The Media: The White House plays 3-Card Monte

The Obama Administration's War on Fox News is such a weird, over-the-top distraction and side show, it's hard to think that it's not an intentional distraction and side show (Democrats Urged to Stay Off Fox - The Wrap). Any chance that the White House hopes to divert the attention of Democrats from its failure to achieve much of anything nearly a year after the election that was going to change everything?

(bail out the banks) "ATTACK FOX" (no public option) "BLAME FOX" (expand Afghan war) "FOX IS NOT A NEWS ORGANIZATION" (trash habeas corpus and legal representation) "BAN FOX" (throw out treaties) "FIRE BECK" (defy Congress) "TURN OFF FOX" (undermine the Constitution) "FOX IS AN ARM OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY" (nullify laws with signing statements) "FOX FOX FOX and FOX"

White House spokespeople are saying that the Prez won't condescend to appear on Fox News until at least 2010. And MoveOn.org is slavishly trying to get the rest of the party to "stay off FOX for as long as he does." Call me old fashioned, but I can't help but think how much better off the country would be if Alan Grayson, Marcy Kaptur, Anthony Weiner, Russell Feingold, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, Lynn Woolsey, Patty Murray, Jack Reed, Pete DeFazio, Jim McDermott, Jerry Nadler, Pete Stark and every other member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party took any opportunity to go on Fox and every other media outlet to give the good folks tuning in as much access to the truth as possible. You can't really blame Obama, Emanuel, Pelosi, Reid, Baucus, et al, if they'd rather have progressives chasing Foxers than bothering their little heads over such lesser matters as the war in Oilistan or the country's desperate need for affordable, universal health care. The White House can carry on about Faux News as much as it wants, however, but nobody is going to be fooled. It wasn't Bill O'Reilly who declared Medicare-for-All "off the table," nor is it Sean Hannity sending troops to Afghanistan.

This is not say that Fox is a responsible news operation, or any kind of news operation at all. It gives nothing to Fox, though, to wish the White House would focus on governing and leave the political fisticuffs to others. Plenty of sharp Democrats, journalists and others are ready and willing to take Fox on, as MediaMatters does in this video compilation rebroadcast on MSNBC: