Susan Estrich: In Defense of Fox News...

I remember Susan Estrich as the outspoken campaign manager for Michael Dukakis back in 1988. In recent years she has appeared as a Liberal commentator on Fox News Channel (although unlike CNN and MSNBC, Fox doesn't formally assign ideological labels to its commentators). The Liberals in the press corp recently lost their minds over a Neil Cavuto interview with the President and a pointed question by correspondent Brian Wilson to DNC Chair Howard Dean, screaming "bias!"

Of course this just the kind of knee-jerk response you can expect from knee-jerk Liberals. But Estrich's Liberal and feminist positions don't cloud her ability to call 'em like she sees 'em. And in a column in the Christian Science Monitor, she comes to Fox News' defense.

The criticisms have gotten personal, the tone has changed, the volume is up, and the value is down. Neil Cavuto? Brian Wilson? Under attack by a Washington press corps for not probing enough on Iraq (Cavuto) and being too tough on Howard Dean (Wilson)? Give me a break.

Mr. Cavuto, a Fox News anchor, sat down to do an interview with George Bush last week on his business show. He didn't discuss Iraq. Cavuto doesn't cover Iraq. As far as I know, he had nothing new to ask him, nothing new to add, and no important new question to pose. In fact, the president had nothing new to say on the topic. There was no news to be made on Iraq. So Cavuto didn't use the opportunity either to beat up on the president or to let him say something we'd heard a hundred times. Instead, he asked him questions he didn't know the answer to, where he might get an answer he hadn't already heard.

And as for the Dean situation, Wilson was simply probing DNC Chairman about his recent comments that he "hated" Republicans, who he thought were basically nothing more than a bunch of "white Christians" who've "never done an honest day's work in their lives":

This is precisely what congressional leaders and Dean agreed Dean wouldn't do when he became party chair. He was supposed to leave the message to them. Because Dean hadn't done so and had been criticized for it by two possible presidential candidates - neither of whom is even a conservative - Sen. Harry Reid was trying to put a perennial good face on a bad situation, while Brian Wilson was trying to puncture it.

And that's what the press is supposed to do.

It's amusing, when Fox News was the new kid on the block, how CNN and other networks dismissed it and now that more people watch Fox than any other news outlet on television, these same folks are attacking Roger Ailes as the devil incarnate. Funny that a Liberal who actually knows him and works for him describes her respect for the man as "having nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with integrity."

Posted by: Gary at 04:00 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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