Fox News Takes a Beating from Sly White House

By Morgan Mayhew on October 14, 2009

Cable station Fox News and the White House has stepped up the rhetoric to cold war levels in recent days.

Displeased with the opinionated coverage of Fox News, the White House has been openly critical of the ideological news outlet and now takes regular and open jabs at the organization and its decision makers.

Fox News has escalated the tension by shutting down their bureau within the U.S. State Department leading Bill Burton, deputy press secretary for the Obama administration to tell the New York Times, “Apparently covering the State Department at a time when there are two wars and important foreign policy issues that emerge every day, there are other things that Fox News thinks those reporters ought to be covering.”

Fox News launched during the Clinton years and was quickly hailed by conservatives as a fair alternative to liberally biased CNN. Since that time, Fox New moved on from being a basher of President Clinton, to an administration’s chief cheerleader under George W. Bush.

Now with Obama in office, Fox has shifted from a repeater of presidential talking points to full-time critic of the office.

The shift in tone is best made clear by Fox News star Sean Hannity. On countless occasions, Hannity berated guest for being critical of the Commander In Chief during war time – but that was only when George W. Bush was in office. It seems for Hannity, that loyalty to the office of the president during conflict is dependent upon which side of the political spectrum the occupant falls on.

The White House is also doing itself no favors by continuing to address the situation with Fox News as it only provides the network’s bombastic hosts with more fodder for their time slots.

There is no word yet when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will intervene to address the escalation in tension. However, the former first lady did recently interject herself into the heated conflict between Newark Mayor Cory Booker and talk show host Conan O’Brien. However, her efforts were futile as Conan’s recent guest Ice-T has threatened to “have someone meet him at the airport” for Conan.