Let’s begin by stating the obvious: Barack Obama’s war on Fox News is beneath the dignity of the office.
Of course it is. Going to war with Fox News would be beneath the dignity of my office — and all I’ve got is a pod with a view.
I mean, if Rush Limbaugh’s company is beneath the dignity of the dog- fighting NFL, then Glenn Beck’s name should not even be whispered within hail-Marying distance of the Oval Office.
But this war is not exactly what you might think it is. There’s more going on here than a thin-skinned politician whining about the media.
That’s an old story — much older, say, than Dick Nixon and his enemies list. Back in the day, way back in the day, John Adams was using the Alien and Sedition Acts to actually put off-putting reporters in jail.
Our updated story is different. It’s about the red-blue divide and how Fox, a cable news channel, has somehow taken over the red party’s position on the board.
I don’t know if that’s unprecedented, but while Republicans have been reeling from electoral defeats, Fox News — with help from talk radio — has effectively become the opposition party.
And so, Obama’s advisers go on the Sunday news shows to argue that Fox News is not real news, suggesting that, in fact, Fox News is the propaganda wing of the Republican Party.
But they’ve got it backward. The Republican Party is closer to being the political wing of Fox News.
That doesn’t make it any smarter for Obama to take Fox on so directly. I’m not sure what he’s trying to accomplish. If the point is to delegitimize Fox, the truth is that whoever goes head to head with a president is going head to head with a president.
For Fox, this is brier-patch strategy. The more Obama goes after Fox, the better the ratings. This is a war Fox can’t lose.
And each Obama attack simply illustrates how short of the promised post-partisan America we are. Post- partisan America, circa 2009, starts with Olympia Snowe and, to this point, ends with Olympia Snowe.
But who leads the Obama opposition? Boehner? McConnell? Palin? Pawlenty? Huckabee? Romney?
Or Glenn Beck?
Ah, Glenn Beck — the Weepy One, who must have learned his acting chops from Balloon Boy’s dad — goes after the czars. He takes down Van Jones. He makes the cover of Newsweek. He becomes chief cheerleader for the tea parties.
And his ratings, yes, balloon.
We’ve had political divides before. I seem to remember we were once so divided, we had an entire civil war. But what’s changed is that the sides now have their own TV networks, that the divide has become institutionalized, that liberals watch MSNBC and conservatives watch Fox.
And now, any crazy thing that anyone thinks can be validated by some guy who is smart enough to get his own TV show (see: Lou Dobbs, birther edition).
And yet, I think Fox may, in the end, be a bigger problem for Republicans than for Obama. For Republicans to make a political comeback, they will have to appease Fox viewers and also try to reclaim the political center — if there still is one.
Obama’s problem isn’t Fox. It’s making sure Harry “Why Won’t Anyone Follow Me?” Reid gets 60 Democratic votes for health care.
Supposing Obama gets health care passed and supposing the economy improves next year — which is what economies inevitably do — it’s going to be tough to win in 2010 on an anti- Obama platform.
But for now, there’s Fox and there’s Beck. I don’t know if you’ve watched Beck, but you should, or you won’t know what you’re missing. I YouTubed a recent segment — I can’t remember whether Glenny wept — in which he was arguing against volunteerism because, it seems, Hollywood and Obama are both in favor of volunteerism. It’s all over the blogosphere because — just check out the transcript.
“Celebrities are coming together to make it cool to volunteer,” Beck says. “Disney gives you a free day at the park. This is all fine, but doesn’t it seem a little bit convenient that all of this comes out now at the same time the Obama administration is calling for it? Obama controls the message through the media he holds in his pocket. Or in his little hand. And soon if you disobey, he’ll just go (and we see Beck slap his own hand).”
It’s thrilling TV, in that it’s loony- tunes TV. And then because this is Obama he’s talking about, Beck inevitably takes the extra step, right into the abyss.
“Well, this is fantastic,” he says. “It’s almost like we’re living in Mao’s China right now.”
Yes, Chairman Mao.
There was a turning point in media history, the day Beck said Obama was a racist who hated white culture — and nothing happened. Hardly anyone blinked. These may be fighting words, but I think I understand how that’s possible: Fox News may have great ratings, but its audience is limited to people who are used to watching Fox.
Mike Littwin writes Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-5428 or mlittwin@denverpost.com.
