White House vs. Fox News

A Democratic strategist who appeared on Fox News claims that the White House allegedly gave him a blunt warning to never appear on the channel again.

The strategist reappeared on Fox despite the so-called threats, but this time on the condition of anonymity to avoid bad relations with the White House. He claims that shortly after his first appearance on Fox, he got a call from an Obama official telling him not to be a guest on the show again. The strategist said the call had an intimidating tone.

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn says the allegations are untrue. She maintains that no one from the White House told people to avoid Fox. According to an email written by Dunn, White House officials actually encourage Democrats to appear on the network.

Why would Democrats not want to appear on Fox? It isn’t a secret that Fox News has a clear right-wing bias, even though the network constantly deems itself the hub of “fair and balanced” reporting. All personalities on Fox are conservative, and they are dedicated to bashing Obama’s Administration. With that said, this “Democratic” strategist’s claims seemed extremely fishy.

I personally believe Fox is sleazy enough to have some random person on the show as long as he or she agrees to make things up about the Obama Administration. The strategist provided no proof that the White House had contacted him. We don’t even know if the man is really a Democratic strategist. He could have made anything up, and Fox would have allowed him on the show. I highly doubt a single producer or reporter investigated the strategist’s claims.

Just last week, Obama’s Senior Advisor David Axelrod made an appearance on the network. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also granted Fox an interview last week. Did the White House threaten Clinton and Axelrod too?

Anyone who believes some anonymous strategist on Fox should take a good look at the network’s track record. Each day, a watchdog organization known as Media Matters for America catches Fox News blurting out one lie after another to damage the public’s perception of the Obama Administration.

The personalities on Fox need to stop kidding themselves. There is nothing fair and balanced about the network at all, and when it comes to bashing Obama, Fox is neither shy nor implicit about it. When the President won the Nobel Peace Prize, Sean Hannity, who has a prime-time show on the network, said he got the award for “trashing America.”

When Obama drew attention to how Fox bashes the Democratic Party, conservative commentators were appalled. But Obama simply stated the obvious when he told CNBC that the “news” network is really the “voice of opposition,” and is “entirely devoted to attacking his administration.”

Fox News is convinced that the Obama administration has boycotted their network. I don’t believe that is true. But if Fox is really concerned about the difficulty of getting Democrats on their network, they should try harder to avoid distorting the facts in favor of the Republican party.