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"Yesterday, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, who is strongly identified with both the fiscal- and social-conservative wings of the GOP, wound up cautioning some conservative constituents at a town hall gathering not to "catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody is no good."
Coburn's plea for viewer skepticism came in defense of his courtly aside about Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom he characterized as "a nice person." When a wave of grumbling followed, Coburn stood his ground, asking the crowd "how many of you all have met her?" before proceeding to chide them for echoing the Fox-branded view of Pelosi as a poor specimen of humanity.
The Coburn episode was especially striking, since he happens to be one of the most stalwart conservatives in the Senate, netting a 96-point rating on the 100-point scale furnished by the American Conservative Union.
Other conservatives who are closer to the traditional GOP mainstream have lately raised similar red flags about Fox's broader political impact. David Frum, the former American Enterprise Institute fellow who was recently let go in the wake of a widely circulated blog post he wrote criticizing GOP legislative tactics on health care reform, has said that "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we're discovering that we're working for Fox." Frum spelled out what he meant by that remark in a weekend appearance on CNN's "Reliable Sources":
"What that means is that Fox, like Limbaugh, has an interest in pushing the Republicans to the margins, making people angry," he said. "When people are angry and alienated, they don't vote. They succumb to feelings of helplessness."
Bruce Bartlett, a Frum sympathizer, argues that the network's elevation as the premier source of conservative information has also closed the right off from healthy debate. "Fox News is a Republican, conservatively biased organization," Bartlett told Yahoo! News. "Now conservatives don't need to get into the New York Times, or on CBS. They've got their own news network, and all they really think is, 'How can I get a positive mention from Beck or Limbaugh?' or 'How can I get my boss onto Fox News?' "
Coburn's plea for viewer skepticism came in defense of his courtly aside about Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom he characterized as "a nice person." When a wave of grumbling followed, Coburn stood his ground, asking the crowd "how many of you all have met her?" before proceeding to chide them for echoing the Fox-branded view of Pelosi as a poor specimen of humanity.
The Coburn episode was especially striking, since he happens to be one of the most stalwart conservatives in the Senate, netting a 96-point rating on the 100-point scale furnished by the American Conservative Union.
Other conservatives who are closer to the traditional GOP mainstream have lately raised similar red flags about Fox's broader political impact. David Frum, the former American Enterprise Institute fellow who was recently let go in the wake of a widely circulated blog post he wrote criticizing GOP legislative tactics on health care reform, has said that "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we're discovering that we're working for Fox." Frum spelled out what he meant by that remark in a weekend appearance on CNN's "Reliable Sources":
"What that means is that Fox, like Limbaugh, has an interest in pushing the Republicans to the margins, making people angry," he said. "When people are angry and alienated, they don't vote. They succumb to feelings of helplessness."
Bruce Bartlett, a Frum sympathizer, argues that the network's elevation as the premier source of conservative information has also closed the right off from healthy debate. "Fox News is a Republican, conservatively biased organization," Bartlett told Yahoo! News. "Now conservatives don't need to get into the New York Times, or on CBS. They've got their own news network, and all they really think is, 'How can I get a positive mention from Beck or Limbaugh?' or 'How can I get my boss onto Fox News?' "
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1514


