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Last update - 18:51 06/06/2008 Fox News will elect Obama president By Bradley Burston Tags: Burston, Israel, Palestinians In the end, leave it to Fox News Channel to elect Barack Obama president. They have the resources. They have the clout. And, most importantly, they have the critical lack of vision required to prompt a backlash and elect the candidate they truly dislike. Let this be said at the outset: the reporting staff, the field correspondents, and many of the anchors - Bill O'Reilly included - have been, by and large, professional and intelligent in their coverage and commentary. Advertisement The downfall of Fox, nonetheless, remains its propensity to send in the clowns, and to sic them on the perceived public enemy of the moment. After sparing Obama in order to focus all possible scorn, vitriol, smug half-finished jokes and eye-rolling in the direction of once-frontrunner Hillary Clinton, it dawned on someone at Fox a few months ago that there was no politically astute alternative but to do what the network had been reluctant to do all along: Sic the white people on the black man. It had certainly dawned on Fox Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes by March, when he chose a speech to a gathering of radio and television news directors to try out a joke, in CNN's words, "deliberately confusing the Illinois senator's name with that of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden." "It's true that Barack Obama is on the move," Ailes told the news directors. "I don't know if it's true President Bush called [Pakistan President Pervez] Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?' " In previous shots at Obama, Fox anchors had often couched their insinuations in the form of attacks on the Clinton campaign, as in the quasi-reportorial tone of anchor John Gibson as he expressed outrage that Clinton people were "playing the Muslim phobia card." "The gloves are off: Hillary Clinton is to be already digging up the dirt on Barack Obama. "The New York senator has reportedly outed Obama's madrassa past. That's right, the Clinton team is reported to have pulled out all the stops to reveal something Obama would rather you didn't know: that he was educated in a Muslim madrassa." Clinton people are "looking into his background," Gibson quoted a Website as reporting, in a story which was later debunked. "They're saying: He was a Muslim," Gibson said, setting the tone for the They Said It, Not Us News Network. "He concealed it. His opponents within the Democrats hope this will become a major issue in the campaign. "Now, we have heard about dirty politics before," Gibson noted dryly. "Republicans aren't involved in this one." The people at "Fox and Friends" and a number of other Fox News Lite shows - which use winks and banter to signal the political line which truly 100 percent patriotic Americans should be towing at the moment - have recently diversified from a steady diet of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Some of the looser cannons among Fox anchors have gone in a new direction, taking on the candidate's wife as unworthy, un-American, and perhaps even racist. Quoting her incessantly, and, often, out of context, the Fox opinion molders obsessively reference her February statement that "For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback." Subsequently, she said that she meant she was proud of the way Americans were engaging in the political process, and that she?s always been proud of her country. But on Fox, smiling anchors drill viewers on the party line that Michelle Obama is ashamed of America. Michelle Obama was later taken to task for a speech in which she said that in 2008, an America which is divided and fearful and with many people struggling just to survive economically, is a country which is "just downright mean." Fox News personality Sean Hannity then lowered the boom, inviting former Ohio Republican congressman (now Fox News host) Republican John Kasich and conservative pollster and political consultant Frank Luntz to help him gang up on, cajole, demean and browbeat a soft-spoken political science professor into conceding that America isn?t a mean country after all. And they're not through yet, by any means. This month, Fox News veteran Geraldo Rivera quoted a Web report that the Republican Party has a videotape showing Michelle Obama in the pulpit of Rev. Wright's church, publicly railing against "whitey." Rivera then said of the report, "I don't believe it's true," adding that he would bet $100 against it being accurate. I love Fox News. I watch it every chance I get. I just wonder why they had to take out an actual trademark on the phrase "fair and balanced. And why they seem to have backed away from the Real Journalism part of the catch phrase. I truly feel for the real journalists - and they are many - who work there. The ancillaries, the toothy wonders who bully and smirk their way through Rupert Murdoch's political agenda, do them no honor. The joke is that it is the ancillaries that will put Obama in the winner's column come November. _______________ Previous blogs: The talkbacker as terrorist The Palestinians' time is running out. We owe the Palestinians a state 60 years of Nakba, 60 years of nothing Our Defense Forces, our war crimes, our terrorism For our worst enemy, Hamas, just two words Bookmark to del.icio.us   Snoop Dogg in Israel American rapper Snoop Dogg slated to perform in Ramat Gan. Late date Scientists revive 2,000-year-old date seed found at Masada.   1.   classic blame game, reverse racism 01:15  |  Scott ORama 06/06/08   2.   fox audience 02:56  |  Andrew 06/06/08   3.   Excellent insight by Burston 03:51  |  BBSNews 06/06/08   4.   Obama does not need `Fox News` 17:02  |  Shalom Freedman 06/06/08   5.   Obama does not need `Fox News` 17:03  |  Shalom Freedman 06/06/08   6.   Bradley, what did you smoke last night? 17:16  |  Bob 06/06/08   7.   Fox is a third rate station, only idiots watch this channel 17:17  |  Aaron 06/06/08   8.   Blacks Voting Over 90% For Obama Is Not Racist? 17:23  |  Mordechai 06/06/08   9.   A BACKLASH AGAINST FOX AND ITS SUPPORTERS 17:24  |  indrajaya 06/06/08   10.   Bradley, 17:30  |  Fox Fan 06/06/08   11.   FOX News=Red Neck News. 17:35  |  R. Neck 06/06/08   12.   FOx - So Much More Fair and Balanced Than All Others 17:38  |  Tod Zuckerman 06/06/08   13.   bbs news fox news is doing well 17:45  |  byron 06/06/08   14.   Ask Murdoch 17:49  |  W 06/06/08   15.   "I love Fox News" 17:54  |  Jeremiah 06/06/08   16.   Very good article... 18:06  |  Silvienne 06/06/08   17.   #1, Scott ORama... 18:09  |  Silvienne 06/06/08   18.   not so sure, seen and heard plenty of scrutiny from at least one 18:10  |  jj 06/06/08   19.   Double the disgust, double the reactive motives 18:12  |  Afikoman 06/06/08   20.   FOX NEWS, Fair and Balanced 18:28  |  Palestinian 06/06/08   21.   YOUR COMMENTS ARE QUITE THE CONTRARY TO WHAT FOX REPORTED ABOUT.. 18:30  |  glenna 06/06/08   22.   What a total twit you are Bradley 18:31  |  Nechama 06/06/08   23.   #4 Palestinian-first 5 words WRONG 18:40  |  torres 06/06/08   24.   Bradley made a good point, missed a bigger point 18:42  |  Darth Zaider (Ed) 06/06/08   25.   What would the world be today without Rupert Murdoch....???? 19:00  |  Swiss (Dino) 06/06/08   26.   Where would Israel be today without Rupert Murdoch....???? 19:01  |  Swiss (Dino) 06/06/08   27.   Is there an Israeli angle to this? 19:03  |  Tosefta 06/06/08   28.   Palestinian 4 19:03  |  ChanahS 06/06/08   29.   BS full of hate 19:10  |  Israeli 06/06/08   30.   By the way, after his Jerusalem "blunder", Obama is currently.... 19:18  |  Swiss (Dino) 06/06/08   31.   is this article a joke? 19:24  |  dori 06/06/08   32.   A BUNCH OF TELEVISION FANATICS 19:27  |  indrajaya 06/06/08   33.   Get real Israeli... 19:30  |  BBSNews 06/06/08   34.   For Palestinian: your view tells the whole story 19:32  |  Darth Zaider (Ed) 06/06/08   35.   the US is run by jews? come on... 19:41  |  Dori 06/06/08   36.   Any attraction in scientology? No. But powerful business! 19:41  |  F. Kortyom 06/06/08   37.   BBSNEWS...if one only watches, reads or 19:51  |  Lynn 06/06/08   38.   #17 paelstinian 19:53  |  Reuben 06/06/08   39.   Mr. Burston--You overstate their intelligence. 19:55  |  a wandering Jew 06/06/08   40.   Ailes was/is Republican party operative 19:57  |  steve 06/06/08   41.   # 19 Palestinian of Jerusalem. ..... 20:08  |  Lynn 06/06/08   42.   # 29, SWISS (DINO) 20:08  |  indrajaya 06/06/08   43.   is there any honest reporting by anyone on this man? 20:11  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 06/06/08   44.   Fox news not a jew-free network by any means 20:12  |  hollingsworth 06/06/08   45.   # 23 Darth of Canada...how do you explain 20:15  |  Lynn 06/06/08   46.   But I LOVE Fox and Friends in the morning! 20:18  |  Aphemia 06/06/08   47.   BBSNews 20:20  |  Otto Rand 06/06/08   48.   # 31 Indy....if more Muslims were like you 20:23  |  Lynn 06/06/08   49.   # 40 indrajaya 20:37  |  Swiss (Dino) 06/06/08   50.   Fox News 20:38  |  Karen 06/06/08   51.   # 33 BBSNEWS...I would say there is an equal 20:43  |  Lynn 06/06/08   52.   # 48, SWISS (DINO) 21:03  |  indrajaya 06/06/08   53.   Swiss...most Americans could care less 21:12  |  Lynn 06/06/08   54.   # 53 Lynn 21:23  |  Swiss (Dino) 06/06/08   55.   #41, Lynn... 21:28  |  Silvienne 06/06/08   56.   Murdoch`s soapboxes and media bias 21:28  |  Gray 06/06/08   57.   #53, Lynn to Swiss Dino...and this from Lynn... 21:31  |  Silvienne 06/06/08   58.   #32 thanks for making your Jew-hating conspiracy theory clear 21:32  |  McQueen 06/06/08   59.   #45, Lynn.. 21:34  |  Silvienne 06/06/08   60.   Swiss...many Americans consider.... 21:36  |  Silvienne 06/06/08   61.   #47, Otto Rand 1 21:44  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 06/06/08   62.   # 54 Swiss ...it won`t be Europe 21:45  |  Lynn 06/06/08   63.   # 57 Silvienne...I do NOT go on about what we 21:49  |  Lynn 06/06/08   64.   # 59 Silvienne ...in a hushed aside, gossiping 21:51  |  Lynn 06/06/08   65.   You miss a point 21:55  |  Colin Wright 06/06/08   66.   Silvienne....just realized 21:57  |  Lynn 06/06/08   67.   # 59 Silvienne 21:57  |  Swiss (Dino) 06/06/08   68.   #47, Otto Rand 2 21:59  |  Cipora Julianna Kohn 06/06/08   69.   #44 hollingsworth 21:59  |