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Oct 21 2009, 3:25 pm by Matthew Cooper

Fox News III: Enemies List? Really?

Sen. Lamar Alexander weighed in on the Fox News controversy today, accusing the White House of "street brawling" and likening their actions to a modern day "enemies list." Alexander noted that he was a young aide in the Nixon White House who saw the culture of attack and paranoia infect the presidency. All I can say is, "Really?"

I've written that the attacks on Fox are misguided and likely to backfire. But it's hard to see how the White House's jostling with its political foes is anything like an enemies list. And if you look at the crazy attacks on the president from the right--socialist, foreign agent, etc--they seem like pretty small efforts to push back. The genial Alexander will get a lot of attention for his lengthy remarks and call for more bipartisanship. Does that ever go over poorly? But the Obama-Nixon parallel seems more than a little strained. What do you think?

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Comments (37)

KevDog

Well, the enemies list was meant to be secret and this is anything but. No where is it written that you have to be nice to everyone or even like them.

And I am continually amazed at the industrial-strength chutzpah of the Republican party to condemn practices that they themselves perfected.

Holdfast

Please tell me what you think socialist means, and how Obama is not one? His plans for America would clearly move it in a significantly more socialist direction. I am not saying he is a full-on communist like his buddy Van Jones, but his preferred policies seem to put him pretty squarely in the same political zone as the mainstream socialist/labour parties in Europe. Just because you and he know that the term is a turn-off for most Americans does not make it less true.

KevDog (Replying to: Holdfast)

Dear Lord, please spare us from those who think anything other than a completely unregulated economy is socialism.

Spare us from those who drive on socialized roads, drink from a socialized water supply, and have their houses protected by the socialized fire department.

Finally, spare us from all those who ignored eight years of ballooning deficits, government takeovers of banks and insurance companies, and diminished liberties only to wake up on January 21st and begin bitching.

BamaMan (Replying to: KevDog)

Don't confuse infrastructure with social programs Kev. And fire and police protection is one of the most basic responsibilities of a local government.

KevDog (Replying to: BamaMan)

It didn't always used to be that way. At the turn of the 20th century there were private fire departments that served paying clients in large metropolitan areas.

Infrastructure doesn't have to be public, I'm far from confused. Private companies are all over wanting private toll roads. And do you really think that if given the chance that private industry wouldn't love to have their hands on the water supply? It'd make Mr. Burns look like George Bailey.

Finally, and this will send everyone over the edge, there is no rational, functioning, market for health care. It's wasteful, expensive and broken. But the best we have heard from the Right is "Government will prevent your doctor from saving your life and will force you to gay-marry your eldest daughter!"

It's time to grow up and start helping to clean up.

Holdfast (Replying to: KevDog)

Frankly I've never seen a completely unregulated economy - it might be interesting in a clinical sense, but I probably would not want to live there. The US is certainly not a completely unregulated economy - I personally wish that certain, or even many, elements of it were freer than they are today, but would never advocate scrapping all regulation. That said, as I support a free(r) market and the right to keep more of your own earnings, I would be happy to be described as a capitalist, though I do not advocate complete and unfettered capitalism.

I do know that Obama is in favor of a massive expansion of the government's role in the healthcare industry - an industry that is already quite heavily regulated. I also know that Tommy Douglas, the father of the Canadian healthcare model, which many libs/Dems seems to cite with approval, was an avowed socialist (he's also Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather, FWIW). Obama seems to favor a number of policies, like healthcare "reform", cap and trade and the expansion of union "rights" which are unarguably socialistic. I did not say that he wants to nationalize all private property (that would be communism), but he certainly wants to take America in a much more socialist direction. Please see the linked video for further evidence of where Obama's healthcare reform is supposed to lead, and tell me it is not socialistic in nature.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk

BamaMan (Replying to: Holdfast)

I have no issue with the idea that private industry could own and maintain our roads. In that case we can pay tolls instead of gas taxes. Then private industry would have to compete with one another and the roads would be better maintained. Better roads would have more traffic, therefore more toll revenue. The point I was trying to make, is that we pay for it anyway. We pay taxes which pay for police and fire protection. If they were private we would pay for it then too. Nothing is free. We will pay for our own heath care. Either through private insurance companies or through higher taxes under a public option. It is simply wealth redistribution under the guise of universal health care. Wealthier people who pay for insurance coverage will pay more, and poorer people who currently are not or have never paid for coverage, will get if for free. I love the idea of health care reform, but not universal health care. We should start with tort reform and fairer practices in the health insurance industry. But the government paying for our health care IS a socialist program (it was also the main platform of the NAZI party). Because the only way to do it is to tax the upper and middle class more, to pay for the lower classes, which as I said before is wealth redistibution, which is most certainly a socialist agenda.

xochi (Replying to: Holdfast)

You keep using that word "socialist". I do not think it means what you think it means.

Hobbes (Replying to: xochi)

Inigo Montoya?

lebecka (Replying to: Holdfast)

LOL!
Yeah, Holdfast, make sure you don;t take any social security or medicare or, like, use the roads or bridges or anything! People might think you support socialism!!
LOL! LOL!

Hobbes (Replying to: Holdfast)

Holdfast,

By your standard, perhaps everybody's at least a little socialist.
Where do we draw the line between socialist and ... what, capitalist?

Seems to me, when you're most socialist policies (market based reforms of the health care system, cap and trade, TARP and stimulus during recession) are, well, market based reforms designed and intended to preserve markets that have failed to meet needs of consumers and producers (people). That makes him a capitalist, albeit of the modern liberal sort rather than classical a la Hayek.

Obama's certainly aware of the socialist concerns about capitalism and how a socialist might go about fixing things. But saying he's a socialist is a bit like saying he's conservative in the Burkean sense as he tries not to disrupt social institutions that hold us together. Neither is really apt because he's really just a liberal who's sensitive to the concerns of a wide range of people including socialists, conservatives, etc.

TycheSD (Replying to: Hobbes)

Your whole comment, especially your second paragraph is very good. "That makes him a capitalist, albeit of the modern liberal sort rather than classical a la Hayek." True.

24AheadDotCom (Replying to: Holdfast)

Saying he's a socialist isn't a winning strategy. The better way is to correctly point out that he supports policies that are to a certain extent socialistic. That takes longer to say, but it's only assailable by those who have no intellectual integrity (don't worry, they're already here). There's a continuum from, say, AynRand to FDR to Lenin. You then place BHO on that continuum according to his actions, making sure to be completely accurate.

As for there being no enemies list, tell that to Lou Dobbs. That's from March 2008, but there are currently two or three campaigns against him running now. The "Enough is Enough!" anti-Lou Dobbs campaign has links to the DNC and others, and the other group (see the first link in that post) is comprised of groups that have admin links. Of course, to BHO apologists even if he printed something called "My Enemies List" they'd pretend he doesn't have an enemies list.

Darkmoth (Replying to: 24AheadDotCom)

Even given a more accurate phrasing, I'm not sure Obama's policies are any more socialist than GWB's were. The TARP is easily the most Socialist effort in the past two years, the recent Medicare expansion was an *actual* increase in welfare statehood (as opposed to health reform, which is simply more regulation).

The GM buyout was much closer to classic socialism, certainly, but I'm not sure a Republican President would have allowed them to fail (certainly not after the Lehman scare).

Socialism is a specific thing, it is not synonymous with "more regulation". Regulation is purely a law-enforcement function, in that it acts to prevent harm between actors.

sj (Replying to: Holdfast)

Socialism is defined as public ownership of the means of production. In no way shape or form has Obama proposed anything like this. We're not talking goverment run hospitals, or dismantling the private insurance market in favor of a single-payer system. Health care reform would maintain the bloated profit-driven insurance system that currently exists with greater regulation and subsidies for some. How is that socialism? It's not. Like most right-wingers, you use the term to mean "something I don't know much about, but I don't like because the GOP told me not to like it".

Get an education, then come back and have an intelligent discussion.

justavoice

This is so funny it hurts. Lamar wants on the list. Even if there isn't one...

Hobbes (Replying to: justavoice)

Lamar should just ask Glenn Beck to pencil him in.
Beck's the only one who's actually seen it.

Hobbes

Who cares.

Republicans and bi-partisanship fetishists working out their insatiable kinks are the only people taking the GOP and its allies seriously.

Twenty percent.
At a time when recession, war, and an ambitiously liberal agenda (health care, cap and trade, the stimulus) should be making the GOP popular. Instead, they drive people away.

People with different colored skin, homosexuals, people who like or believe in science, conservatives who don't want to be mixed up in birther-deather craziness ...

Twenty percent.

Sometimes paranoid fantasies coincide with reality.
Mostly they don't.

ottovbvs

.....The Republican party is basically committing hari kiri.......Obama's people are just giving them a little nudge.....enemies lists? when all the polls show by stupendous majorities that Obama is perceived to be attempting to reach out while the Republicans are being obstructionist, making fools of themselves over the Olympics, Nobel's etc........Basically the leadership of the party, which in any case is heavily infiltrated by semi fruit cakes, has left a vacuum which is being filled by the Hannity's, Limbaughs, Becks, Bachmanns and ever nut who can get his hands on a microphone or jump up and down in front of tv cameras waving a sign with Obama as Hitler. These are forces that have been for years just as have the societal changes that the Republican party has chosen to reject. I really think there's nothing that can stop it because the fissiparous tendencies created by these separate groups are simply too powerful.....the enemies list is just the latest example of nuttiness and so it will be perceived outside the 20% and of course the beltway folk like Broder and Marcus who will be wringing their hands about the "death of bi-partisanship."

Pineview1997

I think Lamar Alexander is an irrelevant idiot.

Joe

I thought he wrote a very well thought out and accurate assesment of Obama by comparing him to Nixon. While there idiology puts them on oppisite sides of the political isle, the White Houses current attacks are very much like those against people on Nixon's "Enemies List", in a 5 year old sort of way.

Personally as a independate who can not stand Reps or Dems I am hoping that by 2012 enough people have jumped ship on both that we can get a third party with a little bit on sense in the mix. Go Libertarians.

Holdfast (Replying to: Joe)

Well Nixon did bring in price and wage controls... :))

yarnm (Replying to: Joe)

Joe: I'm all for a third party. Libertarians are not a third party. They are simply Republicans who like to party.

Holdfast (Replying to: yarnm)

Or liberals who don't like to pay taxes (and a few who like guns).

delirioustampa

All I can think about is the sticker on a former co-workers car that read BUSH IS A MORON. She was not the only one that I saw with that sticker. I may not like Obama's politics and policies but I would never imagine sticking something so ridiculous on the back of my car for everyone to see. What would happen if a sticker was made that said OBAMA IS A MORON?
The bottom line is ..... this is a country where people can express their opinions freely... even if their opinions are heavy handed.. they have a right to do so. What's the saying? I may not agree with your opinion but I'll fight to the death to defend your right to express it? Fox News... keep your information coming..

Darkmoth (Replying to: delirioustampa)

To be fair, Obama's not preventing Fox from expressing their opinion, in any way shape or form. As far as I can tell he's simply expressing *his* opinion.

Kevin B (Replying to: delirioustampa)

Google "anti obama bumper stickers" and see what comes up: Lots of ridiculous examples that you won't be able to imagine putting on the back of your car for everyone to see.

theonionman (Replying to: delirioustampa)

Bush nearly failed out of Yale--which is nearly impossible to fail out of--and graduated with a 2.35 GPA (any lower and he would have actually failed out) largely because of his family connections; daddy and granddaddy Bush were in the Skull and Bones.

Before entering the U.S. Senate Barack Obama was a legal academic highly respected by conservatives and liberals alike for his sharp thinking and intellectual prowess.

Not sure where the comparison is...

5snacksafter10

Every cable subscriber with Fox on their system effectively pays it 45 to 75 cents a month. Fox can therefore spread outrageous lies, conspiracy theories and extremism, as well as vilify huge segments of the American population, without any economic price. On a daily basis, it casts as un-American Democrats, liberals, gays, east and west coasters and the non religious and then forces those same people to pay it.

How is this not crazy, as well as grossly unjust?

Half of Fox's profits come from fees charged to cable companies and passed on to consumers. If viewers could opt out of Fox and, most importantly, opt out of paying for it, millions, possibly tens of millions, would immediately do so. It would pay a heavy price for spreading extremism and lies, leading it to either basic journalistic ethics and become a fringe, minor network.

Having a major news channel that has degenerated into a propaganda outlet is a very dangerous development. What is even more insane is that its audience represents at most 1 percent of the nation. Giving consumers an opt out would reimpose reality and assure that a tiny, unhinged minority no longer drives policy and political debates.

CCComment

The Republicans have to defend Fox News with everything they got. Individual Republicans have a lot to gain or lose on Fox News. Fox is now the main medium of communication to an increasingly isolated GOP base. This is a situation where you can't afford to piss off the messanger if you are a GOP office holder. Fox can't do much to Obama other than possibly divert the attention of the real news stations but they can destroy a Republican.

Voices in politics carry a certain amount and kind of credibility. The White House correctly understands that they have to challenge the credibility of voices that are out to destroy Obama's kind of progressive reform. Challenging Fox is not about changing Fox. It is about establishing in the minds of the public what folks in DC already accept, that Fox is a Republican media outlet. Why does this matter? Fox deliberately tries to sell itself as something other than a partisan media outlet, just like how the Chamber of Commerce tries to sell itself as the voice of business.

Barack Obama and the people around him wisely understand that if you don't ever speak up, you won't change anything. That Fox is fair and that the Chamber speaks for business are both lies. It is appropriate to challenge lies.

Umesh Patil

I think Sen. Lamar slap on the wrist is okay, much needed. White House is becoming bit of vindictive and retribution oriented.

What is this talk about 'holding the mop correctly'? President is deriding his critics too much.

Any time our leader starts arguing as if it is campaign with an election tomorrow; hardly anything positive comes.

President Obama simply needs to stick to 'policy debates' and to avoid all other meta talk about his critics. White House for sure should call out factual errors and motivated, misleading policy attacks. But going beyond that is waste of energy and political capital.

That is the short and long of Lamar comment.

Deborah

But the Obama-Nixon parallel seems more than a little strained. What do you think?
Yawn, indeed. When they start having the FBI investigate everyone on Fox, give me a call and I'll join the outrage. This? Presidents should give interviews and press conferences on a regular basis, but so long as someone in the pool asks good questions whining about "omg the president simply must do an interview with out reporter or it's total Nixonville!" is silly whether you're Fox or Bubba's Blackhelicopter Bimonthly.


The genial Alexander will get a lot of attention for his lengthy remarks and call for more bipartisanship. Does that ever go over poorly?
Given the GOP antics over the past few months--which now seem to be making the public option more likely, since Just Vote No on Health Reform has been clearly laid out as their position, nothing to compromise with--I don't see the gain. "Hey you commie socialist Nazi who is trying to betray the country to your secret Jewish overlords--include us more."

Don't calls from Republicans for the president to be "bipartisan" by talking to Fox News and treating them like a serious grown-up news organization put the final bow on the depiction of Fox News as a branch of the GOP?

AhYup

I guess Lamar Alexander has a reputation as being one of the less nuts Republican but really tossing "Nixon" in there is nothing but low rent smear. There is no comparison strained or otherwise. The fact is that FOX is more like P. T. Barnum producing live action editorial cartoons than news and its hardly Nixonian paranoia to point this out. They are stating that they don't take FOX seriously whereas Nixonian enemies lists clearly do take their objects seriously.

I also don't see the WH's strategy backfiring either. That seems more the conventional beltway "oh those redneck Republicans are soooo scary" shtick. Sure they'll scream, howl, and give it a ratings boost. So what? How much of that boost is lefties tuning into to see what outrage Bill and Glenn will provoke in response? I don't think the WH actually cares much about FOX and may even find them to be a useful foil. Their bigger problem is that the liberal base is restive from the Obama administrations moderation and there is likely to be more of that. So "going after" FOX makes the left and FOX happy and content to increase their sniping at each other from their respective corners while leaving the administration more room to act moderate and rational. Rather than obsessing on the far right's totally ridiculous and hysterical claims about the administration the MSM is hyperventilating about the WH "attacks". The far right gets more nonsensically hysterical and the left goes on the attack. Where is the backfire?

sisyphus

Obama is now Nixon ?? Wait, I thought he was Mao/PolPot/Stalin/Hitler/Racist/anti-christ

JimB

No, Obama is not much like Nixon, but there's plenty of Nixon in the White House staff, starting with Rahm Emanuel. The threat to pull the insurance company's anti-trust exemption seems pretty Nixonian, doesn't it? (Though Nixon would have made the threat in private.)

sj (Replying to: JimB)

It's nixonian to end the the insurance industry's reliance on a massive government-provided subsidy that is not availiable to other businesses?
Even as the insurance industry is going to reap a financial windfall from the individual mandate portion of health care reform? What exactly is "nixonian" about this? Why should insurance companies get special treatment? It just goes to show that for all of the right-wing carping about "free" markets, all repugs really want is public support for private profiteering.

sisyphus (Replying to: JimB)

I think it is a curious turn of events from fascisnm to nixonianism. Strangley, being called Nixonian feels like a compliment now.