Gabler: Don't Legitimize Fox News

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Would you take a paycheck from an organization you consider illegitimate? Neal Gabler apparently would.

"I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me my Kool-Aid," claimed Gabler on this evening's "Fox News Watch." He then proceeded to do just that, claiming that Democrats pulled out of the Fox-sponsored presidential candidate debate in Nevada "for the same reason that Republicans would not go on Air America -- it doesn't make any political sense. Why in the world would you want to legitimize a network that spends hour after hour after hour after hour to, to."

View video here

Interjected host Eric Burns: "why would you agree to do it in the first place?"

GABLER: "They made a mistake. I think they made a mistake."

Gabler went so far as to accuse Burns of exemplifying FNC's bias: "Even in the intro to this, you called the left-wing bloggers not just left-wing bloggers, you said 'extreme, extreme left-wing bloggers'."

BURNS: "I said one 'extreme.'"

GABLER: "No, you said two. That's the kind of thing that Democrats don't want to legitimize. They're going to get bashed [by Fox News] from here to eternity."

For the record, Eric was right, Neal was wrong. It was one "extreme." Video here.

For Gabler to suggest that the manifestly moderate Burns is some kind of conservative hit man is patently absurd. For example, not long ago, as I documented here, Eric put himself to the left of even liberal panelist Jane Hall, criticizing US Airways for "intolerance" for removing from a flight those six Muslim imams who had made passengers uncomfortable with their actions.

In depicting Fox News as a right-wing bash machine that feeds "Kool-Aid," and accusing his host of typifying the bias, Gabler wasn't merely describing the Dem view of Fox as illegitimate -- he was embracing it. How could a self-respecting person continue to work for such an outfit?

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net