In a logical turn of events, Barack Obama's recent appearance on Fox News, which while a good interview, was not an attempt to "take Fox on" as promised by an Obama surrogate on Greg Sargent's blog, has birthed much criticism. Many, including Chris and Kos, had hoped that Obama would in fact attack the network when asked inevitably irrelevant questions about the "scandals" around his campaign. Instead, it amounted to ironically Clintonian Triangulation, on issues such as abortion, taxes, regulation, and John Roberts. While he didn't "throw Kos under the bus" as claimed by many, he did use him as a point of distancing himself from "the Left." In a strange, though honestly predictable turn of events, many Obama supporters are refusing to criticize the move, and many are even defending it as a means by which to court more voters, with claims such as
regardless of whether WE think the questions were vacuous or stupid, as Wallace pointed out, there ARE a lot of voters to whom these things do matter, and this allows Obama to address them more directly than just hoping they will get a snippet of his stump speeches.
This comment is actually from a diary on Kos, with the intent of criticizing Kos for his criticism of Obama.
What I think is important to note, throughout this entire fiasco, is that this was not just a mistake in its treatment of us, the activists, but also a missed opportunity to attack the current structure of the media. Now, I've said on previous occasions that I'm not sure that it would have helped him in the short term to attack Fox on the network, as it would have simply solidified his already attained base, and pissed off conservative viewers of the network (I personally think he should not have gone on in the first place), but in my research of past events, it has become clear to me that going on and "taking Fox on" could actually have helped the breaking of the current creation of false media narratives, especially by the uberpower, Fox News. This is especially evident by viewing the Dan Rather interview of George H.W. Bush in January 1988, fairly early in the campaign for President. Bush's reaction, and the firestorm after the fact, lead to one of the most important turning points in American Media History in recent times. Follow me below the fold for the details.
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