It seems that the moratorium on appearances by White House officers on the Fox News Channel has ended. But high-ranking Democratic officials continue to peddle false information about the cable network, leveling unsupported charges of bias and political favoritism against it.
Noel Sheppard reported last week that Fox Senior Vice President Michael Clemente and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reportedly reached a truce during a meeting at Gibbs's office Wednesday.
David Plouffe all but confirmed the truce when he told The Swamp today that he is planning on promoting his new book "The Audacity to Win" on Fox's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" Thursday night. Plouffe had cut Fox out of his regular network news appearances.
Despite his decision to appear on Fox, however, Plouffe continued to tout false claims about Fox's reporting. He claimed on Sunday's "Meet the Press" that the network "turned into a 24-hour propaganda channel for the McCain campaign, really, in the last 60 days."
But a study by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center contradicted these claims. Pew found that Fox was the most unbiased of any of the three major cable news networks during the last six weeks of the campaign.
According to the Pew study, 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama and 40 percent of those on McCain aired during the final six weeks of the race were negative. By contrast, 61 percent of CNN stories on McCain were negative, compared to 39 percent on Obama. Unsurprisingly, MSNBC had the largest disparity. Seventy-three percent of its McCain stories were negative, while only 14 percent of stories on Obama had negative things to say about him.
It is a relief that the Obama team has ceased its de facto boycott of Fox, but it is troubling that high-level Democrats continue to level these charges of bias against the network, even while overwhelming evidence suggests that the network's competitors have historically been more guilty of political favoritism.
"Meet the Press" host David Gregory did not challenge Plouffe's claims. We will see if Greta Van Susteren does.
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Simple question for Greta to ask
November 2, 2009 - 16:24 ET by legacyrepublicanTell me sir, do you have the audacity to tell the truth or are you going to continue your lies and distortions?
Typical Obama
November 2, 2009 - 17:20 ET by Thinking.ManTechnically B-Daddy is being honest, he wont attack them since he's out sourced the job.
If Fox has any common sense they will chalk this up to a victory and raise the rhetoric even higher.
I wish some billonaire would offer a 100M dollar bounty on the first reporter to bring a scandal to end this corrupt adminstration.
The only thing that presstitutes like better than visiting the casting couch and hanging out at public mens rooms is big wads of money, man that would be a show wouldnt it?
Amazes me
November 2, 2009 - 16:29 ET by AnkharanWhy is a private company bowing down to a federal government? Oh that is right... people have given the feral government the ability to do what ever the hell it wants to.
Even at the cost of my FCC license I would fight these people and print air what I knew to be the truth and that is the problem. No journalistic honor. None. And that people...is how a government subverts the law. For one... they only have the power the people give it and guess what, when they gave the ferral government the ability to license the air waves the gave more power than it was mandated to have. Slaves and serfs... and happy to be so.
I agree, Ankharan
November 2, 2009 - 17:29 ET by GalvanicFox News was doing fine by being singled out by this White House, and the more the President's popularity slips, the more audience Fox was likely to gain.
Obama needed this truce like the North Vietnamese needed Tet cease-fires, and for the same reason: They needed a respite from the unexpected heat that their MSM pals were turning up on them. Emanuel and the socialist-trained press office miscalculated this time, and needed to stop the momentum that had swung against them. Wasn't Anita Dunn who cited Mao as one of her favorite philosophers? It's a page right out of his book.
The Communists in Vietnam used to seek Tet cease fires for the same reason: regroup, replenish, reorient, and re-attack. During the Tet '68 cease fire, they launched the massive offensive known as the Tet Offensive, temporarily catching the allies off guard.
No doubt that when the White House has sufficiently recovered from this particular gaff, they will re-attack Fox News, probably by regulating them (and talk radio) into neuter-dom.
Spitting into the wind
November 2, 2009 - 16:36 ET by Jerry MackObamas' word has the same value as spitting into the wind. How many campaign promises has he kept?
I heard all I could stand
November 2, 2009 - 16:38 ET by bigtimerI heard all I could stand yesterday with Plouffie-pooh ...all I can say is please keep up the rhetoric...the same old BS is only giving Fox more ratings.
He's selling his POS book....capitalism is okay if it involves oneself on Fox and your a leftist eh?
No hypocrisy at all with these phony pluckers.
Btw...I think Greta will do well...she usually does...took me a long time to convince others to try to watch her show now and then...she's pretty good, even though she is a liberal, she treats all equal.
'Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea'~Breitbart
Anyone who believes Obama and his minions...
November 2, 2009 - 17:23 ET by CKA in Red State USAis a fool.
You'd think there were more adults at Fox.
By the way, like Obama, David Plouffe seems not to understand that McCain lost and that Barry/Barack won.
from russia with hate
November 2, 2009 - 17:28 ET by right of waywhat do you expect from a bunch of communist. just like russia, they sign a treaty but never abide by it.
Let's be ACTUALLY honest
November 2, 2009 - 22:26 ET by bpjamGreta comes to Fox and even CNN as a criminal defense lawyer. She is a democrat at heart. She has never done anything to try to change her political affiliations. Her husband is still one of the single richest class-action trial lawyers (ie, ambulance chasers - just bigger ambulances...) in the entire world.
Greta is a lawyer first and a journalist second. She thinks like a defense lawyer as a general state of mind. She has never supported a Republican candidate for anything.
David Plouffe (yes, his name sounds appropriate for his personality) will only go on Greta because she is the only prime-time line-up personality on Fox News who is a known democrat and (at least) former leftist. She won't touch Bret Baier, Hannity, O'Reilly (god forbid!!!!) or Beck. Plouffe won't come anywhere near an interviewer who isn't at least sympathetic to him in advance.
He is trying to sell his book. No matter what he does he will be caught in the partisan problem of Obama and his increasing unpopularity. But Plouffe waited TOO LONG to cash in and he is no trying to sell his wares in the worst possible anti-Obama market which has ever existing on Planet Earth (the polar opposite having occurred one year ago).
Plouffe is going to write a flop. It might surpass one of the conservative/libertarian books on the Top Ten for a week or 2 but that will be about it. The Obama cult-members aren't gonna waste their remaining dollars on a book containing all the thousands of emails which Plouffe already sent them in the last two years. Plouffe suffers from not having gotten himself out there on the talk-shows prior to this to PROVE that he IS the guy who put all that fantastic stuff on those teleprompters which mesmerized the American public.
Sorry, Plouffe. Your book is going to sink like a souffle. funny, huh?
MOTHER RUSSIA...
November 2, 2009 - 23:32 ET by danybhoyThe Obama White House is all about marxism, almost everybody he has brought in has marxist ties. There is more then enough evidence to convict, there is video of these people in their own words. There are the words they have writen in books & articles. All of which seem to denounce capitalism & the free market, & claim the collectivism is the way out. Then when called out, the Obama White House gets pissed at being acused of what the evidence clearly shows, that Obama & his advisors are what his critics say he is...a liberal/progessive/socialist/statist/collectivist/communist/marxist/maoist/facist...no matter what label they prefer depending upon who they are playing to, they are not believers in what America stands for.
They need to be crushed, & if you are a RINO who is too interested in "dealmaking" with these thugs, your days are numbered as well.
"...How blind can you be, don't you see...
...that the gambler lost all he does not have..."
Nightwish
Zzzzz....what, what?
November 3, 2009 - 10:55 ET by StarAZPlouffe is screen ether.