Obama freezes out Fox
by kos
Wed Jan 31, 2007
This is how you deal with Fox propaganda. You marginalize them.
These are chilly days on Capitol Hill ... and on the campaign trail for Fox News journalists -- at least when they're anywhere near Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
Sources tell The Sleuth that the Obama camp has "frozen out" Fox News reporters and producers in the wake of the network's major screw-up in running with the erroneous Obama-the-jihadist story reported by Insight magazine.
"I'm still in the freezer," one Fox journalist said, noting that the people at Fox "suffering the most did nothing wrong." (It was "Fox and Friends" host Steve Doocy who aired the Insight magazine piece, which reported that operatives connected to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) found out that Obama, as a child, was educated at a Muslim madrassah in Indonesia.)
Another Fox journalist called the network's airing of the story "unfortunate" for the network's journalists who have to cover Obama and who are being adversely affected despite not being involved in the incident.
Since the madrassah incident, Obama has given interviews to ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC -- pretty much every other network except Fox. Sources close to Obama acknowledged that they're not thrilled to play ball with Fox journalists, but they stopped short of saying they are freezing the network out.
Nobody (save perhaps Lieberman) needs Fox News. Even though some "unnamed sources" insist Obama needs Fox to reach voters in "red" and "purple" states. A Fox spokesperson even had this risible quote:
A Fox News spokesperson, who, though an official voice for the company asked not to be quoted by name, could neither confirm nor deny that conversations took place between Ailes and Obama. But of the "alleged freezing out" of Fox journalists by Obama's office, she said, "If true, perhaps Mr. [Robert] Gibbs should reconsider that ill-advised strategy given his candidate is trailing by 20 points in the polls."
Obama is already beating the best the GOP can throw at him in a general election. If Obama wants to gain ground in the Democratic primary, the place to do it isn't on Fox News. No more so than Mitt Romney can gain in the GOP primary by hanging out on Daily Kos.
In fact, Obama could continue to earn huge points with Democratic partisans if he continues to show Fox News the contempt and scorn it has so deservedly earned.
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