Revenge vs. Rationale

Oh boy, boys and girls, and the faux-madrassah story continues with a direct response from the Obama committee against Fox News. What's more, it's actually a pretty redeeming feel-good story, that is, until you address the nagging in your gut.

So, the Washington Post is reporting that due to Fox's irresponsible and illegitimate mud slinging concerning Obama's past, the Obama camp is "freezing out" all Fox reporters and producers, declining them access to speak with the senator or to participate in following his presidential campaign route. Revenge, sweet and simple.

While the actual truth of the matter is as dependable as "unnamed media sources" are, this does seem like a deliberate retaliation on the part of the presidential candidate if Fox reporters are whining about feeling like they're "in the freezer" and that the other people at Fox who didn't do anything against him are now the ones who are bearing the brunt of the snub.

Now I do have sympathy for the struggling new journalists at Fox who might naively believe that their station practices true unbiased journalism, and that by Obama sharing his stories with them, everything they report would be conveyed by Fox's broadcasters in the way that Obama and the journalists themselves intended it, without all the spinning, the skewing, the condescending tone of voice, the raised eyebrows of the broadcasters. This is not obviously not reality, and Obama's group is intelligent enough to suspect otherwise.

However, the question is, although it feels good now to admonish Fox for what they've done by giving them the silent treatment, what good will it do in the long run? Fox caters to a third of the American news-watching population (34% of Republicans, 20% of Democrats in a Pew Research Center study), more than any other single news station, leaving us to ponder the worse(r) of evils:

1. If that large slice of the population does not get their daily fix of Obama-vibes, albeit spun in a negative light, will they all lose interest in his persona?
2. But if they did hear skewed commentary on Obama, would they be more likely not to vote for him?
3. Would they really vote for Obama anyway, seeing that they regularly watch Fox, the neoconservative station?
4. Would it balance out favors for Obama to make a personal appearance in their states and be featured in their local news instead?

On a higher level, is it really right for Obama to turn his back on Fox? Though it feels justly validating, it is what it is: antagonism, which is ultimately a negative trait for a legislator to hold. Drawing that implication out, would he continue to ignore Fox if he got elected president? Would he hold out on talking to groups that actively dislike him? We have to remember that while Fox did actively attempt to discredit him, they did not skew his own words out of turn, which is what they did with the Hillary campaign. That may be a significant distinction.

I hoped that Obama would have been the bigger man by directly addressing the issue of Fox's childish reporting behavior with a completely mature (and fully publicized) response, perhaps even on Fox News itself, to clarify the issues. Not this childish counter-bullying (as far as I can tell, did I miss his statements?), which may be construed as hostile and irresponsible itself. But we shall inevitably see what ensues as a result. Will Hillary join in?? How long will it last?

Perhaps the only good thing about this news line is that we all now know what a madrassah is...