There's yet another inconvenient truth which should be inescapably apparent to any Fox News-inspired, "anti-tax patriot" who has bothered to take a close look at his or her federal tax withholdings since Obama took office. Under President Obama, the tax rate for middle-class Americans is the lowest it's been in 50 years; a fact that somehow fails to register with the mobs of tea-baggers running around the country screaming that President Obama is a Constitution-shredding "transfer of wealth" socialist.
Again, much of the credit for these kinds of perverse misinterpretations of reality belongs to the Fox News Channel. The network has somehow been able to maintain the number one position among cable news outlets by successfully spinning what amounts to a heterodox version of "journalism; fair and balanced" into mainstream legitimacy. And, it has remained successful at it despite being repeatedly outed for what can only be considered journalistic fraud.
The Sherrod fiasco obviously represents the latest episode. Fox, alone among networks, made the journalistic, or better yet, asinine decision to extend the reach of its broadcasting power, "credibility" and influence by energizing -- initially via Fox's own website -- the already viral dissemination of a nearly quarter-century-old video edited to portray Sherrod as a racist that was provided to Glenn Beck by an individual apparently stupid enough to believe it could be pulled off. It should be nobody's guess why. It would be preposterous for anyone to assert that a credible news organization, so relentless in promoting itself as a provider of "real journalism; fair and balanced" could possibly overlook carrying out a responsibility as fundamental as fact-checking; a task even a draft news item must undergo.
But for Fox, the edited version of the Sherrod tape (the full version can be found here) aligned so well with its current narrative of heightened racial polarization in Obama's America stemming from an epidemic of animosity toward whites by African-Americans. And apparently, years of Fox's in-your-face effort to create the perception of credibility was obviously sufficient -- in this instance --to warrant an assumption by anyone having bought into that myth that the network had properly vetted the video -- that it was bulletproof. What critics have found both appalling and inexplicable was how some considered to be sophisticated enough to know better --specifically, the NAACP, but just as significantly, the Agriculture Department and the White House -- wound up being "snookered" by Fox right along with that network's regular viewers.
I absolutely get why critics have focused their ire at those groups for their rush to judgment based upon, for heaven's sake, a report from the Fox News Corporation. But I can't help but think that the Obama administration hasn't overlooked what may be a silver-lining for it in all this: the conclusive, smoking-gun evidence that finally proves Fox is a news organization which simply doesn't warrant being taken seriously. Recall that even prior to his election, Obama had engaged in on-and-off efforts to draw attention to Fox's shamelessly over-the-top liberal bias, its distortions, and its seemingly endless stream of questionable "errors." But in doing so, Obama, for obvious reasons, has had to avoid directly accusing Fox of essentially manufacturing news.
Being unable to directly call out Fox is a drawback that works in favor of those who defend Fox's legitimacy as a mainstream news organization. But it now becomes far more difficult to support Fox against charges of yellow journalism in the aftermath of its latest display of partisan, inauthentic, and purposely-distorted advocacy journalism. By way of its role in promoting a false "Shirley Sherrod is a racist" story, the Fox News Channel has done much of the administration's work for it.
Rope-a-Dope
Indeed, President Obama has proven adept at rope-a-doping his Republican opponents into defeating themselves by setting them up to fall victim to their own excesses. An example of this occurred in February of this year when he proposed a bi-partisan televised healthcare summit. The potential for Republicans was an opportunity to present their case against the bill and offer credible alternatives before millions of Americans. For Obama, it offered an opportunity for the American public at large to develop a clearer picture of the obstructionist nature of the opposition his administration faces in moving the nation forward. Earlier in February, a Kaiser Family Foundation report revealed broad "disappointment, frustration and a fair bit of cynicism" among Americans over delays in passage of healthcare reform. That report indicated most Americans considered politics as the main reason for these delays.
In fact during the months prior to that meeting, Republicans -- out of both political expediency and general principle -- had frittered away an entire legislative session in rote opposition to virtually every piece of legislation put forth by the administration. Their effort to derail healthcare reform featured a full-scale campaign of misrepresentation -- in which Fox News Channel was heavily involved -- which included pushing the demonstratively false "death panels" claim and engaging in or urging on, increasingly fringe behavior. Wouldn't it be smart to shine a light on all this?
As it turns out, that six-hour hearing may have become one of the pivotal events leading to the eventual passage of the bill. The Republicans brought no comprehensive plan of their own, only demands that the bill under consideration be scrapped and that the process go back to square one. Indeed the public was able to get a sustained glimpse of the protracted streams of partisan rhetoric from many Republicans including former Senate maverick John McCain who rambled about "closed door" deals; and GOP House Minority Leader "Casino" John Boehner-- I'm sorry, but visually, Boehner so reminds me of Robert DiNiro's character in the movie Casino -- who called healthcare reform "a dangerous experiment."
With that, the perception of the GOP as simply an obstructionist "party of no" instead of credible gate-keepers for principled opposition on the healthcare reform issue became even more obvious and Republicans engaged in a fruitless game of catch-up the rest of the way. By the first week of March, a Gallup poll indicated that on the issue of healthcare reform, Americans trusted Obama more than Republicans in Congress. On March 21, the House passed the healthcare reform bill and two days later it was signed into law. Thus, in large part due to their own antics, Republicans basically handed themselves a defeat on the healthcare reform issue.
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