Destroying The Fox

Guest post by debrazza

During his speech at the Al Smith dinner last night, Barack Obama once again mocked Fox News, boosting an effort to destroy the power and influence of the conservative media networks, an effort that I consider to be every bit as significant as the destruction of the modern Republican party. As noted by Kos, this continues a theme for the week where Obama mocked Fox during the debate last night and then again in the upcoming New York Times Magazine in an article by Matt Bai. This is also the continuation of a recent theme for the Obama campaign: Robert Gibbs famously ambushed Sean Hannity after the last debate in Nashville, David Plouffe recently called them the "24-hour ACORN channel" and Bill Burton has been all over their network embarrassing them over and over.

Let's consider the strategy of this for a second, because it is really smart. Obama is laying the foundation of delegitimizing Fox as a respectable news network and openly making the case that Democrats and others in the news media have been afraid for so long to say out loud, that Fox News serves the sole purpose of Republican and right wing propaganda. While this may certainly sound like an obvious point to many of us on the left, it is something that has become a bit of a taboo for people to say out loud to mainstream audiences out of fear. For Democrats, the fear is that Fox will train their sights on them and further alienate them from Fox's core Bubba audience. For the rest of the media, it is a well documented fear of the Fox's heavy handed media relations machine that intimindates other journalists from writing critical stories about the network, leaving the only critical voices about the network to come from the left from filmmakers like Robert Greenwald.

The difference with Obama is that he is not afraid of Fox. Given the platform and opportunity to take them on, he is using it, unlike the Democrats on the past. In addition to the candidate and his campaign openly mocking the network, we know that Obama knows no fear of Fox because consistent with his moral code, he let Murdoch and Ailes know he didn't respect them directly to their face as Micheal Wolffe recounted in Vanity Fair.

But beyond Obama allowing Democrats to regain their self esteem, by taking Fox down a notch, the strategy behind this is equally important. This is not just about winning the media war, this is about fundamentally about governing the nation and Obama being true to his word about fundamentally changing our politics. By openly mocking Fox in the manner that Obama does, he is effectively delegitimizing them as a respectable news outlet and giving the rest of the media license to do so as well. This is particularly effective because the Obama campaign, outside of being highly protective of stories about their biographies, do very little to influence the rest of the mainstream media. A stance that has riled some of us and even driven Frank Rich to write an Op-Ed advocating them to take a much more aggressive stance with the media, advising, "What Obama also should have learned by now is that the press is not his friend" and for Paul Krugman to ominously warn that the media will turn on Obama and put his administration under siege 3 months after taking office.

It appears that Obama either already understood this or is taking the advice perfectly. Everything he has done throughout this campaign has been with an eye towards governing. These latest salvos against Fox are no different. With the propaganda arm of the Republican party effectively delegitimized before the election is even over, it will make it much easier for Obama to govern. A lesson he seems to have learned from the Clintons, where Fox put them under siege.

And make no mistake, conservatives in the media understand this as well and it is driving them insane as we see with Michael Barone's recent rant about Obama's "thugocracy" detailing his worry about how effective they have been at delegitimizing fringe conservative critics seeking media attention. The effectiveness of the Obama media strategy however is precisely in the non-aggressive way they interact with the mainstream media. That keeps the media from getting a common sense of disgruntlement that would turn them all against them. The rest of the media are left with the option of defending these fringe lunatics despite the fact that they are treated more respectfully than the current administration, the McCain campaign or the Clinton campaign. And it makes it even harder for them to defend Fox if Obama is out there openly mocking them and exposing their bias and idiocy, particularly since Fox is a competitor and a rather obnoxious one at that. Fox will be waiting a long time if they are looking for defenders among other journalists.

This is just another clear example of the Obama campaigns emphasis on strategy over tactics and governing over campaigning that has been the hallmark of this impressive campaign. Most importantly, it demonstrates in the clearest terms possible that Obama is not interested in winning just so he can govern from a defensive crouch. The boldness of it is remarkable, it shows that Obama is aiming to not only win this election with the largest mandate possible, but to pull the trifecta of destroying the Republican party and their propaganda arm Fox for good measure. What we know about Obama is that his a man fundamentally of his word and when he told us at his victory speech in St. Paul, "I didn't get into race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics, but I am running for president because this is the time to end it.", I think we can rest assured that he meant it.