Barack Obama’s decision to go on Fox News’ Chris Wallace show has the freak brigades in a tizzy. Reports Wired:
… Obama was decidedly non-combative, and calmly addressed all of the issues thrown his way by the show’s host. He even highlighted some of his differences with liberal blogs, singling out Daily Kos by name while discussing John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court.
“Although I voted against him, I strongly defended some of my colleagues who had voted for him on the Daily Kos, and was fiercely attacked as somebody who is, you know, caving in to Republicans on these fights,” Obama told Wallace.
Naturally, the blogs’ reaction was to … attack Obama as somebody who is, you know, caving in to Republicans.
The reaction from the blogosphere was quick, and largely critical.
“To be clear, Obama wasn’t obliged to go after Fox,” wrote TPM’s Greg Sargent. “But a senior adviser said Obama would, as a way of quieting criticism of him. And he didn’t.
“This will likely further dismay liberal bloggers who had worked very hard to get Dems to boycott Fox as a way of delegitimizing the network and who already criticized Obama for agreeing to appear in the first place,” Sargent continued.
Obama’s decision to go on Fox means one thing: He wants to win the general election, and he’s going where the voters are.
Is there anything more pathetic than the nutroots’ effort to “delegitimize” Fox News? Yeah, Fox has a lot more conservative commentators than liberals. So what? It’s not like they pretend Sean Hannity is a reporter or that Bill O’Reilly is anything other than an opinion guy. NPR and the New York Times are liberal. Fox and Investors’ Business Daily are pretty conservative. Talk radio is conservative, movies are liberal. It’s a big, free country, and it even includes a number of people who see the world differently from how TPM’s Greg Sargent does. Is that a surprise? A problem?
There is something of the mob mentality in the Left’s crusade against Fox and talk radio. When the Right was unhappy with the media, we started our own outlets from National Review to broadcast outlets that are still following on Rush Limbaugh’s very long coattails. The Left not only doesn’t want diversity, it doesn’t want to compete. The Left wants to yank broadcast licenses, use bogus regulations to smother conservative media, and generally narrow the debate. That’s wrong, it’s authoritarian, and it’s evidence that the Right has better ideas.
