Fox News paints White House criticism of Fox as diversion to distract from health care reform debate
Fox News hosts and contributors are now asserting that the White House’s criticism of Fox News is a diversion or a trick to direct attention away from the administration’s policies, particularly health care reform. Glenn Beck has referred to the criticism as a “gold coin” used in a magic trick, while Newt Gingrich claimed the White House is trying to keep the media “focused on trivia.”
Fox News: Criticism of Fox is a “distraction,” a “shiny penny,” “trivia,” and a “magic” trick
Glenn Beck says Obama “is absolutely a magician,” uses “gold coin” tricks to distract. On his Fox News show, Beck said, “You know, I have told you a million times, the guy is David Copperfield. He just keep falling for it over and over again. … The guy is a magician.” Then, pulling out a gold coin and purporting to do a magic trick, Beck said: “They need to distract us long enough. Use that misdirection, because, see, once they pull up and you turn on the lights and you’re like, wow, that was amazing with that coin, you see, what has changed here? What has — oh, my gosh! Oh, yeah. Health care has magically appeared. All while you were watching the stupid little coin. You know what? They believe if they can get you to watch the coin, if they can get you to have you watch me and Fox, well, then, they can slip this by and get it passed.” [Glenn Beck, 10/21/09]
Karl Rove: Beck’s gold coin trick was a “pretty good way to illustrate an important point.” On his Twitter account, Rove responded to musician Joelon Wilson’s assertion that Beck’s coin trick was “right on” by writing that “[i]t was pretty good way to illustrate an important point.” From Rove’s Twitter feed: “Re: Coin trick on Beck. @futureicon It was pretty good way to illustrate an important point.”
After Hannity guest says Fox fight is a “shiny penny,” Hannity agrees that it’s a “distraction.” On Hannity, after Jeri Thompson, wife of former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, compared “the distraction on what they are doing exactly right now with this intimidation and the Fox tour,” to a “shiny penny,” Hannity said: “Let me see if I can sum this up. Is it that they want to distract from the debates that they’re losing, the American public overwhelmingly, according to every credible poll is against Obamacare. Are they trying to distract, and are they trying to intimidate? You know, what’s the strategy?” [Hannity, 10/21/09]
Newt Gingrich: White House trying to keep media “focused on trivia.” On The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich said the Obama administration is trying to “distract the country” from problems by having a “fight” with Fox News. Gingrich said: “If your choice is — imagine you’re Rahm Emanuel. And he’s like, OK, now tomorrow I can have unemployment rising or a fight with Fox News. And next week, I can have health care too expensive or a fight with Rush Limbaugh. And I think they have a deliberate policy of trying to find a way to keep the news media focused on trivia in order to not deal with the real issues because the real issues are all going bad for them right now.” [The O’Reilly Factor, 10/21/09]
Fox News previously presented itself as victim of relentless White House attack
Beck compared Fox News to Jews during the Holocaust, other news organizations to silent bystanders. On his October 13 radio show, Beck said: “When they’re done with Fox, and you decide to speak out on something. The old, ‘First they came for the Jews, and I wasn’t Jewish.’ When you have a question, and you believe that something should be asked, they’re a — totally fine with you right now; they have no problem with you. When they’re done with Fox and talk radio, do you really think they’re going to leave you alone if you want to ask a tough question? Do you really think that a man who has never had to stand against tough questions and has as much power as he does — do you really believe after he takes out the number one news network, do you really think that this man is then not going to turn on you? That you and your little organization is going to cause him any hesitation at all not to take you out?” [Premiere Radio Networks’ The Glenn Beck Program, 10/13/09]
Rove: “[T]hey’re going to come hard at you, and they’re going to cut your legs off.” On the October 18 edition of Fox News Sunday, Fox News contributor Karl Rove said: “[T]his is an administration that’s getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they’re going to come hard at you, and they’re going to cut your legs off. … Fox is asking tough questions. Fox has got on the opinion side of it some very tough critics of the administration. They’re conflating the news side and the opinion side in order to — in order to attack a media outlet. Again, it’s undignified for the president of the United States to be doing.” Later, Rove said that “it is demeaning the office of the president by taking the president and moving him from a person who ought to be talking to everybody and communicating through every available channel to saying, ‘If you oppose me, if you question me, if you’re too tough on me, by gosh, me and my people are not going to — are not going to come on. We’re going to penalize you.’ And that just is wrong, fundamentally wrong.” [Fox News Sunday, 10/18/09]
Fox News hosts suggest they’re on an “enemies list.” Fox News personalities joined other conservative media figures in fearmongering that the White House has an “enemies list” and that Fox News is — in Beck’s words — “another enemy” that “warmongers” in the Obama administration would fight with “missiles pointed right at Fox.” Hannity claimed the White House is “promising retribution.” Media figures previously baselessly suggested that people who reportedly claimed to have received unsolicited email from Obama adviser David Axelrod may have been added to a White House “enemies list” after emails they sent that were critical of the Obama administration were purportedly forwarded to flag@whitehouse.gov.
