White House Ignores War In Afghanistan To Pursue New War On Fox News

Up until the exaltation of The One – may socialist Scandinavians place golden medallions around his neck forever – the Democrats’ spiel on Afghanistan was that it was the right war, the top priority war, the just war, the necessary war, but that the devil Bush ignored Afghanistan while he focused on Iraq.

Iraq, of course, was the unwinnable war (even after Bush won it), and the surge strategy was bound to be a costly failure (even after it worked).

Well, now that Obama – in the words of a leftist “journalist” – “stands above the country” and “above the world” as “sort of God,” well, the “change” the left kept blathering about resulted in a change of focus:

Afghanistan is no longer the “war of necessity,” or the “top priority,” or the “cause that could not be more just.”  Nope.  That war morphed into the war that the White House has declared on Fox News.

White House communications director, Anita Dunn:

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” said Anita Dunn, the White House communications director.

And:

“The reality of it is that Fox often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

And:

“As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

Mind you, every major totalitarian dictator in the world is more “legitimate” than Fox News, as far as the White House is concerned:

White House communications director Anita Dunn also said this:

“What I think is fair to say about Fox — and certainly it’s the way we view it — is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party,” said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. “They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.”

Yes, that’s right.  Dunn is referring to CNN — the same CNN that demonstrated that it is so completely in the tank for the Obama agenda that it actually “FACT-CHECKED” a Saturday Night Live skit.

That’s the criteria for “a news network”: complete ideological loyalty.

Obama pretty much pointed that out himself when he addressed White House correspondents:

“Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me.  Apologies to the Fox table.”

Unlike all the other media, Fox correspondents didn’t vote for Obama.  And that’s enough to declare war.  For all must love The One.  No dissension can be tolerated.

Mind you, while the White House asserts that Fox News is evil because it – alone by itself – is not in the tank with Obama, it’s interesting to see that Obama himself is in the tank for SEIU and the hard-core union agenda as he vows to “paint the nation purple.”

We’ve seen this reaction to media criticism by a president before – from the darkest and most evil days of Richard Nixon.  It wasn’t pretty, and it didn’t end well.

Is Fox the media arm of the Republican Party?  Viewers who are flocking to Fox News in droves don’t seem to think so:

Fox News Channel was the 2nd highest rated cable channel on all of television during the first quarter of 2009 in prime time Total Viewers. CNN was 17th and MSNBC 24th for the first three months of the year. FNC beat CNN and MSNBC combined and gained the most compared to the first quarter of 2008, up 24%. 2009’s first quarter was FNC’s 3rd highest rated quarter in prime time in the network’s history — just behind Q4 ’08 and Q3 ’05. In prime time, ages 25-54 demo, and in total day in both categories, FNC grew more year-to-year than CNN and MSNBC combined. FNC had nine of the top 10 programs on cable news in Total Viewers.

The hardly right-wing UCLA seems to find plenty of bias from all of those journalists that Obama boasted voted for him, rather than Fox:

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS’ “Evening News,” The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News’ “Special Report With Brit Hume” and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

To the extent that Fox News is biased to the right, every single other news outlet is biased toward the left.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs’ study concluded that Fox News was in fact the most fair and balanced network, concluding:

Fox News Channel’s coverage was more balanced toward both parties than the broadcast networks were. On FOX, evaluations of all Democratic candidates combined were split almost evenly — 51% positive vs. 49% negative, as were all evaluations of GOP candidates — 49% positive vs. 51% negative, producing a perfectly balanced 50-50 split for all candidates of both parties.

Sacred Heart University’s media study discovered that Fox News was the most trusted in the nation:

Researchers were asked which national television news organization they trusted most for accurate reporting. Fox News was named by 30.0% of all respondents – up from 19.5% in 2003 and 27.0% in 2007.

Those named most frequently as the television news organization most trusted for accurate reporting in 2009 included: Fox News (30.0%), CNN (19.5%), NBC News (7.5%) and ABC News (7.5%). Fox News was also the television news organization trusted least. Just over one-quarter, 26.2%, named Fox News, followed by NBC News (9.9%), MSNBC (9.4%), CNN (8.5%), CBS News (5.3%) and ABC News (3.7%).

In fact, it didn’t come all that far from being TWICE as trusted as the runner-up, CNN (the network that fact-checks SNL sketches that are negative to Obama).

So this war – that again seems to be replacing the “just war of necessity” that Afghanistan was SUPPOSED to be is just ridiculous.

It merely shows just how dramatically ideological this administration truly is.

It also explains why former longtime ABC correspondent Chris Wallace said of the Obama administration:

“They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.”

Let’s just take a second to consider what Obama seems to think about the media, as evidenced by his selection of Mark Lloyd to be his FCC Diversity Czar.  Remember that cartoon of dictators that Obama has met with?  Obama’s FCC Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd admiringly said this of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez:

“In Venezuela, with Chavez, is really an incredible revolution – a democratic revolution.  To begin to put in place things that are going to have an impact on the people of Venezuela….The property owners and the folks who then controlled the media in Venezuela rebelled – worked, frankly, with folks here in the U.S. government – worked to oust him. But he came back with another revolution, and then Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country.”

Just as Obama is now taking Fox News seriously in this country.

But how did Hugo Chavez “take very seriously the media”?

Newsbusters answers that by simply pointing to the facts in Venezuela:

NGOs Warn of Restrictions in Pending Venezuela Law

Associated Press – May 7, 2009

Prominent Venezuelan nongovernmental organizations warned Thursday that a bill being drafted by lawmakers loyal to President Hugo Chavez could be used to financially strangle groups that criticize the government.

Chavez clamps down on broadcast media

Irish Examiner – Friday, July 10, 2009

President Hugo Chavez’s government is imposing tough new regulations on Venezuela’s cable television while revoking the licenses of more than 200 radio stations.

Report: Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez aggressively seizing control of media

Miami Herald – August 14, 2009

An unclassified report lists examples of Venezuelan government efforts to crack down on or seize control of media outlets to stifle criticism.

How’s that for a chronology of authoritarian censorship?

And Obama’s choice for FCC Diversity Czar also had this to say:

[From a 2005 Conference on Media Reform: Racial Justice]: “Because we have really, truly good white people in important positions. And the fact of the matter is that there are a limited number of those positions.  And unless we are conscious of the need to have more people of color, gays, other people in those positions we will not change the problem.

We’re in a position where you have to say who is going to step down so someone else can have power.”

It’s nice of Mark Lloyd to acknowledge that there are “good white people” around – just before he announces the need to have a purge of white people from the media.  But Mark Lloyd is a racist who has also said:

“There are few things I think more frightening in the American mind than dark skinned black men. Here I am.”

And Barack Obama also showed what he thought about free speech rights when his selection for FCC Diversity Czar said:

“It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.

“[T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.”

So we pretty much know where the Obama White House is coming from: the media should be the exclusive tool of leftist propaganda to advance the Obama agenda.  Only Obama voters need apply to be considered as “journalists.”  Free speech is a terribly overrated thing, which needs to be “reinterpreted” to exclude ANYONE who has ANYTHING but a far-leftist revolutionary agenda.  And Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has provided the American left with the model as to how to proceed in that direction.

Obama is dithering around in Afghanistan while our soldiers languish and die for lack of support.  But he seems all to willing to pursue his war on Fox News with a gusto.

In both the war in Afghanistan and the war on Fox News, the threat is to freedom itself.

Interesting Election Tidbits From Rasmussen Polls

This is just a collection of Rasmussen’s findings on the Presidential race, on the attitudes of Democratic women for the Obama-Biden ticket, on Democrats’ and Republicans’ registration efforts, on which Presidential candidate is more trusted in National Security, and on the electoral college race, as of August 28:

Interesting Tidbits From Rasmussen Polls

This is just a collection of Rasmussen’s findings on the Presidential race, on the attitudes of Democratic women, on Democrats’ and Republicans’ registration efforts, on which Presidential candidate is more trusted, and on the electoral college race, as of August 28:

On the Presidential Race:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows hints of a modest convention bounce building for Barack Obama. The Democrat gained a point from yesterday and now attracts 45% of the vote nationwide while John McCain earns 44%. When “leaners” are included, it’s Obama 47% and McCain 47% (see recent daily results).

On how Democratic women feel about the Obama-Biden ticket:

Nearly half of Democratic women (47%) say Barack Obama should have chosen Hillary Clinton for his running mate instead of Senator Joseph Biden as the former First Lady prepares to speak tonight at the Democratic National Convention. Thirty-nine percent (39%) disagree.

But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that a sizable majority (57%) of Democratic women believe that Obama is the Democratic candidate who will do best against John McCain in the November election. See crosstabs by gender within party.

On the success of Democrat’s relative to Republican’s voter drives:

During July, the number of Americans who consider themselves to be Democrats fell two percentage points to 39.2%. That’s the first time since January that the number of Democrats has fallen below 41% (see history from January 2004 to present).

While the number of Democrats declined, there was virtually no change in the number of Republicans. In July, 31.6% said they were Republicans, the fourth straight month that number has been below 31.4% and 31.6%.

The Democrats now have a 7.6 percentage point advantage over the Republicans, down from a 9.5 percentage point advantage in June and 10.1 percentage points in May.

Rasmussen Reports tracks this information based upon telephone interviews with approximately 15,000 adults per month and has been doing so since November 2002.

Among men, 34% are Democrats, 33% Republican. Forty-four percent (44%) of women are Democrats, and just 30% claim the GOP as their party.

Forty-one percent (41%) of government employees are Democrats while 31% are Republicans. Among entrepreneurs, 36% are Republican, 34% Democrat. Those who work for someone else in the private sector lean Democratic by a 38% to 31% margin.

In January and February, while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in the early stages of the battle for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, the number of Americans who considered themselves to be Democrats surged to record highs.

In 2004, the Democrats began the year with a 2.3 percentage point edge over the GOP. That grew to 4.0 points by March before moving in the Republican direction for the rest of the year. By Election Day in 2004, the edge for Democrats was a mere 1.6 percentage points.

In 2006, the Democrats began the year with just a 1.6 percentage point advantage. That grew to 6.1 percentage points by November.

On which Presidential Candidate is more trusted on National Security:

National security is the issue of the day at the Democratic National Convention, but it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Democrats were planning on riding opposition to the highly unpopular war in Iraq right into the White House.

Instead, Barack Obama is begrudgingly admitting the “surge” of additional troops into Iraq has worked, and Hillary Clinton told the convention Tuesday night that, if elected, Obama will “end the war … responsibly,” with no mention of a timetable.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters trust Republican presidential candidate John McCain over Obama on national security issues 52% to 41%.

Nationally, for weeks the race between the two men has been a dead heart in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, with oddly enough McCain showing slight momentum this week following the announcement of Joe Biden as Obama’s running mate.

Over half of voters (51%) also continue to believe that it is at least somewhat likely that the United States will win the war in Iraq if McCain is elected, while only 30% believe that to be the case should Obama win the White House. Sixty-one percent (61%) think the United States is not likely to win if Obama is elected, compared to 41% who feel that way about McCain.

At the same time, voter confidence in how America is fighting the War on Terror is at the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports. The latest national telephone survey finds that 54% of voters now think the United States and its allies are winning the war. Just 19% of voters think the terrorists have the advantage, while 20% say neither is winning.

In terms of national security, male voters trust McCain over Obama 58% to 36%. Female voters, who in most polls heavily favor the Democrat, rank them virtually dead even. McCain leads by a wide margin in all age and income groups, except among those 18-29 and those earning less than $20,000 a year who trust Obama more.

Even 21% of Democrats trust McCain more on national security, compared to seven percent (7%) of Republicans who prefer Obama. Unaffiliated voters favor McCain 54% to 35%.

And on the electoral college race (state by state):

The latest wave of state-by-state polling, market data and national trends have pushed the Rasmussen Reports’ Electoral College projections as close as our daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

The latest numbers from the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator show Obama leading in states with 193 Electoral College votes and McCain ahead in states with 183 Electoral College votes. Previously, Obama had enjoyed a 210–165 advantage.

Currently, states with 135 Electoral College votes are leaning slightly in one way or the other, and three states with a total of 27 votes — Colorado, Nevada and Virginia — are pure toss-ups.

A state-by-state “balance of power” chart is available HERE.