They Aren't Really White House Senior Advisers

Axelrod and Emanuel might have at least made the talking point a little less obvious. But basically this is a straight up equation. If two alleged Senior White House advisers spend their Sunday talk show time telling other networks that a popular and growing cable news channel isn't really a news channel, then they aren't really Senior advisers to the President of the United States.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday that the Fox News Channel is "not really a news station" and that much of the programming is "not really news."

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said on CNN's "State of the Union" that Fox "is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective."

They might be a couple of clumsy flacks out of Chicago. And they look like the second tier of that, no matter how well they can run a political campaign. But that's about it.

Jaysus, how bad did McCain and Schmidt actually have to be to lose to these guys?

Comments

[DavidL]

To quote Carl Sagan, extraodinary claims require extraordinary evidence. As to evidence. Axelord provies none.

[Tailgunner]

Why won't these ward heelers ever talk TO FOX instead of ABOUT them?

[Pasadena Phil]

Schmidt is quoted as saying that his candidate had no intention of winning. Palin threatened to mess that up.

[Mark Turner]

"how bad did McCain and Schmidt actually have to be to lose to these guys..."

When the economic crisis hit during the campaign, McCain's actions and overall response were one of uncertainty and confusion - as if he didn't quite know what to do -- and his relative lack of personal charisma vs. Obama didn't do him any favors either. Obama remained calm and cool -- probably out of deluded ignorance of the seriousness of the situation, or what he would need to do to fix it, if nothing else -- but this cool, calm image stuck with voters who wanted a "change".

[Anon]

So, CNN and MSNBC don't have a perspective?

[in_awe]

"Obama remained calm and cool -- probably out of deluded ignorance of the seriousness of the situation..."

Actually he knew exactly what he was going to do and the Pelosi/Reid/Obama Bailout Bill set the stage for it:

- Blame Bush until the keys wore out on the keyboard and the teleprompter blew a fuse
- Not waste a crisis and push the biggest collection of socialist spending possible in as short a period of time possible
- Blame Bush
- Repeat

[Neo]

While I’m sure that Barack Obama, Nobel Laureate, wouldn’t mind a “compliant press”, but I pretty much don’t see the current activity as having that as their main mission.

Their mission is to tie FoxNews up with defending itself, that they aren’t looking at what is really going on in Washington.

Today’s FoxNews coverage spent a fairly large period of time talking about this “meme” but not as a “meme”. Clearly, the less that FoxNews viewers know about the various White House and Congressional flim-flams, the happier those flim-flam artists will be.

FoxNews has a squealing pig on their hands, and the best solution to the squealing ... is to stick the pig some more.

If their is muck to rack .. rack it. Rack On !!

[MarkJ]

"Obama remained calm and cool"

There's a medical term for Obama's brand of "calm and cool": it's called a "coma."

There's also a political term for Obama's brand of "calm and cool": it's called "voting present."

Get my drift? ;)

[gus]

Yes Rahm Axelknob and Co, You are correct. Fox isn't a real news station and Opie isn't a real President.

[PA]

I don't think it really mattered who the Republicans ran. The election was lost as soon as Bush won the second term and Iraq went to heck until '07. That set the stage for any democrat to beat any republican, and the beginnings of the recession during the campaign sealed the deal.

Had Bush been a 1-termer, then Kerry would have racked up a messy loss in Iraq, ballooned the deficit even worse and taken the heat for the recession, allowing almost any Republican to beat almost any Democrat.

The ABB effect after 8 years was just too much to overcome

[rrpjr]

"Schmidt is quoted as saying that his candidate had no intention of winning. Palin threatened to mess that up."

Clearly. One could almost mark the moment of McCain's terrifying realization that in Palin he'd stumbled upon an X Factor who threatened his noble martyrdom.

[Carolynp]

While I'm patently furious at the administration for attacking a media outlet this way, I take some amusement from thinking about CNN. How do you suppose they feel at CNN: not only are they getting their butts handed to them by Fox in ratings, but NOW they get told that Fox isn't even a real news group. I don't think this should be taken as a positive thing by these news outlets: I sure don't see it that way. Fox is kicking you guys to the side of the road, if you have any hope of becoming a serious competitor again, you might consider doing some actual reporting. Just my two cents.

[xerocky]

I think it's obvious that Fox has a slant, as does the rest of the MSM. In fact Foxe's is in a way less because you know going in that it's got a slant. When you watch NBC you go in thinking that there is none, guess what? You're being suckered. Same with CNN only more so.

My question is, what does the O admin have to gain by attacking Fox news? It's absurd really, how utterly tone deaf it is.

[mike191]

Axlerod and the dancing lemon ,Emanuel, should read the children's story."The Emperor has no clothes", before attacking and demonizing a Major News Network.

[nina]

They are not flacks but thugs from Chicago.They think they can intimidate the country.