POTUS vs FOX

Apparently Obama's White House has drawn the battle lines. And they have determined that Fox News is "the enemy".

When you read this story, if you're not completely infuriated by the unbelievable arrogance of this Administration, call someone to check your pulse.

And one thing you might remember as you do is the lightning fast sniper response to criticism from Fox News, versus the slogging, slow, dragging, hesitating, dithering response to the request for troops in a real war, where Americans are dying.

Here are just a few tidbits of the sort of tactics the "Leader of the Free World", the "President of all the people", and "sworn defender of the Constitution" and its First Amendment, which includes "freedom of the press":

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."

"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way."

This should be insulting to the Fringe Media...to be thought of as such lap dogs that they obey when commanded to eat their own!

The White House stopped providing guests to 'Fox News Sunday' after Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August. Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do."

"She criticized 'FOX News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

The clear implication is that "news" organizations are supposed to listen politely to whatever this administration's flacks say, broadcast it as factual truth, and never question them...

...while CNN "fact-checks" skits on Saturday Night Live, to see if they've been unfair to Obama!

Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues."

Mr. Clemente displays a lot more decorum and patience with this rogue Administration than I would.

And others see this as a tactical—maybe even a strategic mistake for the pinheads in the White House. New York Times media columnist David Carr wrote:

"So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year. The administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight."

This kind of strong-arm, clear-the-field tactic has worked for Obama his entire career. But maybe Chicago thug tactics don't work on the national/international stage with the entire world watching.

wtp