David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel spent some quality time Sunday labeling FOX as the enemy, presumably approving of Olbermann, Maddow, and the liberal ilk on other networks. But FOX didn’t fall for this one…
by Michael Naragon
Obama team member David Axelrod spoke on George Stephanopoulos’ This Week and went so far as to claim that FOXNews is “really not news,” but rather was opinionated entertainment dressed as news.
Obviously, like all Americans, Axelrod and his Nobel Peace Prize-winning employer are entitled to their opinions about FOX, but what makes the episode even more comical is the fact that the “legitimate” news agencies fell for a hoax the day after Axelrod lambasted Rupert Murdoch’s network.
As reported in the Los Angeles Times, a group of activists posing as U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials sent out a press release and invited reporters to a fake news conference about climate change and the Copenhagen conference. The actors read a statement advocating that the U.S. pass a climate change bill before December so that “President Obama can lead the entire business world in ensuring our long-term prosperity.”
The problem? The pro-global warming stance was completely opposite from the Chamber’s previous statements. Still, CNBC and Reuters couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get the initial statements of the posers on the wire as quickly as possible, sparing no chance to bolster the president’s position on climate change. They were forced to retract their stories minutes later when an actual official from the Chamber of Commerce appeared and broke up the pow-wow.
So what can we learn from this incident? First, I find it wonderfully ironic that an activist group would use a hoax to advocate for a hoax. The global warming zealots have begun to see the handwriting on the wall, and their power to hoodwink the American people is waning. They would like nothing better than to help ram the cap-and-tax energy bill down our collective throats and drive another nail in the coffin of the free market, the now-sputtering engine that used to drive our economy.
Finally, it strikes me as funny that the day after FOX is labeled as something less than news, two of the organizations that Axelrod and Emanuel would likely consider bulwarks of unbiased coverage managed to act with such a degree of ignorance. Did it not strike anyone at CNBC or Reuters as odd that the Chamber of Commerce had completely reversed their position, seemingly overnight? Likely it did not, as my experience has shown that many of those in the field of journalism have little to speak of in the way of intelligence, with broadcast journalists being not far removed from the ape creatures of the Indus when it comes to original thought.
Still, they have been known on occasion to be able to smile and read a prompter for several minutes at a time, receiving a tasty morsel at the end of a successful broadcast. That skill, interestingly, is also apparently all one needs to become the most powerful figure in the quickly shrinking Free World and to win major awards from liberal global thinktanks.
It’s unfortunate that a representative from the real Chamber arrived to spoil the party, or else later that night we may have seen MSNBC/Tass “reporter” Keith Olbermann discuss the new support for the president’s plans.
