and are far right? No way. I have never heard that before.

You win White House - well done. Now what?

By initiating this war on Fox you are bringing even more attention to them.

[Anonymous]

Bottom line ladies and gentlemen is that this discussion illustrates once again that this WH is not placing itself above the fray in an effort to ensure transparency. The WH could go one of two directions with this mess and has chosen to wade squarely into a mess with a television network. If the WH had a leg to stand on they would be saturating FNC with official guests for the next month and terminate this nonsense once and for all. Instead the chose to fan the flames and acknowledge that they are trying to marginalize network. Why? They are the WH. They are the in power administration. They do not need to scrap. However, they are choosing to scrap. It does reek of Chicago.

The FACT of the matter is that the administration is ACTIVELY seeking to marginalize and ignore FNC, while at the same time actively seeking to increase exposure and interviews on aljazeera. Is that really the message that the White House is trying to communicate or should we not be surprised to hear this from the Maoist Communications Director.

(Yes that was salt, but non the less a fact.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:... Is that really the message that the White House is trying to communicate or should we not be surprised to hear this from the Maoist Communications Director.

(Yes that was salt, but non the less a fact.)

Is that "fact" based on Dunn's reference to Mao and Mother Theresa as two of her favorite political philosophers? If so, I find her responses convincing:
"The use of the phrase 'favorite political philosophers' was intended as irony..."
"the Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater."

[Anonymous]

I think it was a misstep on Obama's team. Even Shields & Brooks on PBS Nightly News said that it was a blunder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Is that really the message that the White House is trying to communicate or should we not be surprised to hear this from the Maoist Communications Director.

(Yes that was salt, but non the less a fact.)

Is that "fact" based on Dunn's reference to Mao and Mother Theresa as two of her favorite political philosophers? If so, I find her responses convincing:
"The use of the phrase 'favorite political philosophers' was intended as irony..."
"the Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater."

has anyone a copy of her full speech? The only irony I see is placing Mother Teresa (met the lady as a child; good lady) and Mao in the se sentence. And why on earth is she taking cues from Lee Atwater? That sounds pretty thin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The "War on Fox" is starting to bum me out; reminds me of Hugo Chavez. Maybe not the extreme, but the shutting out is silencing. What is he scared of? Please. Shutting out media from the pool etc. is not a good road to go down.

Ha, ha! This is hilarious! Chavez shuts down a whole tv station while Obama is reluctant to talk to one, which continues to say whatever it wants about the president. Wow, you must have gotten at least 200 points on the logic portion of the SATs! Bizarre.

you're right; I did not score highly on logic - boo hoo. I'm glad for you if solving riddles about the order of people wearing various colored hats is your thing. I did score higly enough on verbal though to know that the great lesson of the twentieth century might be that sometimes erosion of freedom starts so low key that if you blink you miss it... Ala animal farm. Chavez has been systematically casting as 'propaganda' all media that disagree with....Chavez of course. I don't think this war on a major media station is becoming to an American president. Nowhere has it been shown that fox's news broadcasting is so unfair or slanderous that the white house is justified in keeping them out. I don't think the white house is obligated to appear on the opinion shows, but to bar the regular news arm is lame and somewhat tawdry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Is that really the message that the White House is trying to communicate or should we not be surprised to hear this from the Maoist Communications Director.

(Yes that was salt, but non the less a fact.)

Is that "fact" based on Dunn's reference to Mao and Mother Theresa as two of her favorite political philosophers? If so, I find her responses convincing:
"The use of the phrase 'favorite political philosophers' was intended as irony..."
"the Mao quote is one I picked up from the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater."

There's an important distinction between reciting aphorisms that are fairly universal and anyone could have said, and drawing a lesson from the specific actions and thoughts of a mass murderer as they pertain to mass murder.

Mao's quotes are larger than he is. Many of them are his originally, and many more are simply ones he used.

A famous one is "it's always darkest before it's totally black." The fact that Mao used it does not place it off limits. The only thing off limits based upon association is the Hitler mustache. You just simply cannot pull that off anymore. One man ruined it for mankind. However, if you cannot pick up on the nuance between using a quote and drawing lessons from ones philosophy, well then, you are correct, stay away from the quotes.

Nobody has pointed out the irony yet of the fact that Bill O'reilly is defending Anita Dunn, on this note, to the hilt. I guess he is beyond any sort of positive word on this forum.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Nobody has pointed out the irony yet of the fact that Bill O'reilly is defending Anita Dunn, on this note, to the hilt. I guess he is beyond any sort of positive word on this forum.

Not true. Earlier in this same thread I said that Obama gets treated more fairly by O'Reilly than by Fox's news programs. I didn't know that O'Reilly is defending Dunn. Good for him.

[Anonymous]

He's defending her freedom of speech; don't think he's defending that what she said made sense. If you look at her speech there is nothing ironic in the reference. Show me the irony....
Chairman Mao; not so great a political philosopher when he's gunning for you for wearing glasses or melting your farm tools...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's defending her freedom of speech; don't think he's defending that what she said made sense. If you look at her speech there is nothing ironic in the reference. Show me the irony....
Chairman Mao; not so great a political philosopher when he's gunning for you for wearing glasses or melting your farm tools...

an educated person complimenting Mao in any respect in a speech to students is just completely asinine. can you imagine if she had named Hitler as one of her role models? what a dumb person she must be.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:He's defending her freedom of speech; don't think he's defending that what she said made sense. If you look at her speech there is nothing ironic in the reference. Show me the irony....
Chairman Mao; not so great a political philosopher when he's gunning for you for wearing glasses or melting your farm tools...

The quote had to do with not giving up regardless of the odds. Very subversive indeed.