With outraged Washington journalists and Republican politicians crying "Nixonian!" over the public scuffle between the Obama White House and the Fox News Channel, what began as a mundane spat is turning into a cosmic jest. Somewhere, Nixon himself is enjoying a mordant laugh to hear this shrill defense of his old servant Roger Ailes, the television wizard whose deceptive campaigning ushered him into the presidency more than 40 years ago -- and who then became the living symbol of everything negative and nasty in American politics during the two decades that followed.
To understand what is going on today, it is essential to remember that where Ailes came from, "Nixonian" was not an insult but a badge of honor -- and seething hatred and even persecution of the press, rather than mere criticism, was a way of life.
Whatever the merits or defects of the strategy pursued by Obama's communications office in pushing back against Fox News, the furious backlash inside the Beltway is badly overwrought. Mainstream defenders of the conservative cable channel suddenly seem to be afflicted with a strange amnesia, causing them to forget not just the numerous episodes of partisan distortion that have permanently pocked its reputation, but the dirty war against the press and the First Amendment that was waged by the Nixon gang in the late '60s and early '70s. That lost memory does a disservice to journalism and history.
In a sense, Fox News Channel has never been able to overcome its nature as the offspring of Ailes, notoriously one of the angriest, toughest Republican consultants in politics, and Rupert Murdoch, the ruthless mogul whose political abuse of his news outlets became legendary long before he entered the cable news business. The objective for Ailes, as for Murdoch, is not fairness or balance; the objective is always to win by whatever means necessary. That includes marketing himself and his employees as high-minded truth-seekers and innocent victims of snotty liberalism -- much in the mode of old Nixon.
Yet neither Ailes nor his employees can always control themselves enough to hide their bias, as the world discovered last year when the Fox News boss uttered a revealing quip about the man who would become president. "[I]t is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called [Pakistan President Pervez] Musharraf and said: 'Why can't we catch this guy?' " Ailes chortled at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television News Directors Association as he accepted their "First Amendment" award. His joke followed a lengthy series of "reports" on Fox News promoting the idea that the young Obama had attended a Muslim madrassa -- presumably to be trained for jihad -- in Indonesia.
The list of similar offenses is almost endless and, as it grows every day, selecting the most egregious examples can be challenging. Back in 2004, the wife of Carl Cameron, the channel's top campaign reporter, worked in the Bush reelection campaign, and Cameron himself posted material mocking Democratic nominee John Kerry. Over the years, the channel's news director John Moody has sent dozens of memos to the reporting staff, often tinged with GOP talking points, meant to ensure that whatever they produce has a pro-Republican slant.
With the advent of Glenn Beck as the prophet of protest, however, the drumbeat of partisan paranoia on Fox News is growing much louder. The cable channel heavily promoted the Beck-inspired Sept. 12 Tea Party protests against the Obama administration, with highly favorable live reports from Fox News correspondents, anchored by ... Beck himself.
In short, the Obama White House has ample reason to question whether Fox News Channel is a news organization that can be expected to treat a Democratic administration with fairness and balance. All they have accomplished so far is to inflame the right-wing base and renew the alliance of the Clinton era between right-wing media and mainstream outlets. Pundits and producers who claim to see no difference between their own outlets and Fox News are certainly entitled to express their opinions (and to insult themselves and their colleagues) as they see fit. But when they join the Fox chorus lumping Obama with Nixon, they need to be corrected.
Over the past few days, that false comparison has been made by Ken Rudin, the political director of National Public Radio, who called the Obama White House "Nixonesque"; by Karl Rove, who played a bit role in the Watergate saga as a Young Republican dirty trickster; and by Ruth Marcus, who likened Obama to both Nixon and his attack dog Vice President Spiro Agnew in the Washington Post -- a place where ignorance of the true history of the Nixon era is inexcusable. (Update: Ken Rudin emailed to make sure I saw his apology for the Nixon reference, which he called a "bone-headed mistake;" you can read about it here.)
But ignorance is epidemic on Capitol Hill and in the capital's newsrooms, so let's say this very simply: Nothing that Obama or any of his aides has done or said remotely resembles the war on the press waged by the Nixon White House until Watergate ended that administration's assaults on the Constitution. Nobody has sent Joe Biden out to question the patriotism of reporters and columnists who criticize the president, as Agnew did repeatedly. And nobody has tried to intimidate the media with obscene threats and tax audits, in the Mafia style of Nixon's aides.
On Fox News, the aggrieved correspondents, crackpots and crybabies now claim to be on an Obama White House "enemies list." Perhaps they mean to use the term metaphorically, but in the Nixon White House there was an actual list, compiled by Chuck Colson at the behest of John Dean. In August 1971, Dean wrote a memo explaining that such a list was needed "to maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be more active in their opposition to our administration." This meant using "the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies."
Among those present on the original enemies list (which later morphed into a much longer second list) was Daniel Schorr, the eminent reporter who then worked for CBS News and now provides sage commentary on NPR. (Perhaps he can have a word with Rudin.) So Fox should stop whining about Nixon until a similar memo turns up bearing the name of Rahm Emanuel or Patrick Gaspard.
The Nixon gang began to go after journalists within months after the old reprobate took office and never stopped. In 1969, Dean ordered the Internal Revenue Service to initiate an audit of Newsday investigative reporter and editor Bob Greene, to avenge a series he had written probing the business deals of Nixon crony Bebe Rebozo. Then came the enemies list, which included Schorr and other journalists who were scheduled for similar harassment. During the 1972 campaign, Nixon aides hired Lucianne Goldberg (later the confidante of Lewinsky taper Linda Tripp) to spy on reporters aboard the press plane of Democratic nominee George McGovern. For a thousand dollars a week, she posed as a reporter for the Women's News Service, gathering salacious gossip for Nixon, mostly about who was sleeping with the stewardesses.
Lucianne's buffoonish spy caper only serves as a counterpoint to the far more sinister assaults on the Washington Post, which mounted in thuggish excess as the Watergate scandal unfolded. Marcus and her misguided colleagues could benefit from the educational account of those year provided by the late Katharine Graham in her memoir, "Personal History":
The investigation of such a tangled web of crime, money, and mischief was made much harder given the unveiled threats and harassment by a president and his administration. Bearing the full brunt of presidential wrath is always disturbing. Sometimes I wondered if we could survive four more years of this kind of strain.
The threats most famously included Attorney General John Mitchell's screaming warning to Bob Woodward that "Katie Graham is going to get her tit caught in a big, fat wringer" if the Post continued to investigate Watergate. But the campaign against the Post went much further. Nixon tried to persuade Richard Mellon Scaife (yes, the billionaire nemesis of Clinton) to buy the Post. On the White House tapes, he told aides that the Post would have "damnable problems" getting FCC license renewals for its Florida broadcasting properties -- and then two Nixon business cronies challenged the Post licenses, costing the company millions of dollars and precipitating a fall in its stock. Friends with administration ties warned Graham of possible violence against her.
Through those years, Graham held up bravely under incredible pressure until her paper triumphed. She is gone, but we all still owe her a debt of gratitude for courage under truly Nixonian fire -- along with the editors and reporters she supported. The bogus comparisons between those days and now are a dishonor to her memory and to the tradition of public service that she came to represent.
Give Glenn Beck a little credit: Every time you think he can't possibly get any weirder, or go any further over the top, he does. (That's not necessarily a good thing, of course, but still -- the man is apparently capable of more eccentricity than just about anyone else.)
Following up on his big announcement of vague plans that seem to involve maybe, possibly supporting a third party, Beck had a rather interesting idea for his show on Monday: In order to dramatize what he believes is the death of the two major parties, he had people on set building coffins for both of them.
No, seriously.
Video below, via Mediaite.
With the eyes of the chattering class upon Fox News due to the White House's "war" on the network, now is not the time for its employees to be making glaring errors. But that's what's happened in several instances recently, and the channel's been embarrassed by it. So now network executives are cracking down, and according to an internal memo obtained by FishbowlDC, "jobs are on the line."
Perhaps the most embarrassing of the recent errors -- certainly the most high-profile -- was the use of footage from a conservative protest held on the Capitol lawn this September during a story about another protest that took place earlier this month. The clip, which made the November rally appear larger than it really was, aired on Sean Hannity's program, and was caught by "The Daily Show," leading to much mocking from Jon Stewart and an on-air apology from Hannity.
That wasn't the only mistake of that kind, though. A week later, there was another mix-up with old footage used for a new story: This time, it was video of Sarah Palin from the 2008 presidential campaign in a piece about her book tour. Again, the clip used made the crowd appear larger than it was.
Not all of the mistakes have favored the right, though. The network has repeatedly shown the cover of "Going Rouge," a parody of Palin's memoir "Going Rogue," when the actual memoir was the subject of discussion. That, apparently, was the last straw, and the network is going back to basics until it can start getting things right.
From the memo:
We had a mistake on Newsroom today when a wrong book cover went on screen during a guest segment, the kind of thing that can fall through the cracks on any day with any story given the large amount of elements and editorial we run through our broadcasts. Unfortunately, it is the latest in a series of mistakes on FNC in recent months .... Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the "mistake chain," and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews. So we now face a great opportunity to review and improve on our workflow and quality control efforts. To make the most of that opportunity, effective immediately, Newsroom is going to "zero base" our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today's meeting: "It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on." We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again. Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not stress that enough.
Say this for Glenn Beck: When the guy goes on the road, he doesn’t hold out on his fans. The Fox News host put on a show this weekend in the Villages, Fla., and he played all his classics:
You get the drift. There are vast, sinister and -- most important -- vaguely specified forces out there, about which you should feel massive unease. But don’t fear, America. Beck has a plan. In fact, he has The Plan. He’s assembling a team of advisors (not to run for president, he makes clear), and he’s reading up. Explains Beck:
Here’s how it’s going to work: I’ve done a lot of reading on history in the last few years. And I was amazed to find that what we’re experiencing now is really a ticking time bomb that they designed about a hundred years ago, at the beginning of the Progressive Movement. And they thought, if we just do this, and this, and this and this, over time, if we do it in both the Republican and Democratic parties, we will have our socialist utopia. Well, I say again, two can play at that game. I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand … We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I am developing a 100-year plan for America. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.
Apparently, Beck is going to hold seven rallies around the country, where he’ll impart the lessons he’s learned about history and policy. “You’re going to learn about history, you’re going to learn about finance, you’re going to learn about community organizing … And then, come August 28 -- I would like you to make your plans now, to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC… We’re going to Washington together, where I will outline the steps that we need to take.”
OK, so it seems like Beck did hold out on his fans in one big way. I’ve now watched the speech all the way through, and it’s not at all clear what The Plan is. Keep listening to Beck until next summer apparently, and then there’s a new Plan.
This is pretty basic out-of-power movement stuff. MoveOn.org and Democracy for America spent the Bush years holding activist training meetings and rallies also. What’s interesting here is how badly Beck wants to think in continents and feel in centuries, rather than the grubby, day-to-day, unexciting facts of real-world politics. He’s identified a purely imaginary, epic-scale villain, and is pitching his otherwise kind of run-of-the-mill activist exercise as correspondingly high drama. Beck sees a dictator and his unthinking followers on the left, and wants to respond with an instructional national meeting where he can “outline the steps that we need to take.”
Also, just to be clear: If you're the person who told Beck about the 100-year socialist takeover plan, President Obama is very upset with you. Way to ruin it for everyone.
I'm not in the camp with those who believe that using the word "rape" as a metaphor is always verboten. After all, when we say "screwed," we're using it largely to describe something unpleasant happening to someone unwilling. And if we from time to time use over-the-top terminology of slaughter or ass-kicking when no real earth is being scorched, I can allow that sometimes a person's sense of violation can be couched in terms of sexual violence. But that doesn't mean I have quite the same fondness for the term that others do.
On Wednesday, "Modern Family's" Sofia Vergara prompted nervous titters on "The View" when she dropped an off-the-cuff joke about being "raped" at 13 to explain the existence of her teenage son. She didn't clarify for Whoopi whether it was rape or "rape rape."
But stand back and learn from the masters, "View" ladies, because you've got nothing on conservative commentators. And lock up your women and your borders, because as Media Matters for America demonstrates, Limbaugh, Beck and Steele know that Obama and his progressive agenda are coming to forcibly penetrate the flag. If that's possible.
Mental rape! Pocketbook rape! Government-sanctioned rape! Values rape! Private sector rape! Statue of Liberty rape! Behold and prepare for the liberal rapeocalypse.
Supergroups are never as mind-blowingly awesome as you think they’ll be. The Traveling Wilburys, for example, seemed like a good idea, what with the combination of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison. But the music was largely terrible. Same basically goes for the Highwaymen, with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings: great on paper, disappointing in reality.
There might be a lesson in this for Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.
The two Fox News stars have announced that they’re hitting the road together this January on the “Bold and Fresh Tour.” Beck and O’Reilly are currently scheduled to hit five locations along the east coast. One show, in Westbury, N.Y., is already sold out. Says the tour website:
Don't miss out on the rare opportunity to see these two men live on stage. It's an event that makes professional wrestling seem like a night at the opera. You'll hear from Bill, you'll hear from Glenn, and then...they'll take the stage together. What happens then? Heaven only knows, but one thing is for sure-you'll want to see it with your very own eyes.
Beck has done a fair amount of live performance before. Typically, his act tends toward being sickly sweet. (See “Glenn Beck’s Christmas Sweater: A Road to Redemption.”) So it seems like a fair guess that, despite the billing, O’Reilly and Beck probably won’t be smashing chairs over each other. (Don’t they agree on most things anyway?) The tour title, after all, itself is borrowed from O’Reilly’s simpler-times memoir of his Levittown roots, "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity."
So, here’s my guess: Beck and O’Reilly will go easy on the epoch-changing, night-to-remember fireworks. Instead, much like the Traveling Wilburys, they’ll probably just ladle on the sentiment and the boring nostalgia. The one bonus is there's a good chance they'll add some crazy to the mix as well.
Sometimes, even Sean Hannity admits he got something wrong. It helps when that error is blatant, and when it's exposed on another national television show, of course.
On "The Daily Show" Tuesday night, Jon Stewart had shown that Hannity's show last week had, in trying to bolster a claim about high attendance at an anti-healthcare reform rally led by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., used a clip that was actually taken from a larger rally held two months before. So on Wednesday night, Hannity admitted the error -- he didn't exactly look contrite, though. Indeed, he seemed to be enjoying himself, almost at Stewart's expense, not to mention at the expense of Stewart staffers and fans who'd tuned in to watch. Video is below.
Out-Foxed
How Rupert's red-state cable channel waved the flag and beat CNN.
By Geraldine Sealey, Salon
Fox News: the inside story
A former Fox producer describes the ways -- both subtle and blunt -- that top executives impose a right-wing ideology on the newsroom.
By Tim Grieve, Salon
The "Dark Genius" of Fox News
Biographer Kerwin Swint explains how news honcho Roger Ailes has pushed the country to the right for the past four decades.
By Vincent Rossmeier, Salon
I watched Fox News for five hours last night
As Obama's victory became undeniable, Brit Hume moved beyond grief and anger with Karl Rove. And Juan Williams justified his existence.
By Andrew O'Hehir, Salon
The real Fox News Democrats
How the "Fair and Balanced" network pits Democrats against their own party.
By Alex Koppelman, Salon
Naked Launch: Prologue
Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to brainwash America into thinking right-wing ideology is actually the political center. And he did. And, I'm ashamed to tell you, I helped him.
By Dan Cooper
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism
The official website for the hit documentary.
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