Ready to Back Down

While I was perusing Media Bistro this evening, I came across this article from the New York Times. This may be old news-- my Mom has the TV on QVC for 90% of our waking hours. Some of the stuff is starting to look good. Send help.

Anyway. The article I found says that Democrats are shunning a debate that was to be held by Fox News for the 2008 Presidential race.

But the reasons given for the cancellation — anger over comments about Barack Obama made the night before by Fox News chairman Roger Ailes — give short shrift to an ongoing online campaign by activists at MoveOn.org and by influential blogs like the Daily Kos to have candidates shun the Fox News Channel, which they accuse of being too conservative and too closely allied to the Republican Party. Fox News, which vehemently denies the charges of bias made by its critics, sees itself as the wounded bystander in a Democrat-versus-Democrat battle. ... One of the liberal antagonists to Fox, Matt Stoller, of the blog MyDD, said on Saturday, “The goal is not to get Democrats not to appear on Fox News.” Rather, he said, “the problem comes in validating Fox News as a legitimate news source.”

Now, I'm all about bashing Fox News. Don't get me wrong. When I see the doughy face of Hannity and/or Colmes, I develop hives. It is not my bag, just like the Colbert Report is not going to be the show of choice for a dyed-in-the-wool redstater. That's fine. God or Darwin or whomever made us all different so we don't die in a hail of meteors. Clearly, the Republicans have the keys to the fallout shelters, so some human life form will make it.

However, all that being said, Fox News is a news source, and not just because it has "news" in its name. Actual thinking human beings watch that channel to get news. It's true. I personally don't know any of these people, but what we liberals need to realize is that the world doesn't end in New York. In bars and restaurants and homes all across this country, people watch Fox News. Do most of the viewers watch it because Fox embraces their biases? Of course. But by ignoring Fox, the Democrats shut out voters who could potentially change their minds. Most voters are mad as hell with the Republicans because President Bush is running the party into the doldrums with his ill-advised plans. If a Democrat (God please, any one will do, send Kucinich if need be) gets into these homes and makes a point, a little cockroach of thought hatches in a voter's brain and maybe, just maybe, the cockroach will fall out of that voter's ear and push the lever for a Democrat next November.

I'm an optimist. I like to believe the best of humans, despite overwhelming evidence we're nothing but ill-mannered monkeys with nuclear weapons. I just want the political party I generally align myself with to grow a pair and fight on the enemy's turf. It would be like Martin Luther King Jr. organizing a bus boycott in New York City-- it doesn't do much to make you look strong if you're not risking anything.

To sum up: Sack up. Thanks.