Posted 5:14 PM by Scoobie Davis

Obama's Fox News Snub: One Ginormous Reason (Out of Many) Why It's Better That Obama, Not Hillary, Is President
Yesterday, President Obama broke a presidential record by appearing on five talk shows, there was a notable omission from the president's itinerary: Fox News. To no surprise, the response by the fair and balanced channel was swift and nasty. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace accused the Obama White House of being full of "crybabies" and berated them over their supposed "childishness" and "pettiness." On the Fox News Sunday panel, Wallace, Paul Gigot and Brit Hume berated Obama for not reaching out to as large an audience as possible by appearing on Fox. Wrong!

Snubbing Fox News is a Great Way of Reaching Out to the Right Kind of Fox News Viewer
The core of the Fox News viewership are those twenty percent of the American public that still had faith in George W. Bush after eight years. They are unreachable; they're the birthers, deathers, tenthers, and followers of assorted batshit conspiracy theorists. They the "heavy viewers" who watch the channel all day long.

However, by snubbing Fox News and generating publicity about the snub, Obama is reaching out to the causal Fox News viewer. As I noted a couple years ago, when prominent politicians snub Fox News, it generates publicity that lets the a casual viewer of Fox News that the channel is a political operation masquerading as a legitimate news outlet. This helps to delegitimize Fox with casual viewers and independent voters.

The White House statement diplomatically calling Fox News an "ideological outlet" whose operatives were "whining" over the snub was the cherry on top of great media victory over Murdoch, Ailes, Beck, Wallace, O'Reilly, Hannity, and the reason of the Fox News freak show.

Obama Versus Hillary Regarding Fox News
Recently, a PUMA blogger e-mailed me to see if I still thought that Obama is preferable to the Clintons. My answer: fucking-a right I do! This episode shows that Obama and his posse know the score: they put a foot to the asses of Roger Ailes and his lame-ass FNC operatives.

This is a stark contrast to when the Clintons were in the White House. They failed miserably when it came to the right's rat-fucking (I have posts on the Clintons' appalling ineptitude here and here). Worse, the Clintons did not learn any lessons from the past. During the 2008 campaign, even after there was no chance of winning the nomination, they gave credibility to the very miscreants--e.g., Ailes, Sun Myung Moon, Limbaugh, and Richard Mellon Scaife--who drove American politics into the gutter during the 90's (I have posts on this phenomena here and here). The Clinton campaign's cluelessness allowed them to work hand-in-hand with Limbaugh's Operation Chaos strategy to mortally wound Obama. Fortunately, Limbaugh's strategy failed--no thanks to the Clinton campaign.

There is simply no comparison between Obama and the Clintons when it comes to dealing with the hard right.