WASHINGTON (AFP) - – The White House has gone on the offensive
against its critics in the press, singling out Fox News and going
so far as to accuse the News Corp.-owned network of waging a "war
against Barack Obama."
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has led the
charge, appearing on CNN television and conducting interviews with
Time magazine and The New York Times in recent days to make her
case.
The unusual White House campaign comes as President Obama faces
mounting opposition to his health care reforms, growing concern
over the situation in Afghanistan and a continuing general economic
malaise.
The president also suffered a setback recently when his personal
effort to win approval for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics was
rejected and his Nobel Peace Prize has met with more barbs than
bouquets.
Speaking of media magnate Rupert Murdoch's Fox, Dunn told the
Times in an interview published Monday: "Were going to treat them
the way we would treat an opponent.
"As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the
White House, we dont need to pretend that this is the way that
legitimate news organizations behave," she said.
In comments just days earlier to Time magazine, Dunn, a veteran
Democratic Party communications strategist who joined the White
House in May, denounced Fox as "opinion journalism masquerading as
news."
"They are boosting their audience. But that doesn't mean we are
going to sit back," she said.
Appearing on CNN on Sunday, Dunn said "the reality of it is that
Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the
communications arm of the Republican Party."
Dunn said the White House would not be a "passive bystander" as
opponents try to "tear down the president and his presidency."
"We will push back," she said.
The push back has included a blog post on WhiteHouse.gov in
which the White House denounced what it called "Fox lies" and "an
attempt to smear the administration's efforts to win the Olympics
for the United States."
The White House blog singled out Glenn Beck, a conservative talk
show host on Fox, for criticism, saying his program "has shown that
nothing is worthy of respect if it can be used as part of a
partisan attack to boost ratings."
Beck has been a relentless critic of the Obama administration
and labelled the president a "racist" in a July appearance on
another Fox program.
"This guy is, I believe, a racist," Beck said, adding that
Obama, America's first black president, has a "deep-seated hatred
for white people."
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the
University of Virginia, said the White House may be lashing out at
Fox "because the Democratic base is starting to be more critical of
Obama.
"The world was expected to be transformed in approximately a
month and it just didn't quite happen that way," Sabato said. "So
if you're in that position and you need to rally your base, you
need to find a common enemy.
"They're going on the offensive to rally the base and the base
will rally to them because they hate the 'right-wing noise machine'
too," he said. "Everyone needs an enemy in politics. Everyone needs
a devil figure."
The White House offensive against Fox comes despite a reported
meeting last month between senior Obama adviser David Axelrod and
Fox News chairman and chief executive officer Roger Ailes.
Political news website Politico said Axelrod and Ailes met to
discuss news coverage and the relationship between the White House
and the network.
Fox, asked by AFP for a reaction to the White House criticisms,
pointed to statements made by senior Fox executives to the Times
and CNN.
"Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in
campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack
mentality," said Michael Clemente, senior vice president for news
at the Fox News Channel.
"Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues
that voters are worried about," he said.
Clemente also noted that Fox programming is a mixture of news
and opinion.
"So, with all due respect to anyone who still might be confused
about the difference between news reporting and vibrant opinion, my
suggestion would be to talk about the stories and the facts rather
than attack the messenger ... which over time, has never worked,"
he said.