Say Anything Blog

Obama’s war with Fox News escalates:

The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece.

Top political strategists question the decision by the Obama administration to escalate its offensive against Fox News. And as of Monday, the four other major television networks had not given any indication that they intend to sever their ties with Fox News.

But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox “opinion journalism masquerading as news” in an interview last Sunday.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox.”

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.”

For what it’s worth, Saul Alinsky’s 12th rule from his “Rules for Radicals” reads: “RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy.”

Apparently, the Obama administration is trying to isolate Fox News from the rest of the media.  That might have worked, except that Fox routinely gets more viewers through primetime than CNN and MSNBC combined.

But what’s a little shocking is an elected leader picking a media outlet like this and attacking it so viciously.  If this were a Republican President the liberals would be screaming from the rooftops about fascism and the crushing of dissent.

But it’s ok when Obama does it.  Because as Alinsky also said, “In war the end justifies almost any means.”