Obama’s Desire To Control Fox News, The Media & Everything

21 Oct, 2009 by Melissa Clouthier

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Donald Sensing has a must-read piece about the Barack Obama strategy. I’ll quote one paragraph, but you must go read the whole thing:

And to think that George W. Bush was mocked for saying, “If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.” The White House is laying a foundation of future media relations that does two things. First, they are identifying, and most importantly trying to get all the media to identify, good and bad media coverage, both terms defined by the White House. Second, they are nudging each reporter and news organization to move further toward the “good” side by trying to drive a wedge between them and Fox News.

What flashes to my mind is Scientology. Stay with me here. One of the very first precepts in their ideology is to take control–control everything. Another precept is to match tone. That is, if someone is combative, match the person’s tone.

And then what comes to mind is this: all cults have the same traits. Controlling the message, building a personality, stagecraft, etc. The Obama administration came to power by force of jingo. Now, tough decisions must be made, personnel choices committed to. The people watch and judge these decisions. The people don’t like what they see.

Since President Obama doesn’t want to bend his agenda or bring it to the center, his only choice is to control the medium, the filter through which the agenda is seen. Fox News is the only fly in the ointment. He figures the other members of the press are too stupid to question him.

The Obama administration is filled with Marxists, utopians, and workers with fluff resumés. It’s better if no one looks too closely. The president’s agenda is meeting with opposition from the American people. The only way to change that is to try to harm the messenger. Really, the only way to do that is to harm all messengers.

There is only one voice President Obama wants the American people to hear and it’s his own.

UPDATE:

The Politico has more:

All of the techniques are harnessed to a larger purpose: to marginalize not only the individual person or organization but also some of the most important policy and publicity allies of the national Republican Party.

Dunn said that in August, as the president’s aides planned for the fall, they made “a fundamental decision that we needed to be more aggressive in both protecting our position and in delineating our differences with those who were attacking us.”

“It was a time for us to look at the extraordinary success we’ve had in terms of legislation but also to look at where we needed to be more aggressive in defining what the choices are, and in protecting and pushing forward our agenda,” she said.

The campaign underscores how deeply political the Obama White House is in its daily operations – with a strong focus on redrawing the electoral map and discrediting the personalities and ideas that have powered the conservative movement over the past 20 years.

A former national security adviser said that Robert Gibbs now sits in briefings with the military. So even the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is now politicized.

The idea is to control every thought and message out there. And were it not for a few rare exceptions, they would.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com