The Assault on FOX: A Feint by the Administration?

Feint: Feints are maneuvers designed to distract or mislead, done by giving the impression that a certain maneuver will take place, while in fact another, or even none, will.

Legal Insurrection is convinced we have fallen for one:

While we were following the Fox News red herring dragged by Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Anita Dunn across the political trail, the real damage was being done in the other direction.

Organizing for America, Obama's renamed campaign machine, was flooding Capital Hill with phone calls in support of Obamacare (we received a phone call at our house yesterday asking us to call our representative in support of Democratic proposals). Harry Reid was cutting deals with doctors, various states, and anyone else who can be bought or bullied. Nancy Pelosi was playing number games to get a CBO score below $900 billion based on unrealistic cost control assumptions which never will be put into effect. All the while the Democrats were touting yet another misleading poll (based on distorted sampling) supposedly showing widespread support for a government plan, to provide cover for a sell-out by moderate Democrats.

And us? We're talking about Fox News.

Donald Sensing seems to feel it is a shot across the bow to the entire struggling MSM - play ball with us, or twist on the vine of financial ruin:

The more a White House reporters and editors toe the White House line, the greater access they will be granted, especially to power figures such as Rahm Emmanuel, David Axelrod and, ultimately, Barack Obama himself, whom we may expect to give a one-on-one interview with the biggest suckup reporter gaining Dunn's favor. Reporters who don't fall into place will discover they are being frozen out of access and will have to rely exclusively on press briefer Robert Gibbs, which is the kiss of death to a White House reporter.

....And to think that George W. Bush was mocked for saying, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists."

I think they're both right, and they both miss a point. While the "War on FOX" has got a lot of people talking about the proper role of the presidency in relation to the press, it was less of a feint and more a bit of "softening up the turf", as the military says while saturation-bombing an area prior to invasion/occupation. With FOX stories now carrying a touch of de-legitimization, and the remaining media warned by the White House not to follow their news leads under fear of exile, valid stories about the perils of health care reform (among other things) will have less of an opportunity to penetrate the mass consciousness.

Regardless, the attack on conservatives and the media as a whole was a successful one by military standards. The Right now has to fight a two-front war: Warning the nation about the chill being put on "opposition media" (yes, we now have such a thing in America - hope and change, yadda, yadda...) while remaining vigilant about the perils that the Democrat's planned socialization of health care holds for us - a hurt so big and bad that, to quote William Jacobson again, future generations will curse us for what we allowed to happen.

So conservative energy will be now be split - fighting the Left's disastrous policies while fighting to retain our most basic freedoms - and thus will be forced to focus less on the health care debate. All this, when we are not fighting amongst ourselves, as we are in upstate New York (NY-23 - sigh...).

As strategies go, it's cunning, dishonest, and divisive - in other words, exactly what we've come to expect from this administration. But will it work? Time will tell, I suppose...

But in the meantime, I wish Obama would put this much effort into creating some winning schemes against his nation's enemies in Afghanistan, rather than focusing all of his energy on his perceived enemies at home...